Bloomberg Brief: Speaking of participants, a lot of commodity hedge funds got hit pretty hard by the sell-off earlier this month. Any theories what that might be about?
Jennifer Fan, Arrowhawk Capital Partners: A lot of funds’ decisions to focus on directional trading, particularly in light of the late move, is at least in part based on their capacity. Many of these funds are large, due to the fee incentive to grow as big as possible as fast as possible, and for that you need to run mostly directional bets that provide the units of volatility for the size of the markets. For us, if we’re doing things like Skype-ing farmers and trading ocean freight to get an informational edge the best way to generate alpha is through some of the examples I mentioned earlier. for this type of investing there are constraints, so we tend to be very conservative about capacity.

BB: Hang on. Skype-ing farmers?
JF: I Skype with farmers. Farmers love Skype.

Bloomberg Brief: 5.21.11 [BB]

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker

“I think I have all of the qualifications to run the institution. I have 30 years of public service. I have a PHD from the University of Chicago. I have worked all my life in matters relevant for the Fund. I was the Executive Director of the Fund, the Deputy Managing Director of the Fund, in charge of the relationship with 80 countries. I was Minister of Finance of Mexico and now I am the Governor of the central bank. I have wide experience, I have participated in the G20, part of the steering committee of the Financial Stability Board, I’m a board member of the Bank for International Settlements. I know the institution from all different angles. I know the Fund as a member of the staff and its management, I was an Executive Director and I know the Fund, having been in authority with a lot stake at the Fund. I think I make a good candidate.” And despite all that…

Nothing about how he would react in a scenario wherein he was surrounded by hotel maids and “no one would find out,” i.e. this resume is going directly to the trash.

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker

According to a new study, the results of which are somewhat suspect, among the seventy-two percent of bankers who’ve supposedly had an affair, 63 percent of the males “said that they were convinced their wives knew about their affairs,” versus 3% of female bankers who said the same of their husbands. Here are a few other details respondents got off their chests:

87% of affairs involve a work colleague

26% of male bankers had had an affair with their PA / secretary

24% said that they ‘played away’ because their wife now reminded them more of their mother

4% said that they did it in the hope of getting caught

63% of male bankers said that they were convinced their wives knew about their affairs, but said nothing for the sake of the relationship

Just 3% of female bankers said that they were convinced their husbands knew about their affairs

41% said that they weren’t looking for an affair (it just happened)

13% confirmed that they had had an affair with their immediate boss

Male / Female Bankers & Extramarital Affairs – Some Interesting Facts [Hereisthecity via BI]

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker

“Dykstra came to visit me on ‘Celebrity Rehab,’” Dwight “Doc” Gooden told WFAN’s Boomer & Carton on Tuesday. “I’ll tell you what, it was crazy. He thought that I had been hypnotized and (Dr. Drew) got me in there and was holding me hostage. He tried to come in with two guys to get me out of there. “So they come in. I’m talking to him, he wanted to talk, ‘Doc, I don’t like this.’ So we go out on the patio, me and him and the two guys are sitting there, we’re talking. “He said, ‘you sure this is what you want?’ I go ‘yeah.’ He goes, ‘I don’t know, I don’t feel good about this … let me take you bags and if you don’t like it, you call me.’ I was like, ‘trust me, I’m cool.’” [CBS]

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker

Time was, you put a house on the market in Greenwich, Connecticut and you got your $35 million asking price in a matter of days- and it didn’t even have to come with 26-toilets, a property that would cause a serious bidding war. Greenwich could count on Wall Street to make it rain ka-ching! on people’s faces come bonus time and those people would in turn say sure, here’s $35 mill in cash, buy yourself something nice and all was right in the world. Now? With this bull shit about putting “greater emphasis on deferred compensation” and “incorporating risk management into performance measures”? It’s making would-be buyers think things through and not jump at relative bargains at $15.95 million.

It’s been more than 500 days since Stanley Cheslock put his 26,000-square-foot Greenwich, Connecticut, “dream home” on the market for $17.95 million. The house and its surrounding estate — custom built by Cheslock in 2003, with a movie theater and 3,700-bottle wine cellar — is waiting for a buyer who sees the current asking price, $15.95 million, as a bargain. “It’s a steal,” said Cheslock, a co-founder of an investment firm, who has knocked almost 50 percent off the price he was asking when he first tried to sell the property five years ago. “It’s way underpriced.”

Homes priced at $10 million and above are accumulating on the market in Greenwich. They’re moving so slowly that it would take more than four years to sell them all, the biggest backlog since at least 2004, according to Mark Pruner, an agent with Prudential Connecticut Realty. Wall Street’s greater emphasis on deferred compensation, in which a portion of an annual bonus will be paid in the future, has stifled demand, he said. “Our market moves very closely with the financial markets,” Pruner, based in Greenwich, said in an interview. “Deferred compensation has totally hammered the over-$10 million market because people just aren’t getting large amounts of cash, and that market has traditionally been a cash market.”

“Previously, if you got a $10 million bonus, buying a $5 million house wasn’t that big a deal” said Pruner, who estimates that about half of all homebuyers in Greenwich work in the financial industry. “If you get $20 million — $3 million in cash and 17 in deferred compensation — are you going to borrow another $2 million in cash to buy a house? I don’t think so,” he said.

Thanks- for nothing.

Priciest Homes Languish In Greenwich, Connecticut [Bloomberg]

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker

Time was, you put a house on the market in Greenwich, Connecticut and you got your $35 million asking price in a matter of days- and it didn’t even have to come with 26-toilets, a property that would cause a serious bidding war. Greenwich could count on Wall Street to make it rain ka-ching! on people’s faces come bonus time and those people would in turn say sure, here’s $35 mill in cash, buy yourself something nice and all was right in the world. Now? With this bull shit about putting “greater emphasis on deferred compensation” and “incorporating risk management into performance measures”? It’s making would-be buyers think things through and not jump at relative bargains at $15.95 million.

It’s been more than 500 days since Stanley Cheslock put his 26,000-square-foot Greenwich, Connecticut, “dream home” on the market for $17.95 million. The house and its surrounding estate — custom built by Cheslock in 2003, with a movie theater and 3,700-bottle wine cellar — is waiting for a buyer who sees the current asking price, $15.95 million, as a bargain. “It’s a steal,” said Cheslock, a co-founder of an investment firm, who has knocked almost 50 percent off the price he was asking when he first tried to sell the property five years ago. “It’s way underpriced.”

Homes priced at $10 million and above are accumulating on the market in Greenwich. They’re moving so slowly that it would take more than four years to sell them all, the biggest backlog since at least 2004, according to Mark Pruner, an agent with Prudential Connecticut Realty. Wall Street’s greater emphasis on deferred compensation, in which a portion of an annual bonus will be paid in the future, has stifled demand, he said. “Our market moves very closely with the financial markets,” Pruner, based in Greenwich, said in an interview. “Deferred compensation has totally hammered the over-$10 million market because people just aren’t getting large amounts of cash, and that market has traditionally been a cash market.”

“Previously, if you got a $10 million bonus, buying a $5 million house wasn’t that big a deal” said Pruner, who estimates that about half of all homebuyers in Greenwich work in the financial industry. “If you get $20 million — $3 million in cash and 17 in deferred compensation — are you going to borrow another $2 million in cash to buy a house? I don’t think so,” he said.

Thanks- for nothing.

Priciest Homes Languish In Greenwich, Connecticut [Bloomberg]

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker

Time was, you put a house on the market in Greenwich, Connecticut and you got your $35 million asking price in a matter of days- and it didn’t even have to come with 26-toilets, a property that would cause a serious bidding war. Greenwich could count on Wall Street to make it rain ka-ching! on people’s faces come bonus time and those people would in turn say sure, here’s $35 mill in cash, buy yourself something nice and all was right in the world. Now? With this bull shit about putting “greater emphasis on deferred compensation” and “incorporating risk management into performance measures”? It’s making would-be buyers think things through and not jump at relative bargains at $15.95 million.

It’s been more than 500 days since Stanley Cheslock put his 26,000-square-foot Greenwich, Connecticut, “dream home” on the market for $17.95 million. The house and its surrounding estate — custom built by Cheslock in 2003, with a movie theater and 3,700-bottle wine cellar — is waiting for a buyer who sees the current asking price, $15.95 million, as a bargain. “It’s a steal,” said Cheslock, a co-founder of an investment firm, who has knocked almost 50 percent off the price he was asking when he first tried to sell the property five years ago. “It’s way underpriced.”

Homes priced at $10 million and above are accumulating on the market in Greenwich. They’re moving so slowly that it would take more than four years to sell them all, the biggest backlog since at least 2004, according to Mark Pruner, an agent with Prudential Connecticut Realty. Wall Street’s greater emphasis on deferred compensation, in which a portion of an annual bonus will be paid in the future, has stifled demand, he said. “Our market moves very closely with the financial markets,” Pruner, based in Greenwich, said in an interview. “Deferred compensation has totally hammered the over-$10 million market because people just aren’t getting large amounts of cash, and that market has traditionally been a cash market.”

“Previously, if you got a $10 million bonus, buying a $5 million house wasn’t that big a deal” said Pruner, who estimates that about half of all homebuyers in Greenwich work in the financial industry. “If you get $20 million — $3 million in cash and 17 in deferred compensation — are you going to borrow another $2 million in cash to buy a house? I don’t think so,” he said.

Thanks- for nothing.

Priciest Homes Languish In Greenwich, Connecticut [Bloomberg]

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker

Looked in the mirror lately? If you’re a man of a certain age it’s quite possible you were repulsed by what you saw. Those bags under your eyes. Those wrinkles. Those 4 necks where only one should be. And dear god we’re not even going to touch on the breasts you’ve sprouted. The longer you look in the mirror the more disgusted you get. You start to wonder if maybe your bonus would’ve had a few extra zeros if it weren’t for that massive gut of yours. You want to do something drastic about it and fast but society says no, you must suck it up, unlike the lucky ladies who are free to get as much plastic surgery as they please. Well no longer. A small but burgeoning group of men, like Jim Wehrheim, founder of Wehrheim Financial Services, are standing up and demanding equal rights.

Jim Wehrheim, a 61-year old financial executive, says that although he works out regularly, has a healthy diet, and was generally satisfied with his appearance, he was bothered by “crow’s feet and a double chin.” His wife of two years, who is 19 years younger, was supportive of a surgical solution, he says. Pittsburgh plastic surgeon Leo McCafferty performed a face-lift in January. “Women have breast implants and face-lifts and Botox, so why shouldn’t it be OK for men?” says Mr. Wehrheim.

You don’t have to be afraid anymore.

[WSJ]

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker

And it’s not Steve Cohen, i.e. Fred Wilpon just made the biggest mistake of his life.

Team ownership has chosen a preferred bidder — the group led by former Glencore commodities trader Ray Bartoszek and investor Anthony Lanza — and have been in advanced talks since last week on the proposed deal to sell up to a 49 percent stake in the money-losing team for $200 million. The talks, which can still splinter like a cheap bat because they have yet to iron out some sticky details, could be wrapped up and announced before the end of the month. “They are pretty close to a deal,” a source said…Bartoszek would be starting a new line of work as his present one closes. Until recently, the 46-year-old had been head of oil trading for the world’s biggest commodity trader, earning hundreds of millions of dollars for Glencore International. The Switzerland-based company listed its shares this month in the London Stock Exchange’s biggest IPO ever, raising $10 billion. Lanza, 44, started private equity firm Carriage House Partners. Sterling was previously close to reaching a deal with hedge fund titan Steven Cohen, but those talks later cooled.

Anyway, not that SC gives a shit- really, you guys did him a favor- but I hope you enjoy the ad spots he’ll be taking out on SNY, the SAC P&L analyst who will be tasked with circling the stadium during games in a ’97 Hyundai Elantra whose tailpipe drags and shouting obscenities over a loudspeaker, and paying a hefty ransom for Mr. Met.

Mets, Bartoszek group close to deal [NYP]

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker

Strauss-Kahn’s pals bid to pay off woman’s kin (NYP)
Friends of alleged hotel sex fiend Dominique Strauss-Kahn secretly contacted the accusing maid’s impoverished family, offering them money to make the case go away since they can’t reach her in protective custody, The Post has learned.

JPMorgan, UBS, Deutsche Bank to Face N.Y. Probe (Bloomberg)
JPMorgan Chase & Co., UBS AG and Deutsche Bank AG are being investigated as part of New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman’s expanded probe of mortgage securitization, according to a person familiar with the matter. Four bond insurers also were subpoenaed: Ambac Financial Group Inc., MBIA Inc., Syncora Holdings Ltd. and Assured Guaranty Ltd., according to the person, who couldn’t be identified because the probe isn’t public.

Moody’s warns 14 UK banks face downgrade (Telegraph)
“The reassessment is not driven by either a deterioration in the financial strength of the banking system or that of the government,” said Elisabeth Rudman, a Moody’s senior credit officer and lead analyst for a number of UK banks, on Tuesday. “It has been initiated in response to ongoing guidance from the UK authorities (the Bank of England, the Financial Services Authority and the Treasury) that banks that fail in the future should not expect capital injections from the public purse.”

Greek default could make others junk: Moody’s (Reuters)
Portugal and Ireland would be at risk of multi-notch credit downgrades, pushing their ratings into junk territory in the event of a default by Greece, Moody’s EMEA chief credit officer told Reuters on Tuesday.

French government says China backs Lagarde for IMF head (Reuters)
French Budget Minister and government spokesman Francois Baroin said on Tuesday that China supports Finance Minister Christine Lagarde as candidate to be the new head of the International Monetary Fund.

Goldman, Morgan Stanley Bullish on Commodities, Predict 20% Return on Oil (Bloomberg)
Goldman…boosted its 12- month prediction for Brent crude to $130 a barrel from $107, analysts led by Jeffrey Currie said in a report today. Morgan Stanley raised its Brent estimate by 20 percent to average $120 a barrel this year and by 24 percent to $130 in 2012, it said.

Steven Rattner: Valley’s euphoria is tech bubble version 1.5 (FT)
“Yet, just as Facebook and Google are viewed today as bullet-proof franchises, so was AOL viewed as impregnable in its day. Its more than 20m customers paid $19.95 a month in steadily recurring revenue for, among other things, early versions of e-mail, chat and networking. With the advent of the worldwide web, those subscribers were essentially paying for nothing more than slow-speed dial-up connections. As broadband access spread, the customers melted away. Today, AOL has a trading value of only $2bn.”

Morgan Stanley In Talks to Fund More Asian Hedge Funds Start-Ups This Year (Bloomberg)
The New York-based bank is helping negotiate several opportunities for investors to give money to new hedge funds for a share of their fee revenue and deals in which they will provide capital to expand assets across Asia, said Hugh Abdullah, its Hong Kong-based head of capital introductions in the region.

Goldman Sachs cuts China, Asia growth forecasts (MarketWatch)
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. on Tuesday cut its growth forecast for China and predicted inflation will accelerate, citing the impact of higher oil prices and supply-side constraints on the world’s second-largest economy. In addition the bank lowered its outlook for the Asia region, excluding Japan.

SEC Deepens Probe of Forex Trading (WSJ)
At issue is whether “custody” banks—which handle securities and back-office tasks for institutional investors—are overcharging public pension funds for trading in the $4 trillion-a-day foreign-exchange market…A whistleblower group led by investor Harry Markopolos has sued BNY Mellon in Virginia and Florida, and rival State Street in California, accusing them of improperly pricing currency trades for state and local pension funds.

Feds diss banks’ lowball $5B offer (NYP)
State attorneys general and federal agencies found an offer of $5 billion from five banks “woefully inadequate,” according to a person familiar with the talks. Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup , Wells Fargo and Ally Financial made that offer two weeks ago. The amount was a far cry from the $20 billion the states and federal agencies had been discussing, although not formally proposing.

Call for Lehman creditors to reveal positions (FT)
A group of hedge funds and pension funds opposing the Lehman estate’s bankruptcy plan has asked the court to force many Lehman Brothers creditors – including banks such as Goldman Sachs – to reveal their current holdings of the defunct investment bank’s debts. The so-called Ad Hoc group of creditors, which includes hedge fund Paulson & Co, bond fund Pimco, and the Calpers retirement fund, were themselves compelled by the court, at the behest of Lehman, to disclose their holdings in March after they filed their own plan of organisation.

Goldman Finding Third Time a Charm in Russia (Bloomberg)
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. is making a third attempt in 17 years to crack the Russian market, this time by leveraging a $1 billion private-equity bet to win deals and wooing the Kremlin for roles in asset sales.

Volcanic Ash Forces Flight Cancellations in Europe (NYT)
“About 250 flights have already been canceled, mostly over Scotland” Kyla Evans, a spokeswoman for Eurocontrol, the Brussels-based agency that coordinates air traffic management across the region, said. “We would expect up to 500 flights to be canceled today. But it would very much depend on how the ash cloud moves, it could be many more or less.”

Radio host says Rapture actually coming in October (AP via USA Today)
[California preacher Harold] Camping, who predicted that 200 million Christians would be taken to heaven Saturday before the Earth was destroyed, said he felt so terrible when his doomsday prediction did not come true that he left home and took refuge in a motel with his wife. His independent ministry, Family Radio International, spent millions — some of it from donations made by followers — on more than 5,000 billboards and 20 RVs plastered with the Judgment Day message. But Camping said that he’s now realized the apocalypse will come five months after May 21, the original date he predicted. He had earlier said Oct. 21 was when the globe would be consumed by a fireball.

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker