Hedge-fund assets declined 48% in 2008 on losses and redemptions
- Assets – December 2007: $1.92 trillion
- Assets – December 2008: $998.4 billion at the end of December
- at the lowest level since July 2004, $976.7 billion
- December Redemptions: $148.8 billion, a record
—TrimTabs Investment Research and BarclayHedge.
The worst of the economic situation is not yet behind us. It looks as if it will continue to deteriorate for most of 2009. In terms of our sector, we expect consumer loans and credit cards to continue to get worse.
When we look back at industry excesses in areas such as highly leveraged lending and securitisation, it is clear that some of these markets will never come back. In the next few years, the industry will go back to basics: serving individual and corporate customers as best as we can.
—Jamie Dimon in an FT interview and reflecting on profits of 1/3 the size of 2007 ($5b vs $15b)
Frontline Ltd., the world’s biggest owner of supertankers, yesterday said about 80 million barrels of crude oil are being stored in tankers, the most in 20 years.
Seven Cups of Coffee a Day May Lead to Hallucinations
Those who consume this volume in a day are three times more likely to have hallucinations than those who consumed 10 mg a day.
Seven cups contains 330 mg of caffeine. This is also known as one 16 ounce cup of Starbucks drip coffee.
Driving us crazy, one grande at a time.
- Lost $350b in 2008, 90% of which was lost in Q4
- Shrank by 20% to $1.5t, from a peak of $1.9t
- Lost 12.3%, according to Eurekahedge, compared to a 13% gain in 2007
- Rose 1% in December
Fiscal actions are unlikely to promote a lasting recovery unless they are accompanied by strong measures to further stabilize and strengthen the financial system. More capital injections and guarantees may become necessary to ensure stability and the normalization of credit markets.
[…and further to the position of Hedge Funds and their brethren at the banks…]
Financial firms of any type whose failure would pose a systemic risk must accept especially close regulatory scrutiny of their risk-taking. It is unacceptable that large firms that the government is now compelled to support to preserve financial stability were among the greatest risk-takers during the boom period.
—Ben Bernanke at the London School of Economics – link
Ayn Rand lives on in an ideology that, given the circumstances, refuses to meet with the facts.
Stilltitled 