2008/10/06

Work all night and reports from hell..

Well, it seems as if markets collapsed today - big time.. The value of many of the Icelandic banks - disappeared, the Swedish stock exchange dropping more than 700 points.. the Dow being in some kind of free fall.. and Lehman's Dick Fuld blaming the termination of "his" bank on rumors. Well, what can you say.. I personally think that it was the risky positions that brought down Lehman and the fact that many of the financial securities lacked any substantial backing..

I mean, in a system where you can just deliver your house (the asset backing the financial security) to the bank if you cannot make your payments (and the loaners debt is terminated), and the bank sitting on the joker of the deck.. then.. i think it was this system of intricate and somewhat foolish behavior (including the Triple-A rating of many CDO's - which made many think that they invested in something risk free, when in fact - it wasnt) of their investments that actually brought them down. I assume that Fuld would like to think something else. I remember that I had a conversation with a guy from a very famous information database that told me that he had once worked for Lehman, and that they more or less just had waited for them to go bust - for several years. I mean, something must have distorted the culture of Lehman Bros. Especially when G.S seems to have sailed through the rain of blood that is currently pouring on Wall Street (its like the movie Carrie, but in real life.. and with a street). There was also this pompous idiot in the Swedish media who felt sorry for Lehman brothers - because there were so many great people there. Shut up fool, let the market do the job - and I'm pretty sure the really talented people there can get a job - even in the darkest recession the earth has ever seen.. Only three hours more work, then Ill go to bed.

I just cant wait to see what happens with Wachovia, will be very interesting to see. I also think that we will see a collapse of the market value of the Swedish banks when the crisis really hits the Baltic countries. This is actually acknowledged in BusinessWeek. I'm so happy I'm in school at the moment - standing by the sidelines and waiting.

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