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Archives for June 2016

Puerto Rico Bond Default?

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Puerto Rico’s potential bond default could be an owner’s manual for overburdened U.S. states. Two days before a potential historical default, Puerto Rico Governor Alejandro Garcia Padilla made it clear that the commonwealth won’t pay bondholders even as Congress votes on a bill allowing the island to restructure its $70 billion in debt. “On July 1, 2016, Puerto Rico will default on more than $1 billion in general obligation bonds, the island’s senior credits protected by a constitutional lien on revenues,” Garcia Padilla wrote in a editorial posted on a CNBC website. The lapse will mark … [Read more...]

Worthy Reads: Donald Trump Vows to Undo Trade Pacts

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Donald Trump Vows to Undo Trade Pacts (WSJ) What would your 90-year-old self tell you to change today? (MarketWatch) Leaders Warn U.K. of Exit Costs (WSJ) GE Wins Regulatory Approval to Shed Too-Big-to-Fail Label (Bloomberg) Fidelity Gives In To Cheap Fee Trend (WSJ) U.S. Homeowners Could Gain From Brexit Vote (WSJ) … [Read more...]

Computers Beat Hedge Funds in Rout of Risk Takers

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Hedge funders and traders made big mistakes around the Brexit (more on this here) referendum because they bet on the outcome they preferred, not the reality of the vote. Computer based trading strategies did quite well however, because they tuned out the emotion of vote and focused on actual market trends. The Wall Street Journal reports: Equity hedge funds fell 2.1% on Friday alone, according to data from Chicago-based Hedge Fund Research. The losers generally appear to have been hedge funds too heavily weighted toward cyclical stocks such as airlines or financial stocks that were hard hit … [Read more...]

Hedge Funds, Pensions and their Union Handler

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Hedge Fund managers are under pressure from Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), for supporting charters schools and pension reform. Some pension funds have withdrawn money from hedge-fund managers criticized by the teachers union. And some hedge-fund managers stopped making donations to advocacy groups targeted by Ms. Weingarten. Hedge funds, reluctant to buckle to the pressure, say Ms. Weingarten is doing a disservice to the teachers she represents, because funds should aim solely to earn the highest possible return on their assets. The personal … [Read more...]

A Love Story about Private Wealth

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You’ll be hard-pressed to find a better love story than this courtesy of Seth Siegel at the WSJ: How does one overcome almost unimaginable horror and trauma? For Holocaust survivors Howard and Lottie Marcus, the healing came, in part, from the hope that they could help to provide refuge for other Jews who might find themselves at risk. But after restarting their broken lives in America, this modest couple could never have imagined that they would end up giving what is likely the largest single charitable gift in Israel’s history—$400 million—to be announced June 24. Howard and Lottie were … [Read more...]

Mafia Impresario Meyer Lansky: The Riviera Story

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My friend Jack Colhoun wrote the book on Cuba. It’s called Gangsterismo: The United States, Cuba and The Mafia, 1933 to 1966. In his Op-ed, recently published on the History News Network, he writes, “The heirs of Meyer Lansky, the impresario of the North American Mafia gambling colony in Cuba (1933-1958) are betting on a big payback from the negotiations between the United States and Cuba to normalize relations between the two countries.” And concludes, “To portray Lansky as an aggrieved victim of Cuba is to stand history on its head. There should be no compensation for the heirs of the former … [Read more...]