Some of my favorite posts:
26-Feb: LTRO: The Ultimate Collection
20-Aug: Moscow is not answering true story, me as a dealer 20 years ago
26-Feb: LTRO: The Ultimate Collection
20-Aug: Moscow is not answering true story, me as a dealer 20 years ago
1st Feb: Why
not call default a default?
12-Feb Greek Exit Collection (plenty of euro break-up stuff too)
1-Jan: 2012 Special
12-Feb Greek Exit Collection (plenty of euro break-up stuff too)
1-Jan: 2012 Special
6-Oct: Steve Jobs
26-Sep: Throw Death Stars at it!
2-Sep: Asian Crisis part 1 “fiction” (=true)
10-Oct: Coming out of the closets
10-Oct: Announcement of a plan of a plan
17-Aug: EFA '11 starts
24-Nov: Back to School for Thanksgiving
17-Apr: Twitter List (who to follow) Some of my invented terms:
Eurocrat: An EU official whose livelihood depends on maintaining the status quo and avoiding any kind of blame. Thus it follows that the key to the eurocrat's longevity is denial and orthodoxical thinking.
Death Star: Leveraged EFSF
PIIGS-hit: Risk exposure to Portuguese, Irish, Italian, Greek or Spanish government or bank bonds and bank stocks. Could be credit, liquidity or price risk.
Europe's Fall: Like Arab Spring, but happens in Europe and in Autumn.
Bath tub: Location of a mark, whale or prospective customer. Another example. Also a place where deep thinking or alpha generation is done.
G.I. Joke: Greece and Italy.
Crapping in your pants in winter: A very short-sighted solution that actually makes the problem bigger in the long term is like peeing in your pants in winter. Crapping in your pants in winter does not help you even in short term, but at least you have tried something.
Feta topping: usually the yields, budget deficit or CDS prices of Greece
Best and timeless links picked from my past posts (updated sporadically):
EURO CRISIS
The best paper on the causes and consequences of the euro crisis, by Peter Boone and Simon Johnson.
What Really Caused the Eurozone Crisis? (Part 1, Sep-2011) – The Street Light
Causes of the Eurozone Crisis: Policy Implications (Part 2, Sep-2011) – The Street Light
Jun 2011: the real crisis is the more fundamental question of how the European continent is to be ruled in the 21st century.
Everything you need to know about the European debt crisis in one post – WP
Nice but dated summary and review of each of the PIIGS, extensively linked to other articles.
interactive graphics, data seems to have been updated.
The price of becoming Swedish – Humble Student of The Markets
Aug 2011: Four solutions: default/restructuring, ECB goes nuclear, integration, or breakup. First is cheapest, and the Swedish model (nationalization) is recommended
Aug 2011
Going Dutch – One Possible Solution To the Euro Debt Crisis? – A Fistful of Euros
Aug 2011: If fiscal union is politically impossible, three choices: 1) More ECB bond buys & EFSF, 2) disband the union or 3) split the union in two
European Rates Insight: EFSF 2.0, 3.0 and beyond – Nomura
Analysis of several plans to leverage the EFSF up to the task.
WAR STORIES
Mathematics, Common Sense, and Good Luck: My Life and Careers – MIT World
Dec 2010: 1h video lecture from James ‘Jim’ Simons, the founder of world’s greatest hedge fund. Landing page has a long text summary of the lecture’s contents.
The Evolution of Financial Technology – MIT World
Jan 2011: 1h 43 min video lecture of reunion of “five of the founding fathers of modern finance”:Andrew Lo, Stewart C. Myers, Myron Scholes, Robert C. Merton, John Cox and Stephen Ross
Betting on the Blind Side – Vanity Fair
Apr 2010: The 32-year old who figured out the housing bubble and went short with CDS contracts. How he was alone, how his investors did not get it, how he played dumb not to scare his counterparties. And how he prevailed. An excerpt
LTCM: 10 years later – what happened and what went wrong – MIT TechTV
Feb 2009: Ex-Salomon Bros, ex-principal of Long-Term Capital Management, 1h30min lecture
Doug Dachille - Analysis of Buffett's love-hate relationship with derivatives – MIT TechTV
May 2009: Doug is among other things ex Global Head of Proprietary Trading at J.P.Morgan
Financial Re-Engineering – MIT World
Oct 2010: 1h 38min video lecture by William Wheaton, Andrew Lo, Robert C. Merton, Bengt Holmstrom and Jiang Wang