FA Notes Wednesday November 2, 2011
David Einhorn – “Given the challenging macroeconomic environment, we intend, for the foreseeable future, to continue holding a significant position in gold and other macro hedges in the form of options on higher interest rates and foreign exchange rates, short positions in sovereign debt and sovereign credit-default swaps,” the reinsurer said in a regulatory filing yesterday. Link
Markit Economics said Wednesday its Purchasing Managers’ Index for the 17 nations that use the euro fell to 47.1 in October, from 48.5 in September. The reading means activity has now been shrinking for three months. Link
October ADP 110K vs. 100K est. Prior revised to 116K vs. 91K
The European Financial Stability Facility, the euro zone’s temporary rescue fund, plans to hold off on selling the €3 billion bond to fund the bailout of Ireland due to volatile market conditions, a person familiar with the situation said Wednesday. – WSJ
It added that it has hard disk drive (HDD) inventory until the end of November. "Substitutes for HHD are very few, so if the situation persists, not only notebook production will be affected but also desktops, and other component shipments will also drop," Asustek CFO David Chang told Reuters. He said the prices of HDDs are very mixed at the moment with some prices surging 20-40 percent. Up to half of the global supply of hard drives comes from Thailand. – Reuters
At Amazon, for example, Western Digital’s 1TB Caviar Black has skyrocketed to $199.99, up from around $90 less than a month ago. – Tech Report
Redemption requests, which were due by Oct. 31, totaled less than 8 percent of assets, or roughly $2.4 billion.. Since employees account for half of the fund’s overall assets, the recent withdrawals amount to nearly 16 percent of the outside capital.. Mr. Paulson ventured out on his own in 1994.. produced steady gains, returning an average 16 percent a year in his oldest fund through 2006.. encouraged by consultants like Cliffwater Associates and banks like Morgan Stanley and Bank of America Merrill Lynch. At the start of the year, Paulson & Company oversaw $38 billion compared to just $4 billion in 2007. Link
Business Insider reports on the founding of Groupon with insiders quotes. Link
MF – “Don’t ask me any hard questions,” he joked to a visitor who met with him just days after Mr. Corzine took over in March 2010. “I hadn’t heard of this company a week ago.” On the eve of its collapse, it had about $34 of debt for each $1 of capital it held, according to data from Keefe, Bruyette & Woods. By contrast, Goldman Sachs’ leverage ratio is $13.50 for every $1. In 1994, Mr. Corzine ascended to the top of Goldman Sachs despite hundreds of millions of dollars in trading losses at the bank’s bond unit, which he had overseen. Link