Finally, Jim Cramer Attack Ads

Regular readers already know what I think of Jim Cramer...

I must say, I love the Fox News attack ads on Jim Cramer.

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Jim Cramer Says Sell, Almost Guarantees a Bottom

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Cramer Off His Meds, Calls For Housing Shortage
Cramer: "We Have Armageddon!"
Cramer With Amensia
Cramer Making Fun of Bears

Black Swans: Vindicated

"I am very sad to be vindicated." -Nassim Taleb, Author of Black Swan

Nassim Taleb got it right. He called it years ago. A recent Bloomberg article highlights his success in anticipating and navigating the current crisis.

Taleb's `Black Swan' Investors Post Gains as Markets Take Dive: “Investors advised by “Black Swan” author Nassim Taleb have gained 50 percent or more this year as his strategies for navigating big swings in share prices paid off amid the worst stock market in seven decades.

Universa Investments LP, the Santa Monica, California-based firm where Taleb is an adviser, has about $1 billion in accounts managed to hedge clients against big moves in financial markets. Returns for the year through Oct. 10 ranged as high as 110 percent, according to investor documents. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index lost 39 percent in the same period.

“I am very sad to be vindicated,” Taleb said today in an interview in London. “I don't care about the money. We're proud we protected our investors.”

Taleb's book argues that history is littered with high- impact rare events known in quantitative finance as “fat tails.” As the founder of New York-based Empirica LLC, a hedge- fund firm he ran for six years before closing it in 2004, Taleb built a strategy based on options trading to bullet-proof investors from market blowups while profiting from big rallies.

Mark Spitznagel, Taleb's former trading partner, opened Universa last year using some of the same strategies they'd run since 1999. Pallop Angsupun manages the Black Swan Protection Protocol for clients and is overseen by Taleb and Spitznagel, Universa's chief investment officer.

“The Black Swan Protection Protocol is designed to break even 90 to 95 percent of the time,” Spitznagel said. “We happen to be in that other 5 to 10 percent environment.”

Black Swan Theory:

The black swan theory refers to a large-impact, hard-to-predict, and rare event beyond the realm of normal expectations.

Black Swan Book:

The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable is a book about randomness and uncertainty by epistemologist Nassim Nicholas Taleb.

Russia: First Bank Run

The first bank run in Russia…

Run on Russian bank heightens fears: “Globex on Wednesday banned depositors from withdrawing their money as confidence in the Russian banking system began to show signs of ­evaporating.

Globex, a mid-sized retail bank with assets of $4bn (€2.95bn, £2.32bn), is the first Russian bank to experience a run on deposits during the crisis. It lost 13 per cent of its deposits last month, according to Maxim Raskosnov, an analyst at Renaissance capital, and a further 15 per cent this month according to Emilya Alieva, Globex’s vice-president.

At least a dozen other Russian banks have reported a sharp rise in withdrawals and account closures.

An economist with a leading western bank in Moscow said Globex was probably the first in what could be a number of bank panics, if the government did not take concerted action soon. “I think there are a large number of small and medium sized banks that are in the same situation,” she said.

Despite a Kremlin promise of $200bn in relief funds – $87bn this week – the fall-out of a stock market plunge and the global credit crunch appears to be worse than anticipated, analysts say.

So far, the crunch has not affected the living standards of ordinary Russians, but a rash of bank failures could.

Banks across Russia have faced a rise in outflows as depositors have begun to lose trust in all but the biggest state banks, VTB and Sberbank, which have received most of the government’s liquidity support.

Tatyana Sadovskaya, the director of a branch of Khnati Mansisk Bank in the city of Nizhnevartovsk, on Wednesday told Interfax news agency that in response to rumours of her bank’s insolvency: “People have formed long lines at cashiers and at bankomats, people are taking their deposits and closing their accounts.”

Natalia Elisseva, vice-president for financial development at the Bank Nizhni Novgorod, based in the city of the same name, said the number of clients closing accounts had risen. “If there is something that can sink the banks, it is panic amongst the population . . . If there is a panic, not one bank will stand, regardless of state support.”

Mr Raskosnov said Globex was in an especially difficult situation, as a high concentration of its lending was in property, one of the sectors most under pressure from the credit crunch. He said the bank was also not rated by a leading credit rating agency, the prerequisite for central bank funding.

Globex confirmed that the ban on withdrawals had been in effect since Tuesday and blamed “demand from depositors, many of whom explained their wish to transfer their money to VTB or Sberbank”.

So far in the past two months three Russian banks have been forced into mergers as a result of the credit crisis, and analysts expect more consolidation.

Russia’s central bank made no public mention of Globex crisis, sparking criticism from ­analysts.

Alexander Khandruyev, head of the association of regional banks and former deputy central banker, called on the central bank to act immediately to allay depositors’ fears. The central bank, he said, “needs to put out the fire now and sort out who is guilty later”.

“They have delayed and delayed, and it only means the longer they leave it the more it is going to cost when they do have to rescue the banks,” he said. “If another day goes by it could happen in other banks. I don’t know what the central bank is thinking of.”

Money Market Rates, Tiny Signs of Improvements

Tiny signs of improvement…

Money-Market Rates in London Fall as Central Banks Inject Cash: “Money-market rates in London fell after central banks provided $254 billion of emergency cash to ease the paralysis in the credit markets and UBS AG got a $59 billion government bailout.

The London interbank offered rate, or Libor, that banks charge each other for three-month loans in dollars declined for a fourth day, sliding 5 basis points to 4.50 percent today, the British Bankers' Association said. The overnight rate fell 20 basis points to 1.94 percent, the lowest level since November 2004. Asian interbank rates also dropped.

The declines signal as much as $3 trillion of emergency funds provided by governments to tackle a collapse in trust between banks may be working. Libor is used to determine rates on $360 trillion of financial products worldwide, from mortgages to company loans, according to the BBA.”

Bodyweight Workouts During Economic Crisis

Uh oh. This is a real add.

"Due to the current economic situation, more and more people are finding themselves showing up less to their gyms. I'm here to show you the power of a good bodyweight workout - it's free and it works!"

So, if you blow you trading account, lose your house and shrivel up your 401k, don't even worry about it you can work out here for FREE.

[ Hat tip Brian Noob ]