Skip to main content

Features of the week

Hey gang, hope you're ready for this latest edition of, "Features of the week".

We've got a lot of links and information to wrap up for you, but we're going to do it in a nice, compressed package. All you need in one easy place. So grab a chair, kick back, and enjoy.

1. Fitch, S&P cut Beazer deeper into junk territory. If the ratings agencies are on the case, you know the situation must be bad.

See also, Moody's cuts 3 homebuilders to junk.

2. Och-Ziff eyes $1 billion IPO. Yep, going public is now the option for large US hedge fund and private equity businesses. Note that Fortress and Blackstone share prices have rebounded a bit recently.

3. Oil hits record $84 on supply concerns. Wait, I thought the whole Iraq liberation was supposed to result in a freeflowing gusher of oil revenues and $25 a barrel oil. At least that's what they told us at the time - ad nauseum.

4. Timing of genocide resolution questioned. Why are they having this political debate? Maybe these clowns should be looking at America's current actions (at home and abroad)instead. Maybe we all should.

5. Wall St. Journal - The United States of Subprime.

6. Will SWFs (sovereign wealth funds) change the world? FT Alphaville comments.

7. Brics: coherent strategy or catchy name? Good question.

8. Carl Icahn says the market might be reaching a peak, citing major concerns.

9. Mark Mobius says some interesting things about emerging markets in this Bloomberg interview.

10. Who benefits from inflation? The people who get the money first, and debtors.

11. Keynes and the Totalitarian State. He didn't invent the policies; he provided the rationalizations.

12. Check out The Kirk Report's latest link post for more great stories and features!

Have a great weekend, gang. Thanks for reading & bookmarking Finance Trends Matter.

Popular posts from this blog

Seth Klarman: Margin of Safety (pdf)

Welcome, readers! Signup for free email updates at the Finance Trends Newsletter . Update: PDF links removed due to DMCA notice. Please see our extensive Klarman book notes below. New visitors, please check the Finance Trends home page for all new posts. Here's something for anyone who has been trying to get a look at Seth Klarman's now famous, and out of print, 1991 investment book, Margin of Safety .  My knowledge of value investing is pretty much limited to what I've read in Ben Graham's The Intelligent Investor (the book which originally popularized the investment concept of a "Margin of Safety"), so check out the wisdom from Seth Klarman and other investing greats in our related posts below. You can also go straight to Ronald Redfield's Margin of Safety book notes .    Related posts: 1. Seth Klarman interviews and Margin of Safety notes     2. Seth Klarman: Lessons from 2008 3. Investing Lessons from Sir John Templeton 4.

Slate profiles Victor Niederhoffer

Slate's recent profile of writer/speculator, Vic Niederhoffer has been getting some attention from traders and finance types in recent days. I thought we'd take a look at it here too, to offer up some possible educational value from Vic's experiences with trading and loss. Here's an excerpt from Slate's profile of Victor Niederhoffer : " I've enjoyed getting your e-mails. It sounds like you've thought a lot about being wrong. Well, the reason you contacted me, to call a spade a spade, is that I'm sort of infamous for having made a big, notorious, terrible error not once but twice in my market career. Let's talk about those errors. The first was your investment in the Thai baht, which pretty much wiped you out when the Thai stock market crashed in 1997. I made so many errors there it's pathetic. I made one of my favorite errors: "The mouse with one hole is quickly cornered." That is key. There are certain decisions you make in li

Clean Money - John Rubino: Book review

Clean Money by John Rubino 274 pages. Hoboken, New Jersey John Wiley & Sons. 2009. 1st Edition. The bouyant stock market environment of the past several years is gone, and the financial wreckage of 2008 is still sharp in our minds as a new year starts to unfold. Given the recent across-the-board-declines in global stock markets (and most asset classes) that have left many investors shell-shocked, you might wonder if there is any good reason to consider the merits of a hot new investment theme, such as clean energy. However, we shouldn't be too hasty to write off all future stock investments. After all, the market declines of 2008 may continue into 2009, but they may also leave interesting investment opportunities in their wake. Which brings us to the subject of this review. John Rubino, author and editor of GreenStockInvesting.com , recently released a new book on renewable energy and clean-tech investing entitled, Clean Money: Picking Winners in the Green Tech Boom . In Clean