The Nation's Financial Condition

[foreverlax]

Better things are possible@InternetHippo
8 hours ago
This may be controversial but I’m starting to think there’s one set of rules for rich people and another for everyone else

The "rules" are the same, the application of those rules is another issue.

What the rich have that the rest of us don't - access to the best information. What is happening on Reddit, in this short squeeze is not about information but in your face collusion.

any specific law violated? and we're sure this isn't happening in similar form on the other side of the trade not just for this/these 100+% short positions, but all manner of others?

is high frequency collusion?

edit to add: looks like facebook and reddit have closed down the chat groups. so no worries anymore.

those guys can do what they want, they're private companies. learn how to code.

Pretty sure, yes absolutely against the law.
Gonna be tougher to prosecute, however, unless get to a ring leader.

It's also fair to say that such collusive market manipulation happens too much by the big guys and isn't prosecuted nearly vigorously enough. Turnabout.

High frequency per se isn't collusion, though there could be implicit signaling...ala the airlines case.

But hey, I'm just a guy with a keyboard, not a securities litigator!

No one from Wall Street will ever be prosecuted again...they just wont. I hope I live to see the phrase, "paid $X billions without admitting guilt."

Brings me back to Gary Cohen and the Billion dollar Whale

Goldman is fined $2.9 billion...one flunky gets hung.

Gary goes on to serve in WH, avoid hundreds of millions of taxable gains from his sale of Goldman and he kept the income from the fraudulent deals.

[wgdsr]

Better things are possible@InternetHippo
8 hours ago
This may be controversial but I’m starting to think there’s one set of rules for rich people and another for everyone else

The "rules" are the same, the application of those rules is another issue.

What the rich have that the rest of us don't - access to the best information. What is happening on Reddit, in this short squeeze is not about information but in your face collusion.

any specific law violated? so far, none that I am aware of, for any of the parties involved.

and we're sure this isn't happening in similar form on the other side of the trade not just for this/these 100+% short positions, but all manner of others? Chuckle...not sure if that is a yes or no. I do know, back when I used to trade muni bonds, the more people you talked to, the more you knew about how the market was pricing bonds..all the "vig" was inbedded in the price. i.e. yield.

We would buy it at a 6.1% ($99)yield and sell it to you at 6.0% ($100). No retail investor knew if you bought them at 7% ($90) or 5% ($110)...they just cared about their 6%. Those guys would hang up on you if you showed them 5.9% ($101)...cuz the Alex Brown guy showed them 6%.

Now price and information is free.

Fact remains, there are those who know more than the rest of us know...they get what they want wholesale, or better, based on how good you are as a customer. Makes sense, the bigger client at Goldman sees the best deals...the best deals Goldman keeps for themselves.

is high frequency collusion? In this setting, I see collusion as a group of speculators, using various methods, to influence price direction. By high frequency - do you mean high speed or frequency of trades?

edit to add: looks like facebook and reddit have closed down the chat groups. so no worries anymore. So far I see this as all within the rules/laws...Robinhood tried to reduce their exposure in several "high risk" stocks.

Every trade settles - buy and seller. Sometimes a party cant deliver and he gets sold out. Sometimes a bunch of folks get jammed up, which can jam up "Robinhood", rinse/wash/repeat....hello a real Black Swan.

those guys can do what they want, they're private companies. learn how to code. A-greed.

There is some unemployed Stanford Phd in Quant who saw the imbalance in "GME" and understood the power of "Reddit". End of the day -

-The hedge funds that were short and got blown up and learned a for real lesson.
- The hedge fund investing in both the hedge fund that had the short position and Robinhood learned a lesson.
- "Robinhood" is learning on the fly...
- the kids sitting in their sweats thinking they're smart have not learned the lesson that will come.
- the smart MotherTruckers who have deep pockets, they are the lions that come in after the hyenas have worked their a$$es off...they eat their fill and the rest can split up whatever is left.

thanks. appreciate the perspective.

and i don't see what would constitute as any "illegal" collusion either from the buy side. maybe we'll find out how our regulators want to stretch the interpretation of 9(a) or others against them. doubt it'd be popular to go after them, even the politicos are joining in together as mouthpieces to be little guy fighters (before their fundraisers, of course).

i'd like to see what schwab, td, interactive and all the other bd's that shut it down have to say. they have capital, no? i do wonder how this will change the short game for the hedgies. figure it'll tilt one way, though. we'll see.

have the hedge fund guys that took positions heard about these new jobs installing solar panels the biden admin is pushing?

jk, those guys are all thick as thieves.

[foreverlax]

Better things are possible@InternetHippo
8 hours ago
This may be controversial but I’m starting to think there’s one set of rules for rich people and another for everyone else

The "rules" are the same, the application of those rules is another issue.

What the rich have that the rest of us don't - access to the best information. What is happening on Reddit, in this short squeeze is not about information but in your face collusion.

any specific law violated? so far, none that I am aware of, for any of the parties involved.

and we're sure this isn't happening in similar form on the other side of the trade not just for this/these 100+% short positions, but all manner of others? Chuckle...not sure if that is a yes or no. I do know, back when I used to trade muni bonds, the more people you talked to, the more you knew about how the market was pricing bonds..all the "vig" was inbedded in the price. i.e. yield.

We would buy it at a 6.1% ($99)yield and sell it to you at 6.0% ($100). No retail investor knew if you bought them at 7% ($90) or 5% ($110)...they just cared about their 6%. Those guys would hang up on you if you showed them 5.9% ($101)...cuz the Alex Brown guy showed them 6%.

Now price and information is free.

Fact remains, there are those who know more than the rest of us know...they get what they want wholesale, or better, based on how good you are as a customer. Makes sense, the bigger client at Goldman sees the best deals...the best deals Goldman keeps for themselves.

is high frequency collusion? In this setting, I see collusion as a group of speculators, using various methods, to influence price direction. By high frequency - do you mean high speed or frequency of trades?

edit to add: looks like facebook and reddit have closed down the chat groups. so no worries anymore. So far I see this as all within the rules/laws...Robinhood tried to reduce their exposure in several "high risk" stocks.

Every trade settles - buy and seller. Sometimes a party cant deliver and he gets sold out. Sometimes a bunch of folks get jammed up, which can jam up "Robinhood", rinse/wash/repeat....hello a real Black Swan.

those guys can do what they want, they're private companies. learn how to code. A-greed.

There is some unemployed Stanford Phd in Quant who saw the imbalance in "GME" and understood the power of "Reddit". End of the day -

-The hedge funds that were short and got blown up and learned a for real lesson.
- The hedge fund investing in both the hedge fund that had the short position and Robinhood learned a lesson.
- "Robinhood" is learning on the fly...
- the kids sitting in their sweats thinking they're smart have not learned the lesson that will come.
- the smart MotherTruckers who have deep pockets, they are the lions that come in after the hyenas have worked their a$$es off...they eat their fill and the rest can split up whatever is left.

thanks. appreciate the perspective.

and i don't see what would constitute as any "illegal" collusion either from the buy side. I'm so far over my skis...it's the way I feel about Hunter Biden and Burisma, Jvanka in the WH - if it looks bad and it likely is, so there should be something done about it.

maybe we'll find out how our regulators want to stretch the interpretation of 9(a) or others against them. What's 9A doubt it'd be popular to go after them, even the politicos are joining in together as mouthpieces to be little guy fighters (before their fundraisers, of course). For sure, no way it's a good look politically.

i'd like to see what schwab, td, interactive and all the other bd's that shut it down have to say. they have capital, no? i do wonder how this will change the short game for the hedgies. figure it'll tilt one way, though. we'll see. That's my question....sounds like the predatory short game is being shut down, heard one "letter writer" was shutting down after decades of success. I have mixed emotions about this issue...proper regs and boundaries are required, but they never really seem to work/be applied.

have the hedge fund guys that took positions heard about these new jobs installing solar panels the biden admin is pushing? If there is one area that has my interest - US infrastructure. Suspect the whole globe will be spending and using natural resources, but right now I'm more excited about American companies doing business in America.

jk, those guys are all thick as thieves. they are thieves, not kidding. Top 10% of the top 1%...I'm just glad I can feed at THEIR trough.

[old salt]

I have zero sympathy for the hedge funds or the day traders (big or small). They are all just parasites. (imho)

With the exception of 1 sentimental play, our entire portfolio consists of 3 stocks we've held since 2005/6. They are the survivors of 5 stocks picked (gratis) in a restructuring "tune up" for the long haul, by our long time broker as a reward for our loyalty, shortly after he retired.

We stumbled upon him in '79, when he answered our cold call to one of the big investment houses, based on an ad in the WP financial section.
He was just starting out (MD grad & MBA). We stuck with him through the disco 80's, wild '90's, & 9-11, as he moved to different brokerage houses, then built his own brokerage. Together we weathered the tech bubble inflating then bursting & came all the way back. We were all able to retire in our '50's. He was a master at researching & picking emerging tech companies, particularly biotech. Patience, trust & loyalty paid big dividends for us. To this day, I don't recall how we paid him or how much, we never discussed a %. I'd rather be lucky than good.

[Typical Lax Dad]

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/01 ... tein-story

[youthathletics]

If there is one area that has my interest - US infrastructure. Suspect the whole globe will be spending and using natural resources, but right now I'm more excited about American companies doing business in America.

+1

[Farfromgeneva]

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/01 ... tein-story

Leon Black has been causing problems for 25yrs or more. Almost got a French-US spat going and Credit Lyonnaise to lose their banking license early in the millenia.

https://www.forbes.com/2001/08/20/018gl ... f100cdccea

[Farfromgeneva]

Interesting deal, real estate data providers have been acquired actively and consolidated last few years. Have to assume it’s due to the institutionalization of the residential real estate market and the focus on selling this “proprietary” (its all public basically, not too different from accuweather using NOAA information then attempting to close it off to the public) data to funds and Rent to Own (Single Family Rental) shops spawned out of the crisis not to continue to feed into the consumer market. (I know StonePpint reasonably well, they overpay often and most of their wins are pro cyclical which may be true for most financial services PE shops, they’re in way over their skis on one deal with a firm called situs where they grossly overpaid the seller, Lou Ranieri of Salomon MBS fame, ultimately merging it with another portfolio company in a newer fund because it had no exit or sale at their price but they did get a dividend recap loan in 2018-2019 which leaves them with maybe $20mm left in the deal so they’ll be ok..)

DEALS
Stone Point Capital, Insight Partners Agree to Buy CoreLogic
An auction of the real-estate data provider had been kicked off by a pair of shareholder activists

A house at a development in Gibsonton, Fla., in 2018.
PHOTO: LUKE SHARRETT/BLOOMBERG NEWS
By Cara Lombardo
Updated Feb. 4, 2021 10:02 am ET
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CoreLogic Inc. CLGX +1.70% agreed to sell itself to two private-equity firms for about $6 billion, a surprising end to an auction of the real-estate data provider that was kicked off by a pair of shareholder activists.

Stone Point Capital LLC and Insight Partners said Thursday they agreed to buy CoreLogic for $80 a share, or about $6 billion. The deal represents a 51% premium to CoreLogic’s share price in June before the activists showed up, the companies said.

The Wall Street Journal reported earlier Thursday that such a deal was near.


It’s a surprising outcome after the focus in the closely watched sale process had settled largely on two other competing suitors: CoreLogic rival CoStar Group Inc., which had made a higher, all-stock bid, and private-equity firm Warburg Pincus LLC.

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CoreLogic launched a sales process after activist investors Senator Investment Group LP and Cannae Holdings Inc. offered to buy the company for $65 a share and nominated directors to its board last year. Three of the directors later joined CoreLogic’s board after shareholders voted to add them in November.

CoreLogic is one of the largest residential real-estate data companies, providing property data used by real-estate professionals, financial institutions and consumers. Rivals include Zillow Group Inc., Redfin Corp. and Realtor.com, which is operated by Journal parent News Corp.

Acquisition activity has picked up as digitization sweeps the homebuying market. Private-equity firm Thoma Bravo agreed to buy property-management-software provider RealPage Inc. for $9.6 billion in December.

Stone Point Capital, based in Greenwich, Conn., and headed by Chuck Davis, primarily invests in businesses in the financial-services sector. Insight Partners is based in New York and focuses on software companies. Deven Parekh is its managing director.

Evercore was financial adviser to CoreLogic, while Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP was its legal adviser. J.P. Morgan Securities LLC and Wells Fargo Securities LLC were financial advisers to Stone Point Capital and Insight Partners. Kirkland & Ellis was legal adviser to Stone Point Capital, and Willkie Farr & Gallagher was legal adviser to Insight Partners.

Write to Cara Lombardo at [email protected]

[Farfromgeneva]

58 pages, read this am, but explains that zero commission trading is not a positive for markets (no crap unless your an engineer living in Silicon Valley removed from the rest of the world and obsessed with over optimization, which creates negative effects it not balanced).

https://poseidon01.ssrn.com/delivery.ph ... i7uvnoL-r4

[a fan]

58 pages, read this am, but explains that zero commission trading is not a positive for markets

You can apply that to any consumer market.

Picture selling whiskey to self-proclaimed and wildly misinformed whiskey "experts".

[Farfromgeneva]

Isn't that why dipshits are paying over $1,000 for a bottle of 10yr Old Rip???

[a fan]

Isn't that why dipshits are paying over $1,000 for a bottle of 10yr Old Rip???

Among other things? Yup!

[Farfromgeneva]

Isn't that why dipshits are paying over $1,000 for a bottle of 10yr Old Rip???

Among other things? Yup!

BTW, been meaning to ask, and if it's better on PM that's fine, but can you point me to any outlets in Atlanta (or a very close suburb, this city is spread out already!) that might have your gear? Mac's, Green's,e tc. I guess it goes through the distributors which I understand is a pretty closed group in GA, but if you know I'd be interested in getting some here.

[a fan]

Isn't that why dipshits are paying over $1,000 for a bottle of 10yr Old Rip???

Among other things? Yup!

BTW, been meaning to ask, and if it's better on PM that's fine, but can you point me to any outlets in Atlanta (or a very close suburb, this city is spread out already!) that might have your gear? Mac's, Green's,e tc. I guess it goes through the distributors which I understand is a pretty closed group in GA, but if you know I'd be interested in getting some here.

Which part of town do you shop?

[Farfromgeneva]

By postal, it's Northeast. Live in Candler Park, which is more easy and central (north south), near the Jimmy Carter center and Druid Hills GC. Greens on Ponce de Leon is my most regular. Will hit Mac's on 9th and W Peachtree sometimes. Can go to other places though. There's one just outside the city on the NW side called Minks that always had a good selection across the board.

[Farfromgeneva]

Isn't that why dipshits are paying over $1,000 for a bottle of 10yr Old Rip???

Among other things? Yup!

BTW, been meaning to ask, and if it's better on PM that's fine, but can you point me to any outlets in Atlanta (or a very close suburb, this city is spread out already!) that might have your gear? Mac's, Green's,e tc. I guess it goes through the distributors which I understand is a pretty closed group in GA, but if you know I'd be interested in getting some here.

Which part of town do you shop?

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Candl ... FXoECCwQAQ

[3rdPersonPlural]

Can we move on from Oligarchs discussing glorious bottles of hootch that I can't justify buying to......Oligarchs themselves?

Thom Hartmann - yes, with 2 "N"'s - has written a book that helps put that peculiar K-shaped response to the pandemic into perspective.

He leverages the fine work that Thomas Piketty did on capital allocation in the 21st century and gives it some historical depth and recent political breadth. I plan to buy a copy because I've read some reviews, and have been following him recently on the Interwebs.

I am, and I suspect that so are most of the posters on here are, closer to modern Oligarchs than people for whom the minimum wage will ever affect their living standard. Except for the Polo boards or the Jet owners boards, we're one of the most tilted demographics.

Nonetheless, I will defend my conclusion that the Middle Class is the greatest product of American democracy and (then also) post-war capitalism. China has gained a foothold mostly because they imported (zero-sum) our middle class and will hold their advantage as long as they treat this demographic better than we do. We now have billionaires gambling entire communities and manipulating social sets based on cultural issues rather than policy arguments.

I am frustrated. Here is a recent discussion (short) with Hartmann that I enjoyed:

[Farfromgeneva]

I'm not sure most people born after 1970 or 1975 really know what this middle class is so many talk about. I was born in 1978, I vaugely recall thinking I was middle class, in hindsight more like lower middle class, but no one can really define what that has actually been in like 30-40yrs. It seems like a myth to many and the period "post middle class" appears as long as the period of the glory of the middle class temporally.

I do worry about capitalism at the extreme, combined with real democracy, does become a winner takes all outcome in the long run. We don't really know if that's the case becuase time hasn't passed enough and also because we haven't exactly had a pure form of either in our history really.

More separation of politics and finance/law (the latter is just as culpable, specifically their advocacy for their clients in the extreme and efforts to manipulate language in their work) is probably necessary. Easy solutions is no stock trading in congress as one example. Locking them out of industries they hadn't worked in previously would be one as well (looking at you Eric Cantor, why do you have a job at Moelis & Co again?). Cant exactly do that to someone who worked in the industry prior to service though IMO. More transparency for sure, not less like the prior administration attempted to accomplish. I'm a little torn on the free speech for corporations decision in the courts a while back as it's clearly been a negative outcome, perhaps we treat them like citizens if that's the case and hit them with civil and criminal charges more frequently than we do for indiscretions.

[3rdPersonPlural]

....... no one can really define what that has actually been in like 30-40yrs. It seems like a myth to many and the period "post middle class" appears as long as the period of the glory of the middle class temporally.

I can tell you what the Middle Class WAS (I graduated from HS the year you were born).

When I was in middle school, dads used to march their kids straight from HS graduation to the Union Hall and sign junior up for a lifetime job making Keds or whatever. The factories were HERE. The jobs were HERE. The unions were influential.

Starting salary was (best as I can figure) about 65 or 75 k in todays dollars. 8 weeks salary equaled a premium Oldsmobile. 3 years salary bought you a perfectly reasonable home in a good neighborhood near work. Enough to be solvent, but not enough to make any 'moves'.

Medical was paid by the company. There was a pension for everyone. Stick around, do your job, raise your kids, enjoy your time off, have your best life, retire, grow old, and die with dignity.

Once you signed on, you could buy a nice 3 bedroom on Swede Hill. A lot of HS grads marched straight from the Union Hall to their girlfriends house and proposed. Life became 'adulting' at 18 for the middle class.

The middle class had reliable extra money every month. Some people invested it well and retired on a golf course in Fla. and left their kids a little something. Some had a hobby --- a dune buggy or civil war re-enacting or a little lake house or a fishing hobby with a boat or a travel trailer that had been towed everywhere. Or a dragster. Or a kayak club. People could stay interested and sane, right?

The middle class did not have to worry about college money. If your kid was smart enough to go to college, he/she'd get a scholarship. A summer job earned enough to pay a years tuition at even Yale. Helping your child get through college was not a mortgage-scale commitment. There were apprenticeships for kids who were gifted but didn't want to become a lawyer or doctor or business analyst or something. Welders and electricians made a little more than line people and a little less than lawyers/doctors, and if that appealed to you it was worth putting off 'adulting' for a year or two to learn that trade.

The middle class never gave a second thought to retirement. If that was your hobby, sure, even just buying CDs got you 10% a year return and there were these utility plans that paid off like crazy! If you want to retire early and live good instead of raising kids or having a hobby, that was an option. But if you ignored this whole savings thing and sunk every dime you had into your model railroad project you were still OK.

THAT'S a middle class, as us boomers remember it. It broke in the mid 70's and died when Reagan declared that American workers could compete with SouthEast Asian workers dollar for dollar item for item.

[Typical Lax Dad]

....... no one can really define what that has actually been in like 30-40yrs. It seems like a myth to many and the period "post middle class" appears as long as the period of the glory of the middle class temporally.

I can tell you what the Middle Class WAS (I graduated from HS the year you were born).

When I was in middle school, dads used to march their kids straight from HS graduation to the Union Hall and sign junior up for a lifetime job making Keds or whatever. The factories were HERE. The jobs were HERE. The unions were influential.

Starting salary was (best as I can figure) about 65 or 75 k in todays dollars. 8 weeks salary equaled a premium Oldsmobile. 3 years salary bought you a perfectly reasonable home in a good neighborhood near work. Enough to be solvent, but not enough to make any 'moves'.

Medical was paid by the company. There was a pension for everyone. Stick around, do your job, raise your kids, enjoy your time off, have your best life, retire, grow old, and die with dignity.

Once you signed on, you could buy a nice 3 bedroom on Swede Hill. A lot of HS grads marched straight from the Union Hall to their girlfriends house and proposed. Life became 'adulting' at 18 for the middle class.

The middle class had reliable extra money every month. Some people invested it well and retired on a golf course in Fla. and left their kids a little something. Some had a hobby --- a dune buggy or civil war re-enacting or a little lake house or a fishing hobby with a boat or a travel trailer that had been towed everywhere. Or a dragster. Or a kayak club. People could stay interested and sane, right?

The middle class did not have to worry about college money. If your kid was smart enough to go to college, he/she'd get a scholarship. A summer job earned enough to pay a years tuition at even Yale. Helping your child get through college was not a mortgage-scale commitment. There were apprenticeships for kids who were gifted but didn't want to become a lawyer or doctor or business analyst or something. Welders and electricians made a little more than line people and a little less than lawyers/doctors, and if that appealed to you it was worth putting off 'adulting' for a year or two to learn that trade.

The middle class never gave a second thought to retirement. If that was your hobby, sure, even just buying CDs got you 10% a year return and there were these utility plans that paid off like crazy! If you want to retire early and live good instead of raising kids or having a hobby, that was an option. But if you ignored this whole savings thing and sunk every dime you had into your model railroad project you were still OK.

THAT'S a middle class, as us boomers remember it. It broke in the mid 70's and died when Reagan declared that American workers could compete with SouthEast Asian workers dollar for dollar item for item.

That’s it. First break the union, then pay people less, then move the jobs altogether....