Sometimes I think Tom Keene purposely acts stupidly in order to make his guests feel smart. Other times, I think he really is as clueless as he periodically makes out.
Take this afternoon's closing segment on Keene's noontime program.
Keene's guest used the UBS announcement that it is simplifying its business model by shedding a few thousand investment banking employees. After a few minutes of discussion, Keene had his 'gee whiz, I'm surprised' moment regarding the rise of privately-held financial services boutiques. Then he let on that he knew Blackstone has a very healthy and large M&A advisory business.
Subsequently, the term 'brain drain' was used to describe the movement of talent from publicly-held formerly investment banks, now commercial banks (Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley & the IB divisions of legitimate commercial banks such as Chase, Citi and BofA/Merrill Lynch).
Except this isn't news. It's been going on for over a decade.
Ever here of a little outfit called Long Term Capital Management, Tom? That was 1998 when it imploded.
I've written a handful of posts dating back over several years observing the history of Wall Street- the real Wall Street, not the commercial money center banks outsiders incorrectly call by that term.
Hutton, Shearson, Lehman Brothers, Kidder Peabody, First Boston, Salomon, Morgan Stanley, Bear Stearns, et.al., rushed to go public in the first big hoodwink of investors back in the 1970s and '80s. I've argued that since then, investment bankers discovered how to get a one-time huge windfall for dumping risk onto public shareholders at a premium.
Some former partners hung around for the lush paychecks and options. Others quickly moved back into private partnerships. That's how Blackstone, BlackRock and other private shops were founded. Add in hedge funds for the veterans of the formerly-private firms' trading desks, and you pretty much have the recreation of the old, old Wall Street of the partnership era.
Then there's Dillon Read, which has sold itself at a market top, then gone private at the bottom, so many times that it makes your head spin.
Schwarzman's Blackstone has even initiated round two of the big bilk, selling a slice of the private equity firm a few years ago, at what astutely proved to be a market top. You gotta love these equity mavens- convincing investors to buy shares of their own firm, while forgetting they were putting themselves on the other side of the trade from the sharpest equity valuation guys around.
What passes for the public face of it has been run by mediocre talent for some time. Even Goldman let itself get tangled up in seamy, public messes rising from originating, then betting against mortgage-backed structured instruments.
Meanwhile, the new barons of the financial sector are people like BlackRock's Larry Fink, Wilbur Ross, and Blackstone's Stephen Schwarzman, along with hedge fund titans like Steve Cohen and James Simons.
How this has escaped Keene for over a decade is beyond me.
Even in commercial banking, two of the nation's largest, old money centers Citi and BofA, are headed up by inexperienced, inept seat-warmers Vik Pandit and Brian Moynihan. A failed hedge fund manager and a lawyer. Some talent, eh?
As nearly the entire publicly-held US financial sector had to be rescued in 2008, thanks to poor risk management, it should tell you where the real brains of finance were- in private practice. Where they've been moving since the first wave of mergers after the original going-public wave of the '70s and '80s.
Showing posts with label Bloomberg. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bloomberg. Show all posts
Thursday, November 17, 2011
Phil Angelides on Bloomberg TV Last Week
Former FCIC chairman Phil Angelides appeared on Bloomberg TV last week one afternoon for a fawning interview during which he was asked to dispense his wisdom on a variety of topics.
What stuck with me was his insistence that the recent nearly-trillion dollar stimulus bill wasn't enough, and more must be spent to create jobs.
There were several other topics on which he was asked to opine. So many that I reasonably thought he must have some broad, long career in business, prior to his California political career. To ascertain that, I found and read Angelides' biography on a Stanford FCIC webpage.
To my disappointment, but, frankly, not surprise, he has a degree from Harvard in 'government' and absolutely no private sector experience. The Wikipedia page offers more detail on Angelides' political life. Suffice to say, he plunged into California Democratic politics upon graduation. Becoming Treasurer opened many more doors, including leading to his stint at CALPERS.
I suppose that career path, coupled with a Democratic Congress in 2008, with a Speaker from California, led to Angelides' chairing the FCIC.
What's curious is that there's nothing in his background to suggest he would actually comprehend all of the complex nuances of the events and actions by many players, including those in government, GSE and the private sector, which led to the boiling over of the crisis three years ago this fall.
Yet, having served on the FCIC, I guess Angelides is viewed as an expert on all things governmentally financial.
Nevermind that California's finances are a mess, and CALPERS has had its share of serious missteps, as well. Both of which you'd like to think would disqualify Angelides from being considered an expert on anything.
Which brings me to Bloomberg's producers. They must know that Angelides is essentially an empty suit. Like many other career politicians having no business experience, he would seem to have no basis on which to answer many of the questions a business cable television channel would ask of him.
But that doesn't stop Bloomberg from interviewing him on topics far afield from Angelides' experience, or the former FCIC chair from launching into lectures on such topics.
It seems to me telling that Bloomberg- and CNBC- focus so much on guests with essentially no business background but, rather, experience as government officials dabbling in business.
As they used to say in Hollywood.....that's entertainment!
What stuck with me was his insistence that the recent nearly-trillion dollar stimulus bill wasn't enough, and more must be spent to create jobs.
There were several other topics on which he was asked to opine. So many that I reasonably thought he must have some broad, long career in business, prior to his California political career. To ascertain that, I found and read Angelides' biography on a Stanford FCIC webpage.
To my disappointment, but, frankly, not surprise, he has a degree from Harvard in 'government' and absolutely no private sector experience. The Wikipedia page offers more detail on Angelides' political life. Suffice to say, he plunged into California Democratic politics upon graduation. Becoming Treasurer opened many more doors, including leading to his stint at CALPERS.
I suppose that career path, coupled with a Democratic Congress in 2008, with a Speaker from California, led to Angelides' chairing the FCIC.
What's curious is that there's nothing in his background to suggest he would actually comprehend all of the complex nuances of the events and actions by many players, including those in government, GSE and the private sector, which led to the boiling over of the crisis three years ago this fall.
Yet, having served on the FCIC, I guess Angelides is viewed as an expert on all things governmentally financial.
Nevermind that California's finances are a mess, and CALPERS has had its share of serious missteps, as well. Both of which you'd like to think would disqualify Angelides from being considered an expert on anything.
Which brings me to Bloomberg's producers. They must know that Angelides is essentially an empty suit. Like many other career politicians having no business experience, he would seem to have no basis on which to answer many of the questions a business cable television channel would ask of him.
But that doesn't stop Bloomberg from interviewing him on topics far afield from Angelides' experience, or the former FCIC chair from launching into lectures on such topics.
It seems to me telling that Bloomberg- and CNBC- focus so much on guests with essentially no business background but, rather, experience as government officials dabbling in business.
As they used to say in Hollywood.....that's entertainment!
Thursday, November 03, 2011
Christina Romer on Bloomberg
Former Obama economic adviser Christina Romer made a brief appearance on Tom Keene's Bloomberg noontime program yesterday. I must say I'm rapidly growing weary of Keene's apparent lack of ability to challenge any of his guests. They all seem, to him, equally profound and worthy of his unstinting praise. It's getting old.
Romer managed, in just a few minutes, to make a complete fool of herself. Never mind that her entire body of work while with the administration for the past three years has been discredited as a complete disaster. Never mind that her work there countered that of her research for years prior.
Yesterday, she argued that if the Fed would just announce that, by golly, they WERE going to lick this economic sluggishness, why, then, people "might feel they'd still have their job next year" and spend.
Her remark really showcased Romer's complete detachment from reality. Does anyone reading this know of anyone stupid enough to rely on the Fed's easing as a reason to suddenly feel their job is much safer than it had been?
The only hope the US economy, and that of the global economic system, has is for central banks to quite maintaining near-zero interest rates and begin to let the down-phase of the economic cycle clean out the excess dreck of the last phase, let prices drop to market-clearing levels for a variety of assets, and thus form a base for subsequent expansion.
Romer's remarks, made with a sort of giddy, goofy looking grin, portrayed her as an ivory-towered idiot.
Romer managed, in just a few minutes, to make a complete fool of herself. Never mind that her entire body of work while with the administration for the past three years has been discredited as a complete disaster. Never mind that her work there countered that of her research for years prior.
Yesterday, she argued that if the Fed would just announce that, by golly, they WERE going to lick this economic sluggishness, why, then, people "might feel they'd still have their job next year" and spend.
Her remark really showcased Romer's complete detachment from reality. Does anyone reading this know of anyone stupid enough to rely on the Fed's easing as a reason to suddenly feel their job is much safer than it had been?
The only hope the US economy, and that of the global economic system, has is for central banks to quite maintaining near-zero interest rates and begin to let the down-phase of the economic cycle clean out the excess dreck of the last phase, let prices drop to market-clearing levels for a variety of assets, and thus form a base for subsequent expansion.
Romer's remarks, made with a sort of giddy, goofy looking grin, portrayed her as an ivory-towered idiot.
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Inane Forecasts On Business Cable Channels
I saw a couple of examples in the last 24 hours of some truly inane market and company forecasting on CNBC and Bloomberg.
Yesterday afternoon, Citigroup equity strategist Tobias Lefkovitch was on Bloomberg pontificating about equity market moves.
He followed an interview with a guy whose name I did not catch, but was something like 'Mark,' who is allegedly famous for making S&P Index top and bottom calls. According to the Bloomberg anchor/interviewer, the guy had correctly called the recent index bottom, around 1090, and top of a few days ago of 1255. The rest of the interview descended into fairly incomprehensible technical lingo. Even the anchor tried to sum up the guy's remarks in something resembling plain English. It left me wondering how many other market calls this guy has made that have been forgotten or ignored because they weren't correct.
Then Lefkovitch appeared. After discussing various topics involving sectors, the anchor, of course, asked the Citi strategist for his US equity outlook. Incredibly, Lefkovitch, after his own brand of obfuscation, finally uttered what I will try to closely paraphrase,
'So we're looking for equity markets to rise sometime in the next 12 months.'
That's it? Incredible.
Reminds you of the stopped watch aphorism, doesn't it? Just exactly what good is someone telling you that they expect the S&P to rise significantly sometime in the next 12 months?
For individual, self-directing investors, sure, that may offer hope that a continuously-long, dollar-averaged approach to S&P ownership will pay off, if they can remain patient. But for anyone purporting to follow even a semi-active equity strategy, it's a useless market call.
Sophisticated investors don't like to sit still for a year's worth of losses, in hopes that eventually things will turn around. They sure don't pay monthly management fees to professional managers for that sort of performance.
Makes you wish the Oracle of Delphi was still around, doesn't it? So that you could compare some of these so-called strategists' market calls with an appropriate peer?
My own take away is how desperate Bloomberg must be to fill air time that it invites these guys on to give nearly useless forecasts on market trends.
Then I watched a few minutes of CNBC's 9AM program, before Cramer's preening, self-congratulatory remarks turned me stomach enough to send me back to Bloomberg. Prior to that, he was extolling Boeing and ATI for what he forecasts as Boeing's coming seven-year fat phase. Never mind David Faber's sobering question regarding investors already discounting this outlook in the price of the equity. One wonders the same regarding ATI, Boeing's titanium alloy supplier.
For what its worth, Boeing has never entered my quantitatively-selected equity portfolios for over twenty years. It's just too erratic, with its boom and bust cycles and ruthless price competition with Airbus, and, prospectively, China's own budding airplane manufacturer.
Amazon's big earnings miss last night didn't faze Cramer. He praised Jeff Bezos for damning near term performance in order to continue building the world's largest online good provider. This morning, the company's equity price is down more than 10% as I write this at 10AM. It's been in some of my equity portfolios over the past year, but, as always, its performance will keep it there. Not promises of uncertain future developments.
Yesterday afternoon, Citigroup equity strategist Tobias Lefkovitch was on Bloomberg pontificating about equity market moves.
He followed an interview with a guy whose name I did not catch, but was something like 'Mark,' who is allegedly famous for making S&P Index top and bottom calls. According to the Bloomberg anchor/interviewer, the guy had correctly called the recent index bottom, around 1090, and top of a few days ago of 1255. The rest of the interview descended into fairly incomprehensible technical lingo. Even the anchor tried to sum up the guy's remarks in something resembling plain English. It left me wondering how many other market calls this guy has made that have been forgotten or ignored because they weren't correct.
Then Lefkovitch appeared. After discussing various topics involving sectors, the anchor, of course, asked the Citi strategist for his US equity outlook. Incredibly, Lefkovitch, after his own brand of obfuscation, finally uttered what I will try to closely paraphrase,
'So we're looking for equity markets to rise sometime in the next 12 months.'
That's it? Incredible.
Reminds you of the stopped watch aphorism, doesn't it? Just exactly what good is someone telling you that they expect the S&P to rise significantly sometime in the next 12 months?
For individual, self-directing investors, sure, that may offer hope that a continuously-long, dollar-averaged approach to S&P ownership will pay off, if they can remain patient. But for anyone purporting to follow even a semi-active equity strategy, it's a useless market call.
Sophisticated investors don't like to sit still for a year's worth of losses, in hopes that eventually things will turn around. They sure don't pay monthly management fees to professional managers for that sort of performance.
Makes you wish the Oracle of Delphi was still around, doesn't it? So that you could compare some of these so-called strategists' market calls with an appropriate peer?
My own take away is how desperate Bloomberg must be to fill air time that it invites these guys on to give nearly useless forecasts on market trends.
Then I watched a few minutes of CNBC's 9AM program, before Cramer's preening, self-congratulatory remarks turned me stomach enough to send me back to Bloomberg. Prior to that, he was extolling Boeing and ATI for what he forecasts as Boeing's coming seven-year fat phase. Never mind David Faber's sobering question regarding investors already discounting this outlook in the price of the equity. One wonders the same regarding ATI, Boeing's titanium alloy supplier.
For what its worth, Boeing has never entered my quantitatively-selected equity portfolios for over twenty years. It's just too erratic, with its boom and bust cycles and ruthless price competition with Airbus, and, prospectively, China's own budding airplane manufacturer.
Amazon's big earnings miss last night didn't faze Cramer. He praised Jeff Bezos for damning near term performance in order to continue building the world's largest online good provider. This morning, the company's equity price is down more than 10% as I write this at 10AM. It's been in some of my equity portfolios over the past year, but, as always, its performance will keep it there. Not promises of uncertain future developments.
Monday, October 17, 2011
CNBC & Bloomberg Odds & Ends
While working and writing this morning, I observed the following on the CNBC and Bloomberg business cable networks.
On the former, David Faber's noontime Strategy Session has become a ratings casualty. I happened to be listening to the 9-11AM program, which announced it was newly-extended for another hour. Faber and his former co-host, Gary Kaminsky, appeared in discrete segments, as did Rick Santelli, with Kevin Ferry and The Wolfman, from the CME. The CME-based segment is apparently intended to be a frequent and longer featured element going forward.
Checking internet chatter, I see that the move was announced last week. One reviewer claimed that Faber's program wasn't sufficiently visual, i.e., didn't feature shots of the NYSE floor.
Well, neither does the options program. Nor Tom Keene's Bloomberg midday hour.
I suspect that, in line with CNBC's typically shallow, brief approach to any finance or business story during the day, Faber's cerebral treatment of topics just didn't fit, whereas Keene's program does mesh with his network's deeper, more insightful treatment of business and finance stories.
Elsewhere, various sites either stated or implied that CNBC's 11AM-noon The Call, with Melissa Francis and Larry Kudlow, was too non-liberal in sentiment, so it had to go. And along those lines, Michele Caruso-Cabrera was ousted from the early afternoon Power Lunch and named some sort of senior international correspondent. Thus cleansing CNBC of any objective political viewpoints in New York between 9AM and whenever Francis is allowed on again in the afternoon.
Still, that doesn't mean that Bloomberg can't be biased and shallow, too.
For example, this morning the network aired a real time interview with James Galbraith, an economics professor and son of the late prominent liberal economist John Kenneth Galbraith. In his mercifully brief appearance, Galbraith assured one and all that the president is in an ideal spot, politically, on economic matters. That his jobs bill is the magical elixir for the US economy, regardless of its cost, and that Republicans have 'no ideas' to counter it.
I can't speak to Galbraith's first point, since it's merely an opinion, but the second and third are sheer nonsense.
Does it not concern you that the president calls for massive (re)building of schools, roads, and bridges, all of a sudden? The House Transportation Committee is an historically large one, for all the infrastructure pork to be had by serving on it. This nation has appropriated tens of billions of dollars for such infrastructure for years- decades, even. Where'd it all go?
Schools are the province of local communities, not the federal government. Why do we suddenly want the federal government making decisions regarding local school needs? I certainly don't.
Doesn't that also suggest that a nation full of local school districts have been totally negligent in overseeing the nation's physical educational assets? Why don't we fix that, if it's a problem, and not just send the problem up to Washington?
Then there's the massive public sector union hiring to do all the (re)building, not to mention teaching. Except that, elsewhere, on my companion political blog, I've discussed evidence illustrating that many US states have suffered growth in numbers of teachers and their associates which far outpace the growth of relevant student populations. In some states, the growth rates actually go in opposite directions!
Again, hardly something we either need or should want federal "help" to sort out.
Galbraith then proceeded to call for a whole new set of FDR-like GSEs to replace old, outdated and shuttered programs like RFC. When challenged that Fannie and Freddie had resulted in the 2007-08 financial crisis, Galbraith falsely replied that they didn't cause the problem, and only experienced losses near the end of their long lives. So it was okay to expand them again, or just create replacements.
Just incredible!
Finally, Galbraith's breezy dismissal of Republican ideas about job growth was just insulting. But perhaps only slightly less so than the Bloomberg anchor's failure to challenge him on this false contention. Just because Republican solutions to US job growth don't involve throwing half a trillion dollars at public sector union members doesn't mean they don't offer any. In fact, GOP Congressional leaders have argued long and loud for less government-generated uncertainty in the business sector, and less regulation of sectors such as energy and finance, so that job losses could be reversed.
Sometimes cable network bias is so subtle and quick that you almost don't even notice it.
On the former, David Faber's noontime Strategy Session has become a ratings casualty. I happened to be listening to the 9-11AM program, which announced it was newly-extended for another hour. Faber and his former co-host, Gary Kaminsky, appeared in discrete segments, as did Rick Santelli, with Kevin Ferry and The Wolfman, from the CME. The CME-based segment is apparently intended to be a frequent and longer featured element going forward.
Checking internet chatter, I see that the move was announced last week. One reviewer claimed that Faber's program wasn't sufficiently visual, i.e., didn't feature shots of the NYSE floor.
Well, neither does the options program. Nor Tom Keene's Bloomberg midday hour.
I suspect that, in line with CNBC's typically shallow, brief approach to any finance or business story during the day, Faber's cerebral treatment of topics just didn't fit, whereas Keene's program does mesh with his network's deeper, more insightful treatment of business and finance stories.
Elsewhere, various sites either stated or implied that CNBC's 11AM-noon The Call, with Melissa Francis and Larry Kudlow, was too non-liberal in sentiment, so it had to go. And along those lines, Michele Caruso-Cabrera was ousted from the early afternoon Power Lunch and named some sort of senior international correspondent. Thus cleansing CNBC of any objective political viewpoints in New York between 9AM and whenever Francis is allowed on again in the afternoon.
Still, that doesn't mean that Bloomberg can't be biased and shallow, too.
For example, this morning the network aired a real time interview with James Galbraith, an economics professor and son of the late prominent liberal economist John Kenneth Galbraith. In his mercifully brief appearance, Galbraith assured one and all that the president is in an ideal spot, politically, on economic matters. That his jobs bill is the magical elixir for the US economy, regardless of its cost, and that Republicans have 'no ideas' to counter it.
I can't speak to Galbraith's first point, since it's merely an opinion, but the second and third are sheer nonsense.
Does it not concern you that the president calls for massive (re)building of schools, roads, and bridges, all of a sudden? The House Transportation Committee is an historically large one, for all the infrastructure pork to be had by serving on it. This nation has appropriated tens of billions of dollars for such infrastructure for years- decades, even. Where'd it all go?
Schools are the province of local communities, not the federal government. Why do we suddenly want the federal government making decisions regarding local school needs? I certainly don't.
Doesn't that also suggest that a nation full of local school districts have been totally negligent in overseeing the nation's physical educational assets? Why don't we fix that, if it's a problem, and not just send the problem up to Washington?
Then there's the massive public sector union hiring to do all the (re)building, not to mention teaching. Except that, elsewhere, on my companion political blog, I've discussed evidence illustrating that many US states have suffered growth in numbers of teachers and their associates which far outpace the growth of relevant student populations. In some states, the growth rates actually go in opposite directions!
Again, hardly something we either need or should want federal "help" to sort out.
Galbraith then proceeded to call for a whole new set of FDR-like GSEs to replace old, outdated and shuttered programs like RFC. When challenged that Fannie and Freddie had resulted in the 2007-08 financial crisis, Galbraith falsely replied that they didn't cause the problem, and only experienced losses near the end of their long lives. So it was okay to expand them again, or just create replacements.
Just incredible!
Finally, Galbraith's breezy dismissal of Republican ideas about job growth was just insulting. But perhaps only slightly less so than the Bloomberg anchor's failure to challenge him on this false contention. Just because Republican solutions to US job growth don't involve throwing half a trillion dollars at public sector union members doesn't mean they don't offer any. In fact, GOP Congressional leaders have argued long and loud for less government-generated uncertainty in the business sector, and less regulation of sectors such as energy and finance, so that job losses could be reversed.
Sometimes cable network bias is so subtle and quick that you almost don't even notice it.
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Why Is Leo Hindery Seen So Frequently On Business Cable News Channels?
What is it about former TCI and ATT executive Leo Hindrey that merits his being seen so frequently on CNBC and Bloomberg? As I wrote in this post yesterday, be critical and sceptical of the pundits you see on those networks.
To my knowledge, the guy's biggest break was being one of John Malone's lieutenants at TCI when the latter sold it to Mike Armstrong's ATT. Hindery made a bundle on the deal, briefly became an ATT senior executive, then moved on to help destroy value by running a unit of Global Crossing.
Aside from Malone, a PhD and former Bell Labs techie, the bulk of the managerial so-called talent in those days dragged their knuckles when they walked. I know a bit about this because my mentor at Chase Manhattan, Gerry Weiss, made a lot of money personally from his cable investments. He was an early enthusiast, thanks to work he did at GE as chief planner there. He was an early advocate of the Kagan cable newsletter and, from that, learned to stay invested with Malone. Besides him, Gerry was dismissive of most of the industry, as was Kagan.
In case I'd missed something about Hindery, such as a PhD in finance or economics, or a Nobel prize in something, I searched for his bio. The best I could do was this bio on Wiki. It confirms that Hindery went to Stanford and that, otherwise, he was lucky to be in Malone's organization at the right time.
Yesterday morning, Hindery was on Bloomberg pontificating about how the GOP candidates are weak on job creation policies. How the federal government just has to get involved. Then he derisively snorted at Herman Cain's 9-9-9 plan and judged it too simple.
Doesn't anyone at Bloomberg do any background checking? Hindery is a long time Democratic party backer. So much so that he was considered at one point to head the DNC. He's the guy who caused Tom Daschle his post in this administration's health care cabal by lending Tom a chauffeur and car, which Tom neglected to declare as income to the IRS.
Asking Hindery to handicap GOP presidential contenders is like asking the Koch brothers or Ken Langone to moderate a Democratic candidate debate.
Moreover, what's Hindery actually done since working for Malone and fortuitously cashing in on TCI options from the ATT deal? Nothing I can see. Sure, he's on boards and involved in philanthropy. Heads up his own activist foundation. But basically Leo is a cable guy who hit it big because of his boss' prescience. No track record in consulting, or creating his own business. No history of shrewd corporate strategy work. Nothing like that. Nothing which would cause you to suspect he's a business statesman and savant behind that unassuming visage.
Why he belongs on CNBC and Bloomberg so often to broadcast his personal views is beyond me.
As I noted yesterday and at the beginning of this post, just because someone is on a major cable network program doesn't mean you should accept their comments uncritically.
To my knowledge, the guy's biggest break was being one of John Malone's lieutenants at TCI when the latter sold it to Mike Armstrong's ATT. Hindery made a bundle on the deal, briefly became an ATT senior executive, then moved on to help destroy value by running a unit of Global Crossing.
Aside from Malone, a PhD and former Bell Labs techie, the bulk of the managerial so-called talent in those days dragged their knuckles when they walked. I know a bit about this because my mentor at Chase Manhattan, Gerry Weiss, made a lot of money personally from his cable investments. He was an early enthusiast, thanks to work he did at GE as chief planner there. He was an early advocate of the Kagan cable newsletter and, from that, learned to stay invested with Malone. Besides him, Gerry was dismissive of most of the industry, as was Kagan.
In case I'd missed something about Hindery, such as a PhD in finance or economics, or a Nobel prize in something, I searched for his bio. The best I could do was this bio on Wiki. It confirms that Hindery went to Stanford and that, otherwise, he was lucky to be in Malone's organization at the right time.
Yesterday morning, Hindery was on Bloomberg pontificating about how the GOP candidates are weak on job creation policies. How the federal government just has to get involved. Then he derisively snorted at Herman Cain's 9-9-9 plan and judged it too simple.
Doesn't anyone at Bloomberg do any background checking? Hindery is a long time Democratic party backer. So much so that he was considered at one point to head the DNC. He's the guy who caused Tom Daschle his post in this administration's health care cabal by lending Tom a chauffeur and car, which Tom neglected to declare as income to the IRS.
Asking Hindery to handicap GOP presidential contenders is like asking the Koch brothers or Ken Langone to moderate a Democratic candidate debate.
Moreover, what's Hindery actually done since working for Malone and fortuitously cashing in on TCI options from the ATT deal? Nothing I can see. Sure, he's on boards and involved in philanthropy. Heads up his own activist foundation. But basically Leo is a cable guy who hit it big because of his boss' prescience. No track record in consulting, or creating his own business. No history of shrewd corporate strategy work. Nothing like that. Nothing which would cause you to suspect he's a business statesman and savant behind that unassuming visage.
Why he belongs on CNBC and Bloomberg so often to broadcast his personal views is beyond me.
As I noted yesterday and at the beginning of this post, just because someone is on a major cable network program doesn't mean you should accept their comments uncritically.
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Disappointment About Bloomberg's GOP Presidential Debate Tonight
I must say that I'm profoundly disappointed by what I've heard- on Bloomberg TV- concerning the network's GOP candidate debate this evening from Dartmouth College in New Hampshire.
The questioner/moderator is apparently going to be Charlie Rose.
Charlie Rose??????
You have to be kidding.
On a network featuring Margaret Brennan and the very knowledgeable pair of anchors on the pre-market-open program, not to mention Tom Keene, Rose is the best they can do?
Rose doesn't know anything about economics or business. He's an idiot with a southern drawl who, from the times I've seen his boring interview program over the years, specializes in behaving and looking stunned and awed by anything any guest says.
I'll probably tune in for the first few minutes of the, well, debate isn't really the right word for these spectacles. I wrote recently on my political blog about a format I'd prefer. And, again, more recently, concerning Fox News' nod in that direction.
But having someone as clueless as Charlie Rose asking questions will likely have me channel surfing within five minutes, and probably, as usual, looking to various news programs tomorrow for a more concise reprise of what occurs this evening in Hanover.
The questioner/moderator is apparently going to be Charlie Rose.
Charlie Rose??????
You have to be kidding.
On a network featuring Margaret Brennan and the very knowledgeable pair of anchors on the pre-market-open program, not to mention Tom Keene, Rose is the best they can do?
Rose doesn't know anything about economics or business. He's an idiot with a southern drawl who, from the times I've seen his boring interview program over the years, specializes in behaving and looking stunned and awed by anything any guest says.
I'll probably tune in for the first few minutes of the, well, debate isn't really the right word for these spectacles. I wrote recently on my political blog about a format I'd prefer. And, again, more recently, concerning Fox News' nod in that direction.
But having someone as clueless as Charlie Rose asking questions will likely have me channel surfing within five minutes, and probably, as usual, looking to various news programs tomorrow for a more concise reprise of what occurs this evening in Hanover.
Friday, October 07, 2011
Dueling Economists on Bloomberg
Earlier this week I caught about ten minutes of dueling economists on Tom Keene's noontime Bloomberg program. One was Andrew Tilton, and the other was Michael Darda. The two were starkly different.
What struck me was that Tilton had this 'head down, read the numbers' sort of attitude, which led him to make assorted ludicrously optimistic statements. Then, again, he works for Goldman, which probably doesn't want to spook markets while their and their customers' money is long.
Darda, on the other hand, made sensible comments about real world economic events. He wasn't totally candid, but at least he gave reasonable weight to qualitative events occurring in Europe and various debt markets.
Sadly, Keene sat there and, as I've learned he often does, played up to both guests as if they offered unalloyed wisdom. I suppose he was practicing the usual on-air media nonsense of never asking tough questions of a guest because they might not return if he did.
Thus, it was a mostly wasted ten minutes of my time.
What struck me was that Tilton had this 'head down, read the numbers' sort of attitude, which led him to make assorted ludicrously optimistic statements. Then, again, he works for Goldman, which probably doesn't want to spook markets while their and their customers' money is long.
Darda, on the other hand, made sensible comments about real world economic events. He wasn't totally candid, but at least he gave reasonable weight to qualitative events occurring in Europe and various debt markets.
Sadly, Keene sat there and, as I've learned he often does, played up to both guests as if they offered unalloyed wisdom. I suppose he was practicing the usual on-air media nonsense of never asking tough questions of a guest because they might not return if he did.
Thus, it was a mostly wasted ten minutes of my time.
Friday, August 19, 2011
Yesterday's Selloff & Accompanying Cable Financial Network Commentary
Yesterday's 4.5% decline in the S&P, bringing the month's return down below -12%, brought forth more of the recent and continuing parade of familiar faces of market and economic punditry on the two main free cable financial news channels- Bloomberg & CNBC.
My general impressions were that CNBC seems to be using more guests who are either older and bordering on washed up, or younger and uncredentialed. In no particular order, here's what I recall from the networks' attempts to virtually hold investors' hands during yesterday's market rout.
Over on CNBC, I believe, mid-morning, economist Michelle Meyer, formerly of Lehman, then Barclays, now Merrill Lynch/BofA, solemnly assured viewers that deflation, rather than inflation was ahead for the US economy, on account of falling demand.
I've written some pieces concerning Meyer in the past. Suffice to say, I'm never impressed. Yesterday's performance indicated that she either isn't aware, doesn't understand, or simply ignores the entire Von Mises/Von Hayek/Friedman school which defines inflation as, to quote the last, "always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon." Of the two Keynesian variants of 'inflation,' demand-pull is but one, the other major source being 'cost-push,' widely seen in the 1970s. Meyer's comments were so superficial as to, for me, further discredit her as any sort of trustworthy economist.
Then, again, when have you ever seen a large bank economist of really notable quality? Back when I was with Chase Manhattan, our Corporate Planning & Development group shared the 28th floor of 1 Chase Plaza with the economics department. Dick Zecher was the chief economist when I joined the bank, but he left to run asset manager Chase Investors, being replaced by someone whose name I can't even recall. I think Mickey Levy may have been BofA's chief economist back then. I don't recall who held the post at Citigroup. But every major bank seems to feel it's necessary to spend several million dollars annually to employ a bunch of nameless, also-ran economists. To what end, really?
At noon, David Faber on CNBC had a senior equity manager, probably the CIO, from Gary Kaminsky's old firm, Neuberger Berman, along with Lee Cooperman. It was a study in 1980s equity management- two aged subjective stock-pickers kvetching about how cheap the market has become and how bright the economic prospects really are.
The guy from Neuberger at least had a tight, cogent, if risky story explaining why they were very long in oil. Cooperman, on the other hand, actually began his spiel by confessing that he's been 'wrong so far this year,' but that, hopefully, 'the year isn't over yet.'
Then he went through a sheaf of papers so thick Faber's eyes bulged, reciting all manner of comparative facts to justify his belief that the US economy was about to go on a tear- inflation down, savings up, debt down, interest coverage up, plenty of excess capacity, a weak dollar to sustain exports.
Too bad Lee missed unemployment levels and the recent anemic GDP growth, both in the US and globally, along with- how timely- that day's forecasts from major banks for lower global growth.
Every time I see Cooperman, his famous comb-over looks worse and worse. I'm waiting for the day he just spray paints hair on that head.
Sometime during the day, one of the networks- I'm guessing CNBC- had Donald Trump on a phone interview. Now, Trump admitted a few weeks ago to his first foray into equities. I recall that Intel and perhaps BofA were among his purchases. Yesterday, he was stumping for the major commercial banks, declaring that BofA was really cheap, so he bought a lot of it.
Thankfully, whichever network on which this occurred had an actual equity strategist on later who politely said that Trump, and anyone who listened to him, was making a very serious error. That the large banks were cheap for a reason- especially BofA.
Then there were the battles of competing equity strategists throughout the day on both networks. Barton Biggs was on, I believe, Bloomberg, calling this a great buying opportunity and demanding QE3 and yet another round of federal fiscal stimulus to jump-start the US economy.
I recall thinking, as I listened to this hopeful drivel, how much of an inside game punditry is on these networks. Biggs was essentially calling for ruinous national government policies which would quickly line his equity management pockets. Nothing more, nothing less.
In general, I noted a lack of:
a) credible, marquee name economists weighing in on current and probably future conditions in the US and globally.
b) equity managers with a good performance record this year and this month.
What we see, instead, is too many unproven youngsters who can't recall 1987 or 1998, and too many equity management has-beens. These two networks' guests lists are beginning to resemble the fruits of all those competing late night talk shows whose schedulers dial so many potential guests in hopes of filling their sets with some warm bodies who will prop up ad rates.
My general impressions were that CNBC seems to be using more guests who are either older and bordering on washed up, or younger and uncredentialed. In no particular order, here's what I recall from the networks' attempts to virtually hold investors' hands during yesterday's market rout.
Over on CNBC, I believe, mid-morning, economist Michelle Meyer, formerly of Lehman, then Barclays, now Merrill Lynch/BofA, solemnly assured viewers that deflation, rather than inflation was ahead for the US economy, on account of falling demand.
I've written some pieces concerning Meyer in the past. Suffice to say, I'm never impressed. Yesterday's performance indicated that she either isn't aware, doesn't understand, or simply ignores the entire Von Mises/Von Hayek/Friedman school which defines inflation as, to quote the last, "always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon." Of the two Keynesian variants of 'inflation,' demand-pull is but one, the other major source being 'cost-push,' widely seen in the 1970s. Meyer's comments were so superficial as to, for me, further discredit her as any sort of trustworthy economist.
Then, again, when have you ever seen a large bank economist of really notable quality? Back when I was with Chase Manhattan, our Corporate Planning & Development group shared the 28th floor of 1 Chase Plaza with the economics department. Dick Zecher was the chief economist when I joined the bank, but he left to run asset manager Chase Investors, being replaced by someone whose name I can't even recall. I think Mickey Levy may have been BofA's chief economist back then. I don't recall who held the post at Citigroup. But every major bank seems to feel it's necessary to spend several million dollars annually to employ a bunch of nameless, also-ran economists. To what end, really?
At noon, David Faber on CNBC had a senior equity manager, probably the CIO, from Gary Kaminsky's old firm, Neuberger Berman, along with Lee Cooperman. It was a study in 1980s equity management- two aged subjective stock-pickers kvetching about how cheap the market has become and how bright the economic prospects really are.
The guy from Neuberger at least had a tight, cogent, if risky story explaining why they were very long in oil. Cooperman, on the other hand, actually began his spiel by confessing that he's been 'wrong so far this year,' but that, hopefully, 'the year isn't over yet.'
Then he went through a sheaf of papers so thick Faber's eyes bulged, reciting all manner of comparative facts to justify his belief that the US economy was about to go on a tear- inflation down, savings up, debt down, interest coverage up, plenty of excess capacity, a weak dollar to sustain exports.
Too bad Lee missed unemployment levels and the recent anemic GDP growth, both in the US and globally, along with- how timely- that day's forecasts from major banks for lower global growth.
Every time I see Cooperman, his famous comb-over looks worse and worse. I'm waiting for the day he just spray paints hair on that head.
Sometime during the day, one of the networks- I'm guessing CNBC- had Donald Trump on a phone interview. Now, Trump admitted a few weeks ago to his first foray into equities. I recall that Intel and perhaps BofA were among his purchases. Yesterday, he was stumping for the major commercial banks, declaring that BofA was really cheap, so he bought a lot of it.
Thankfully, whichever network on which this occurred had an actual equity strategist on later who politely said that Trump, and anyone who listened to him, was making a very serious error. That the large banks were cheap for a reason- especially BofA.
Then there were the battles of competing equity strategists throughout the day on both networks. Barton Biggs was on, I believe, Bloomberg, calling this a great buying opportunity and demanding QE3 and yet another round of federal fiscal stimulus to jump-start the US economy.
I recall thinking, as I listened to this hopeful drivel, how much of an inside game punditry is on these networks. Biggs was essentially calling for ruinous national government policies which would quickly line his equity management pockets. Nothing more, nothing less.
In general, I noted a lack of:
a) credible, marquee name economists weighing in on current and probably future conditions in the US and globally.
b) equity managers with a good performance record this year and this month.
What we see, instead, is too many unproven youngsters who can't recall 1987 or 1998, and too many equity management has-beens. These two networks' guests lists are beginning to resemble the fruits of all those competing late night talk shows whose schedulers dial so many potential guests in hopes of filling their sets with some warm bodies who will prop up ad rates.
Friday, July 15, 2011
Bank Stock Portfolio Manager Tom Brown Talks His Book On Bloomberg This Morning
I happened to catch bank sector portfolio manager and long-ago bank stock analyst Tom Brown's appearance on Bloomberg television this morning. The occasion was apparently yesterday's Chase earnings release.
Listening to/watching Brown was fascinating, in that he was questioned, and answered, as if he were simply a bank stock analyst, as he once was.
But, in reality, the entire episode was Bloomberg's way of doing bank stock portfolio manager Tom Brown a big, big favor, letting him talk his book without advertising it.
For example, Brown kept downplaying the capital inadequacy of the big four US banks- BofA, Chase, Citi and WellsFargo. He continually claimed that they have "til 2017" to reach then-required capital levels, and would do so with so much extra capital that they'll 'have to buy back stock' with the surplus.
Then he decried those who would worry that Chase used significant loan loss reserves to boost this past quarter's profit.
Brown also excelled at turning the anchors' questions to topics he wanted to highlight, such as his forecast that all the major banks would be growing loans and business volumes in 2012, thus making now a great time to buy before the profits roll in.
I've been following Brown's comments on Bloomberg for a few months now, and the last word you'd use to describe them is objective.
The truth is, Brown has to have a reason to push owning bank stocks, so no news is ever bad. Good earnings mean jump on the bandwagon, while lackluster results mean buy before performance improves.
Never mind that Brown evidently piled into BofA before its shares plummeted on higher capital concerns and the expensive mortgage loan distribution settlement it announced recently.
No, the bank sector is just wildly attractive, in Brown's view. No chance that a faltering economy could cause renewed credit problems, slow loan growth and generally stagnant performance.
As I listened to him predict how much profitable growth would occur at the four large banks from now until 2017, I considered how much trouble those same banks had managed to run into just from 2006-08. A fraction of the timeframe over which Brown is forecasting such bountiful banking profits.
But I'm sure such losses like those recent mortgage problems will never recur, will they Tom?
Listening to/watching Brown was fascinating, in that he was questioned, and answered, as if he were simply a bank stock analyst, as he once was.
But, in reality, the entire episode was Bloomberg's way of doing bank stock portfolio manager Tom Brown a big, big favor, letting him talk his book without advertising it.
For example, Brown kept downplaying the capital inadequacy of the big four US banks- BofA, Chase, Citi and WellsFargo. He continually claimed that they have "til 2017" to reach then-required capital levels, and would do so with so much extra capital that they'll 'have to buy back stock' with the surplus.
Then he decried those who would worry that Chase used significant loan loss reserves to boost this past quarter's profit.
Brown also excelled at turning the anchors' questions to topics he wanted to highlight, such as his forecast that all the major banks would be growing loans and business volumes in 2012, thus making now a great time to buy before the profits roll in.
I've been following Brown's comments on Bloomberg for a few months now, and the last word you'd use to describe them is objective.
The truth is, Brown has to have a reason to push owning bank stocks, so no news is ever bad. Good earnings mean jump on the bandwagon, while lackluster results mean buy before performance improves.
Never mind that Brown evidently piled into BofA before its shares plummeted on higher capital concerns and the expensive mortgage loan distribution settlement it announced recently.
No, the bank sector is just wildly attractive, in Brown's view. No chance that a faltering economy could cause renewed credit problems, slow loan growth and generally stagnant performance.
As I listened to him predict how much profitable growth would occur at the four large banks from now until 2017, I considered how much trouble those same banks had managed to run into just from 2006-08. A fraction of the timeframe over which Brown is forecasting such bountiful banking profits.
But I'm sure such losses like those recent mortgage problems will never recur, will they Tom?
Friday, April 29, 2011
Enjoying Bloomberg
After so many negative posts concerning business, economic and political coverage on CNBC, I was delighted to learn that I now receive Bloomberg from my cable provider.
So for the past few days, I've been liberally sampling the channel's offerings. What I've discovered is that Bloomberg has more energetic, objective and hard-hitting, unfiltered coverage of all three topics.
For example, on the day following Bernanke's press conference this week, there was a lot of criticism of his remarks by the anchors.
Similarly, there was quite a roasting of Buffett over the Lubrizol incident. He came under fire for essentially having been lax in probing Sokol's investment. Not something CNBC would ever dare suggest, since Becky Quick gets so many exclusive interview opportunities with Buffett.
Yet, from watching Bloomberg, it seems their own coverage of Berkshire's annual meeting and interviews with Munger and Buffett will be quite extensive.
Unlike CNBC, which has anchors who either ask questions so dumb and obvious that their heads must hurt, or voice no opinion at all, the Bloomberg on-air staff seem vibrant, well-informed and offer interesting commentary. It's an interesting mix, because the anchors seem better-informed and less hesitant to state facts. Their questions are sharper.
Additionally, the anchors and reporters did a fairly bare-knuckles story on Donald Trump, pointedly detailing each of his three corporate bankruptcy filings. They pulled no punches in declaring that he'd be torn to shreds by Republican opponents for his business missteps.
Perhaps the most notable difference from CNBC is Bloomberg's much more candid, objective coverage of the Fed and politics. I never saw a single sitting Fed official interviewed, so maybe it wasn't a coincidence that so much more of Bloomberg's coverage of that institution was negative and blunt regarding inflation and excessively easy monetary policy.
It really highlighted how much of a Fed and administration lapdog CNBC has become.
This morning I sampled some of the Bloomberg content opposite Squawkbox, and found it quite acceptable. And devoid of empty-headed commentary so often present on CNBC at that hour.
I expect that as time passes, I'll be viewing CNBC a lot less, and Bloomberg a lot more.
So for the past few days, I've been liberally sampling the channel's offerings. What I've discovered is that Bloomberg has more energetic, objective and hard-hitting, unfiltered coverage of all three topics.
For example, on the day following Bernanke's press conference this week, there was a lot of criticism of his remarks by the anchors.
Similarly, there was quite a roasting of Buffett over the Lubrizol incident. He came under fire for essentially having been lax in probing Sokol's investment. Not something CNBC would ever dare suggest, since Becky Quick gets so many exclusive interview opportunities with Buffett.
Yet, from watching Bloomberg, it seems their own coverage of Berkshire's annual meeting and interviews with Munger and Buffett will be quite extensive.
Unlike CNBC, which has anchors who either ask questions so dumb and obvious that their heads must hurt, or voice no opinion at all, the Bloomberg on-air staff seem vibrant, well-informed and offer interesting commentary. It's an interesting mix, because the anchors seem better-informed and less hesitant to state facts. Their questions are sharper.
Additionally, the anchors and reporters did a fairly bare-knuckles story on Donald Trump, pointedly detailing each of his three corporate bankruptcy filings. They pulled no punches in declaring that he'd be torn to shreds by Republican opponents for his business missteps.
Perhaps the most notable difference from CNBC is Bloomberg's much more candid, objective coverage of the Fed and politics. I never saw a single sitting Fed official interviewed, so maybe it wasn't a coincidence that so much more of Bloomberg's coverage of that institution was negative and blunt regarding inflation and excessively easy monetary policy.
It really highlighted how much of a Fed and administration lapdog CNBC has become.
This morning I sampled some of the Bloomberg content opposite Squawkbox, and found it quite acceptable. And devoid of empty-headed commentary so often present on CNBC at that hour.
I expect that as time passes, I'll be viewing CNBC a lot less, and Bloomberg a lot more.
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