“We try to hide religiously,” explained Steven Feinberg, the CEO of a takeover firm called Cerberus Capital Management that recently drove one of its targets into bankruptcy after saddling it with $2.3 billion in debt. “If anyone at Cerberus has his picture in the paper and a picture of his apartment, we will do more than fire that person,” Feinberg told shareholders in 2007. “We will kill him. The jail sentence will be worth it.”
BORIS BEREZOVSKY’S present has now been returned. One day in 2007 Mr Berezovsky, the exiled Russian oligarch, pounced on his onetime business partner and now sworn rival, Roman Abramovich, in a Hermès boutique in London. “I have a present for you,” Mr Berezovsky reportedly said, serving him with a writ for what would become a $5 billion lawsuit—the largest in British history.
At its core, the case centered on whether, as Mr Berezovsky claimed, Mr Abramovich threatened him into selling his share of the Russian oil major Sibneft, along with other assets, at a greatly undervalued price after Mr Berezovsky fell out with President Vladimir Putin and fled Russia in 2000. (Mr Berezovsky parted with his stake of Sibneft for $1.3 billion in 2001; Mr Abramovich sold his own stake of the company for $11.9 billion in 2005.) For his part, Mr Abramovich said that Mr Berezovsky never owned a part of Sibneft at all, but rather that Mr Abramovich paid him for krysha, which literally means “roof,” but in the world of Russian business suggests a combination of access, protection, and generally making sure the necessary things happen and the unwelcome things don’t.-from the Economist
“Having used brilliantly-crafted words to buy a few weeks of market tranquility, the last thing central bankers want today is to use Jackson Hole to prematurely signal the difficulties of implementing on their own sufficient follow-up actions.”-wrote Mohamed El Arian in FT
I want to share a quick thought with you today–a little trick in thinking that made a big difference in my trading a few years ago. One of the problems with traders is that we can be stubborn. This happens to everyone, and no one is ever immune to it. It takes a lot of confidence to pull the trigger, and sometimes much analysis and hard work has gone into justifying the trade. What do we do when contradictory information emerges? Well, sometimes the shock of seeing that the trade is wrong can even cause traders to freeze, with disastrous consequences.
I developed a little trick that might seem trivial, but it is very important. Simply put, anytime to you put a trade on, assume that the trade is going to be a loser. No matter how much analysis, how many supporting factors, or how perfect the pattern is, assume that the trade will lose money. This creates a profound shift in your focus because, rather than searching for and possibly discounting contradictory evidence (which can sometimes be as simple as “I just bought and now it’s going down…”), you will be open to and will readily accept contradicting information. Of course you will, because you assumed the trade was wrong to begin with. When you find confirmation for the trade, it is almost a pleasant surprise. Shift your thinking into this mode, and you will be much less likely to overstay your welcome in suboptimal setups that are not working out–you’ll be far more likely to do the right thing, which is usually to pull the plug on the trade (time stop) and look for a better opportunity.- wrote veteran trader Adam Grimes
Even without a new high-tech “fix” for aging, the United Nations estimates that life expectancy over the next century will approach 100 years for women in the developed world and over 90 years for women in the developing world. (Men lag behind by three or four years.)-wrote David Duncan in FT