International Investing

Add value? The fact these guys have been around so long is amazing. The average consumer can’t grade a diamond but besides that what information does a dealer provide that you can’t find on google?
“You don’t need Rapaport’s commoditization scheme to put out prices that consumers will look at and say ‘Hey, this is the [...]

Speculation in todays Gartman Letter:
Of the greatest concern to us, however, shall be the
roll-over of asset backed commercial paper at the month’s
end tomorrow. If there is a place in the capital markets
where a very real leak can spring it is here. As an old
friend at one of the most important investment banks in the
world wrote [...]

$100 million! From the WSJ:
Iraq Fund LLC, Iraq’s first hedge fund, aims to raise as much as $100 million within 18 months for investment in companies listed on the local bourse and in state enterprises, a company official said.
The fund, launched despite the ongoing violent conflict in the country, primarily targets undervalued, Iraq Stock Exchange-listed [...]

From the Financial News linked in FierceFinance:
The fixed income arbitrage index was up 0.31%. Each of the other nine strategies covered by Credit Suisse/Tremont lost money over the same period.The overall investable hedge fund index published by Credit Suisse/Tremont was down 1.54% for the first two weeks of August.
However, many individual hedge funds following the [...]

WSJ has a great blog post and chart:
Increasingly over the last several months the yen and the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index have been inversely correlated. That is, when the yen has weakened, the equity market has done better, in part because of the popularity of yen-carry trades, where investors borrow in low-yielding yen to [...]

You might excuse Bill Gross’s recent “taxes aren’t high enough” rant as politicking. Perhaps he was trying to draw attention away from his own obscene wealth while maintaining the free market principles that brought him such riches. He wouldn’t be the first person to say that people aren’t paying enough in taxes and neglecting to [...]

Will NFP seasonally adjust these out?
More layoffs are announced daily. On Wednesday, Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. closed its “subprime” mortgage business, laying off 1,200 workers at 23 offices; Scottsdale, Ariz.-based 1st National Bank Holding Co. closed its wholesale mortgage unit and cut 541 jobs, and Accredited Home Lenders Holding Co. added 1,600 positions to the [...]

The market’s surprise rally late last Thursday caused many to credit the shadowy Plunge Protection Team with propping up the market. US News has the info:
Yes, the Plunge Protection Team is real, except its actual name is the President’s Working Group on Financial Markets, or PWG. (The nickname comes from an old Washington Post headline.) [...]

Whenever there is a violent market move a trader asks himself: Is this the start of a new trend or a just temporary reversal? When the smartest guys in the market, Goldman Sachs, get hammered, even the causual 401(k) watchers have to be wondering if the market continue to fall or will it regain its [...]

Hedge fund assests increased to record levels last quarter just in time to catch the coming decline:
Total hedge fund asset levels increased by 8% in the second quarter of 2007, to $2.593 trillion from $2.401 trillion in the first quarter of 2007, according to a report by HFN (HedgeFund.net).
The Q2 2007 HFN Hedge Fund Industry [...]