The US Attorney in Oklahoma City should take the easy approach to prosecuting SemGroup… just round up a bunch of Okies and explain that the nice folks at SemGroup are responsible for the price of gasoline…and they are backed by rich “hedge fund” guys back east… it would be an “indian massacre”… Oklahomans can be mean bunch… good example to other speculators too… at least they wouldn’t speculate in Oklahoma any more (or until the memory wore off … as in the next oil boom…)
From the WSJ… ~~~~ ” SemGroup was founded in early 2000 and counts private-equity firms and hedge funds among its shareholders. According to regulatory filings, a fund owned by Carlyle Group and Riverstone Holdings has a 29.3% stake in SemGroup, while hedge fund Ritchie Capital Management owns a 25.2% stake. SemGroup’s management owns most of the remaining shares. Spokesmen for Ritchie and Carlyle/Riverstone declined to comment.
SemGroup generated revenue of nearly $15 billion in 2006, and also serves customers in Mexico, Switzerland and Vietnam, according to its Web site. In the first half of 2007, SemGroup posted profit of $51.6 million, a 58% drop from a year ago, partly due to $122 million in unrealized losses on derivative instruments….” ~~~~
“Hey Hoss… we gotta ride up to the Hill and ’splain about that little problem last March when that big ol Bear came round…”
“Nah… not them ‘ol snakediggers again… I think we should just keep on riding… we’re in the middle of a big storm and there ain’t time to be fooling around…”
# # # #
Civility ruled in 2129 Rayburn today… remarkable given the undercurrents… the roughest reference was Chairman Cox’s description of the Treasury plan as a “big think” … from someone who thinks as big as the SEC head it wasn’t exactly a compliment… it was a true grasp for more power but no blood was let… this was a good example of polite institutional change… probably how much change happens in Washington … parry and thrust… agree with your adversery… comity…
(Continued)
WSJ.com
What the SEC Really Did on Short Selling
By CHRISTOPHER COX July 24, 2008; Page A15
~~~~ ” The Federal Reserve’s decisions to offer credit to its 18 primary dealers — and to extend these credit facilities to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, complementing the recent Treasury proposal for authority to back their debt and buy their equity — are highly unusual. Because they break with the norm that markets should decide which firms fail and which succeed, both the Fed and Treasury proposals are intentionally limited in duration. But if policy makers want to return these firms to the discipline of the market, the lessons of the recent turmoil will have to be quickly taken to heart.
Already, heeding one important lesson, both the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Fed have strengthened liquidity and capital tests for the firms we regulate. Another central lesson is that financial institutions, which depend on confidence, are uniquely vulnerable to panic fueled by suspect information and market manipulation.
(Continued)
Blackrock CEO Larry Fink video interviewed by the Financial Times … (running times ~ 7 minutes)
He comments on the state of the subprime market and seems to be advertising to Euro investors to come on and start buying up the Bear/JPM/Fed assets that he is caretaking… (did we ever hear how Blackrock was being compensated for that?)
Also he really likes Fan/Fred debt… feels wonderful about the “backstop” coming from Congress… (errr… that is you and me now estimated at $ 25 billion…)
(Continued)
O\Perfect…. perfect opportunity to make new XBRL connections…
“The Ultimate Client: Business Reporting for Investors, Government and Citizens”
A global conference that will explore how improved business and financial reporting through interactive data will affect investor communications, governance, risk and compliance as well as government reporting.
:::::: October 15-16, 2008 in Washington, DC :::::::
Thank goodness he is back… the poison pen of the IB world… the Epicurean Dealmaker… a memorable quote…
~~~~ ” … Normally, or when times are good and the money is flowing, the political situation among top management of an investment bank resembles a logjam, or the Western Front: lots of strains and pressures under the surface, but very little movement on the surface. When crisis hits, however, the logjam breaks, and the long knives and artillery come out in earnest. Those are the times senior IB managers live for, since it is open season on your friends and enemies, time to settle scores and pay back prior injuries, and often your one big chance to leap to the top of the heap over the dead and falling bodies of your foes and allies. At times like these, the backbiting, backstabbing, and betrayals in the executive suite would make Machiavelli blush….” ~~~~
In the years that I was active in FIX Protocol I paid general attention to what the equity guys were doing… which was always miles ahead of what we were doing in fixed income… think exchanging lists of offerings in a structured format resting on a session layer (FI) versus sub millisecond latent streams of price and execution data hitting multiple execution venues simultaneously and all being reconciled for the trader or algo generator… rocking…
Equity was F1 and were were riding our bikes to do an order…
(Continued)
The best mild sedative that I know of is a little Mozart…
If you don’t know about Pandora (the Music Genome Project) check out it… Pandora allows you to create channels of specific music that is pulled from the Internet…
So now it’s Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 14 In E Flat Major, K. 449: II. Andantino … performed by: Derek Han … next who knows? Clever Pandora will find something similar and just as nice and play it without me doing anything… : )
We have just scratched the barest beginnings of opportunity with this giant net…
AGO (NYSE)…
~~~~ “You don’t take the last two guys who can help municipal issuers and shoot them in the back of the head,” Frederico said.” ~~~~ (AGO Chief Executive Officer Dominic Frederico commenting on Moody’s rating review in BBG today).
No … what we really expect is for rating agencies to accurately assess obligors and securities according to their methodologies… startling concept…
Dominic Frederico and Wilbur Ross making their pitch on BBG (video running time - 7:33 minutes)
You have to love capitalism… resources flowing around… some give them up and some acquire them… well I just acquired the domain name …. www.credit-ratings.org
For $ 15.19… fluky thing… I subscribe to a Google alert for “credit ratings” and saw this morning an auction for the domain… monitored the auction and was willing to pay maybe $ 500 for the name… I screwed up registering for the auction and it expired… then I clicked around and found the domain available for $ 5 plus fees…
I bought it thinking that with the new NRSRO rules we could do something cool… but when you see the type of advertising on the parked site… it might just be an interesting advertising arbitrage…
