The stuff Archegos used expires today. Sound like Greek? Let me explain. A hedge fund blew up. Its counterparties are taking huge hits. There are ramifications. What happens? Maybe nothing. Maybe everything. First, let’s understand “counterparty.” A counterparty accepts the…
View pagePublic companies and investors, is the Federal Reserve using cash to hurt you? What? Quast, don’t you mean they’re inflating stocks? To a point, yes. And then history kicks in. There’s no such thing as “multiple expansion,” the explanation offered…
View pageThe Securities and Exchange Commission is in danger of becoming the Dept of Silly Walks. Let me explain why I’m calling the SEC Monty Python. And it matters to you, public companies and investors. Speaking of disclosure: I’m on the…
View page“Looking good, Valentine!” “Feeling good, Louis!” A gentleman’s bet. But maybe not so fast. Farce met Street last week with good reason distracting many in the Finance and public company arenas. Far better chronicled elsewhere (here a good one on…
View pageSailing takes me away to where I’ve always heard it could be just a dream and the wind to carry me. Christopher Cross said it (youngsters look it up). In this pandemic we said, “That boy might have it figured…
View pageHow durable is the US stock market? It sounds like we’re talking about shoes. Can I wear these hiking? Are they waterproof? No, it’s a legitimate question, a fair comparison. Public companies, your capacity to raise capital, incentivize your executives,…
View pageYou all remember the Fat Finger? It’s a gaffe, trading-style. In one 2014 instance, if the record can be believed, somebody in Japan accidentally tried to buy $700 billion of stocks including more than half the total outstanding shares of…
View pageIn Michael Lewis’s The Big Short, a collection of eccentrics finds a flaw in real estate securities and shorts them. The movie is great, the book even better. Somebody will write a book about the 2020 stock market (anyone?) flaw.…
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