classic Europe: New attack on private equity and hedge funds & Szarkozy crap… im surprised he hasnt mentioned 12th Imam:-)

Leading Socialist deputies in the European parliament presented a report into the hedge fund and private equity sectors yesterday that advocated measures to curb the influence of activist investors on businesses and workers, or what the report calls the “real economy”. The intervention by parliament’s second-biggest political force is unlikely to lead to tougher rules for the industry by itself.

“I don’t believe that the market will solve it and I don’t want to wait for a major crisis,” Ms van den Burg said.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/63ac50a0-de5c-11db-afa7-000b5df10621.html

meanwhile at the same day :

Brussels shocked by Sarkozy rhetoric

shock” at the protectionist rhetoric of Nicolas Sarkozy, the leading challenger for the French presidency, saying it was in France’s interests to promote the European single market and cross-border investment

when he said :

“Look at the waste of Arcelor, which we sold off on the cheap because we believed that the steel industry was history. They got it wrong. They lied,” said Mr Sarkozy to a cheering crowd at Lille’s Palais des Congrès. “If I am president, then France will have a real industrial policy.”

he stepped up his attacks on the European Central Bank (ECB) and the euro. “If wages are too low, it is because the euro is too expensive and when the euro is too expensive, companies try to stay competitive by making up for it on wages,” he said.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/4269a51a-de15-11db-afa7-000b5df10621.html

Angry senator wants to know: How we got here?

From Reuters.com: U.S. Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd said on Wednesday regulators bear some responsibility for problems in the subprime mortgage sector and he plans to call them before the committee for questioning. “That’s what’s made me angry here — that the regulators apparently have not been doing as good a job as I think they should have been doing,” Dodd told reporters after speaking at a U.S. Chamber of Commerce conference on market competitiveness.

VIX futures aint fraud my friend….a true classic

From Mr William J. Brodsky.

Sir, It is disturbing and disappointing that the Financial Times found it worthwhile to publish the rant of a disgruntled trader looking to fix blame after losing money in last week’s market downturn (“Vix Futures will not protect you in the eye of a hurricane”, FT Wealth March 6).

John Dizard’s unidentified “Chicago trader” calls Vix futures “the most rigged game in town”. Had this allegation any discernible merit, it would rightfully reside at the Department of Justice or the Securities and Exchange Commission. Instead it found a home – unchecked – with the FT. “Game” ? “Rigged” ? How? By whom??

Perhaps the market did not move precisely when and how Mr Dizard’s trader source had hoped. It is impossible to know where the misunderstanding lies; amazingly, Mr Dizard did not find it necessary to contact Chicago Board Options Exchange for comment on a CBOE story, even one brimming with dangerously misguided innuendo regarding our products and our markets.

In an article rife with misplaced indignation and irresponsible finger-pointing, Mr Dizard was at least correct on two counts: it is not advisable to buy insurance while in the eye of a hurricane, and volatility does not reliably (emphasis added) move inversely with equity prices. The correlation is not predictable, nor one-to-one, but it is a strong inverse relationship. Hence the term volatility.

Had Mr Dizard and his nameless trader availed themselves of the considerable educational support to be had from CBOE, they would have seen in historical charts that the Vix tends to be negatively correlated to the broad market. When the market goes down, Vix tends to go up in a way that is analogous, say, to the way bonds or gold moves in relation to stocks. They would have learned that it is impossible to predict exactly how much, or how quickly, Vix (or gold or bonds) will go up when stocks fall, that the two do not move in lockstep, and that there are no guarantees of future performance.

We have come to expect better from your publication.

William J. Brodsky,

Chairman and Chief Executive,

Chicago Board Options Exchange

Aggressively’ Sell Global Stocks, Dresdner Says ..but read below

 said Dresdner Kleinwort, the top ranked strategy team in the world.

The strategist predicted “an imminent shakeout of at least 10 percent” in equities, according to the note. Dresdner has had a “structural underweight” in stocks since October 1996 relative to bonds in an asset allocation model. An “underweight” position means investors should hold fewer of the securities than represented in benchmarks.

“Timing has never been our strongpoint,” Edwards wrote. “But we believe `the great unwind’ has now started.”

since 1996!! are u fucking kidding me?? outrageous

 Disclosure: I read these guys and im not long stocks currently

Al Gore really cares

On Monday, a conservative group called the Tennessee Center for Policy Research circulated a press release claiming that Mr. Gore’s Nashville mansion consumed nearly 221,000 kilowatt hours in 2006, “more than 20 times the national average” of 10,656 kilowatt-hours. Matt Drudge was one of the first on the Web to jump on the release. Much blogging ensued.

But the Associated Press reported that TCPR hadn’t actually contacted the Nashville Electric Service for energy consumption in Mr. Gore’s 10,000-foot mansion. The true numbers, as dug up by the AP, are still jaw-dropping, however: 191,000 kilowatt-hours, compared with 15,500 for a typical Nashville home.

UN and asteroids…. what a purposeful institution!

UN has killer asteroids in its sights

By Clive Cookson in San Francisco

Published: February 18 2007 18:54 | Last updated: February 18 2007 18:54

Work is under way to draft a United Nations treaty laying out the rules for international action if a killer asteroid threatened Earth. The treaty would specify responsibilities for a space mission to deflect the asteroid – preventing death and destruction on a gigantic scale.

“A decision to act when an asteroid appears to threaten an impact will be a daunting international challenge,” he said. “Based on current experience with the near-Earth object (NEO) database, it is clear that in some cases – and perhaps many – decisions to act will have to be made when it is still uncertain whether or not the Earth will be impacted.”

published in FT