TheStreet Search RSS Feed: Glenn Hall

JPMorgan Defections Show Dodd-Frank Isn't Toothless - Today's Outrage

Thu, 08 Mar 2012 12:37:04 EST

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- The departure of JPMorgan's global head of proprietary trading, Mike Stewart, to start up a hedge fund seems to show that new banking regulations may not be toothless afterall.

The Financial Times, which broke the story, described the exodus of Stewart and other members of his team as a setback for JPMorgan.

The story has been picked up by other financial media, which all took pains to label the defections as fallout from U.S. regulatory moves to limit proprietary trading under the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act....

Click to view a price quote on JPM.

Click to research the Banking industry.

Why Is It Always About the Banks? --Today's Outrage

Tue, 18 Oct 2011 10:15:17 EDT

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Why does it always have to be about the banks?

Today we see encouraging earnings reports from two American icons of industry -- Coca-Cola and Harley-Davidson -- and all anyone wants to talk about are earnings reports from Goldman Sachs and Bank of America.

Yes, I know this is only the second quarterly loss in Goldman's history as a publicly traded stock and that one-off actions helped propel Bank of America to quarterly profit of more than $6 billion. ...

Click to view a price quote on GS.

Click to research the Financial Services industry.

Is Larry Ellison Hell-Bent on Killing HP? - Today's Outrage

Thu, 29 Sep 2011 09:40:28 EDT

REDWOOD CITY, California (TheStreet) -- Either Oracle CEO Larry Ellison is determined to destroy HP or he's engaged in a brilliant strategy to drive down HP's stock so that he can buy it at a bargain price.

Either way, Ellison seems to relish turning the dagger in HP's back every chance he gets.

At first I thought Ellison just had it in for Leo Apotheker because the recently ousted HP CEO had previously led SAP, which Oracle was battling over charges of software theft that Ellison's team ultimately won in court. ...

Click to view a price quote on ORCL.

Click to research the Computer Software & Services industry.

GM Thinks It's OK to Spy on You - Outrage

Wed, 28 Sep 2011 10:17:01 EDT

DETROIT (TheStreet) -- General Motors learned some bad tricks from its former government overlords -- like the idea that spying on its customers is acceptable.

It's bad enough that we have a U.S. Department of Homeland Security watching our every move, but Et tu, Brute?

I'm talking about GM's OnStar service, which the company uses to track the behavior of its customers and -- until it faced political heat also monitored the activities of GM car owners who didn't want the OnStar service. Now headlines about GM's Big Brother flap are rightly zipping around the Internet. ...

Click to view a price quote on GM.

Click to research the Automotive industry.

Bill Gross Must Have Warren Buffett Envy - Outrage

Thu, 22 Sep 2011 09:35:01 EDT

NEW YORK (TheStreet) - There are only two explanations for Pimco investment in a troubled North Carolina community bank - either Bill Gross has Warren Buffett envy or he's still bitter about not getting picked to run the government bank bailout back in 2008.

Personally I think it's Buffett envy, but being rejected for the top TARP job a few years back no doubt feeds into motivation to buy ECB Bancorp, which Reuters reported is the target of Pimco's new $2.3 billion "Bravo" fund.

Gross must have felt impotent, watching Buffett fly to the rescue of Goldman Sachs and more recently Bank of America, while Pimco's German parent Allianz kept Pimco focused on bonds. Now that Allianz unleashed Pimco and untied Gross' hands, he's obviously got a lot of catching up to do. ...

Click to view a price quote on AZ.

Fed Should Just Ignore Republicans - Outrage

Wed, 21 Sep 2011 09:26:05 EDT

NEW YORK (TheStreet) - The Federal Reserve should just ignore Republican leaders trying to bully the central bank into leaving the economy alone.

That's not to say the Republicans are wrong. I'm just saying the Fed should do what it thinks is best for the U.S. That's why the Fed exists and why it is granted so much independence from political meddling.

House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, and the other Republican leaders who sent a letter to Fed Chairman Bernanke this week have every right to express their opinions on monetary policy and Bernanke has every right to ignore them. I think that's best for everyone. ...

Google Can't Afford Not to Pay Off Oracle - Outrage

Tue, 20 Sep 2011 10:35:26 EDT

NEW YORK (TheStreet) - Oracle has Google by the nose. The Java dispute, while somewhat downplayed in the media, is a huge threat to Android.

While Google's patent battles with Apple over similarities between Android devices and the iPhone are getting all the attention, Oracle's shakedown should be taken more seriously.

I guess everyone just figures it will eventually be resolved since the battle with Oracle is just business; it's not personal like the fight with Apple. For now, at least, that may be true. But I wouldn't want to get on the bad side of Oracle CEO Larry Ellison. ...

Click to view a price quote on GOOG.

Click to research the Internet industry.

'Delta', 'Alpha' Teams Provide Cover for 'Rogue' Traders - Outrage

Fri, 16 Sep 2011 10:05:46 EDT

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- It seems so obvious now. The reason banks use covert-sounding team names like the "Delta One" desk at UBS and the "Alpha" fund at Goldman Sachs is because they really are trying to cover things up.

These are the banking equivalents of special forces. They are meant to operate in the shadows; no one is supposed to know much about them or what they do. When things go wrong, the teams are disavowed. They become "rogue traders" and their actions are decried as "unauthorized."

Officially, Delta and Alpha are financial terms referring to the change in price of a derivative versus its underlying asset and the risk-adjusted return on an investment, respectively. But that is clearly just a cover. ...

Click to view a price quote on UBS.

Click to research the Banking industry.

Obama, Boehner Need to Get Back to Earth - Outrage

Thu, 15 Sep 2011 15:08:53 EDT

Adds details from House Speaker Boehner's speech in Washington starting in 1st paragraph.

WASHINGTON (TheStreet) -- House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, quipped today that he and President Barack Obama are from different planets ideologically.

That might actually have been funny if the remark hadn't been made during a discussion about job creation that reinforced barriers to compromise on proposals intended to get the 14 million unemployed Americans back to work. ...

UBS CEO Should be Fired for $2 Billion Blunder - Outrage (Update1)

Thu, 15 Sep 2011 12:35:11 EDT

Updated with details of past 'unauthorized' trade scandal at UBS starting in 4th paragraph.

ZURICH (TheStreet) - UBS CEO Oswald J. Gruebel should stop blaming others for his failure to properly manage his bank.

If the best he can do to explain a $2 billion blunder is to make a scapegoat out of some low-level trader, then Gruebel should be in a different line of work. ...

Click to view a price quote on UBS.

Click to research the Banking industry.

European Contagion Fuels Short ETFs

Mon, 12 Sep 2011 16:18:08 EDT

Editor's note: As part of our partnership with PBS's Nightly Business Report, TheStreet's Glenn Hall joined NBR Tuesday (watch video and read transcript here) to discuss ETF options for betting on or against Europe as Greece teeters on the brink of default. NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- The twists and turns of Europe's efforts to resolve its mounting debt crisis are creating an unpredictable tug of war between long and short exchange traded funds linked to European markets.

ETFs that seek to match the performance of markets in France, Italy and Germany have delivered decent returns that topped 10% and flirted with levels above 20% for much of the year, but those gains have been quickly erased every time news about the Greek debt drama emerged or pundits started stoking fear of contagion spreading to other countries.

Lately, the negativity appears to be holding longer than before and now the "short" and "ultrashort" ETFs -- designed to go in the opposite direction of European markets -- have been breaking away and delivering consistent gains. ...

Click to view a price quote on EWQ.

Click to research the Financial Services industry.

Nationalist Fervor Deludes Dimon - Outrage

Mon, 12 Sep 2011 09:50:18 EDT

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon appears to be suffering from a form of delusional paranoia that makes him believe everyone is out to get his bank.

The latest manifestation of this disorder is Dimon's outburst against the global banking regulation initiative known as the Basel III capital rules. The JPMorgan chief calls the rules "blatantly anti-American" in an interview with the Financial Times.

Some form of self-delusional dementia is causing Dimon to confuse rules targeting the largest banks in the world as rules targeting American banks. ...

Click to view a price quote on JPM.

Click to research the Banking industry.

Doesn't Matter What's in Obama's Job Plan - Outrage

Wed, 07 Sep 2011 13:05:00 EDT

WASHINGTON (TheStreet) -- President Obama shouldn't start a fight with Republicans over job creation plans.

There's nothing he can say to win over Republicans gearing up for an election year, so he should just give up now.

When the president stands before Congress and the American people tomorrow to talk about the desperate need to create jobs in this country, he should simply pledge his support for any plan the Republicans can agree upon. ...

Regulators Finally See Evil of RoboTrading - Outrage

Fri, 02 Sep 2011 10:13:59 EDT

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- It took long enough, but regulators have finally recognized that robotrading poses a massive and uncontrolled threat to the stability of the markets.

Robotic fingerprints have been all over every crime scene in the markets since the so-called "flash crash" last year. Machine trading that can submit and pull phantom orders in picoseconds -- we're talking about one trillionth of a second here -- can be used to trick unwitting counterparties into a bad trade.

This activity, with the understated name of "high-frequency trading", turns into a machine feeding frenzy every time stocks start to gain any momentum. That's how the programs work. Rocket scientists -- who really should be doing something more productive with their brain power -- have programmed complex algorithms to respond to technical signals in the market and start executing rapid-fire orders. ...

Click to view a price quote on GS.

Click to research the Financial Services industry.

'Fast Money' Recap: Netflix at Crossroads

Thu, 01 Sep 2011 19:19:30 EDT

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- The markets started a new month on the downside ahead of Friday's jobs report.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 119.96, or 1.03%, to 11, 493.57. The S&P 500 dropped 14.47, or 1.19%, to 1,204.42. The Nasdaq slid 33.42, or 1.30%, to 2546.04.

Herb Greenberg, CNBC's senior stocks commentator, said on the "Fast Money" TV show that Netflix may have reached a crossroads after Starz Entertainment decided not to renew its contract to provide movies. Netflix shares were down more than 8%. ...

Click to view a price quote on NFLX.

Click to research the Specialty Retail industry.