Production Support involves problems, solutions, people, changes, deadlines and all the things that go into making a moment critical…all this when the system is live!! You must have heard about the mechanic who was removing the cylinder heads from the motor of a car when he spotted the famous heart surgeon in his shop standing off to [...]

In the aftermath of the so-called “perfect storm” we learned to “expect the unexpected”, to watch out for outliers and to factor in “Black Swans”, and now, we can say with a great deal of certainty that new regulations are coming. These regulations will call for more transparency and oversight and force the industry to [...]

Hedge Funds - a useful vehicle for asset mangers looking for portfolio diversification or absolute returns especially when under normal conditions they have little correlation to the broader markets. So it stands to logic that during “abnormal times” they are expected to post losses. Not so in the case of Universa Investments, the $2 billion [...]

The Bernie Madoff  fallout may or may not  shake the markets now  but its long term consequence will be massive .The precise mechanism of the fraud committed here remains unclear . however this to my mind smacks of the SIV issues  that struck the bond markets a year back . then as SIV’s started falling [...]

http://www.silobreaker.com/DocumentClusterReader.aspx?Item=16_914342153
This article contains many truths about quants, and the hijacking of the finance and economics space by engineers and mathematicians, away from the traditional liberal-arts / accounting backgrounds that one earlier saw there.
However it also contains some untruths that are now finding their way into the popular press.
There is no evidence that exchange traded derivatives, [...]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/oct/16/creditcrunch-hedgefunds
A very interesting, and sobering article. As they say “we ain’t seen nothin’ yet”
It all started with the collapse of 2 Bear Stearns funds, and now it appears more failure stories in that space are in the offing.
Unlike Mutual Funds and normal Investment Pools, hedge funds frequently follow shorting based strategies. Given that, there will [...]

What can we reasonably assume about the future (though as nassim taleb say the future is by definition an unknown unknown?)
 
The central bank will be the central regulator in most countries. So investment banks, funds, insurers and much other type of institutions which have historically gone through more relaxed regulators are in for a shock. [...]

Analysts the world over are now bullish on Indian market. A steady GDP growth, despite occasional slips and fall and burgeoning IT spend by companies across industry to improve user experience, provide an attractive spectrum for services and solution sectors, so far busy chasing foreign deals. It is time for homecoming.

1. fundementally they wanted to discourage a capital structure arbitarage trade : short the stock , go long the Credit (of any off form, ideally the CDS) . this trade normally is fully hedged and income nuetral . however with one side of equation theoritically garranteed and CDS levels being what they this [...]

Is this what the chicken meant when it said “The sky is falling”?
From what was a prudent and a well managed firm, Lehman Brothers today has been brought down to its knees. And it is not the first in line- the sad thing here is that there is a line!!
Lehman Brothers has been involved in [...]