The “World’s Largest Prop Trading Desk” Just Went Bust

Tyler Durden’s analysis on the whale of the blowup over in Jamie Dimon’s house. His thesis is most disturbing: JPM was willing to take such large risks as they knew they’d be bailed out if they went bust.

Read the article here.

JC Parets of All Star Charts presents technical analysis of the Russell 2000, where he covers the massive head and shoulders pattern that has developed in 2012.

Read his analysis here.

Marc Faber, publisher of the Gloom, Boom & Doom report, sees stocks crashing “like in 1987” if stocks climb absent further stimulus from the Federal Reserve.

Read the article here.

An excellent collection of thoughts by a trader about trading, City short-termism, high pay, the excitement of recent years and why he now wants a way out. This monologue is part of a series in which people across the financial sector speak about their working lives.

Read the article here.

Tyler Durden is out with another scary chart from Europe and some commentary explaining why the end is likely near for the EU experiment.

Read the article and see the chart here.

Even if I tried, I couldn’t make this stuff up. The sexually harassing comments made by this “lady” read like a scene right out of Horrible Bosses. Here is a sample:

17.      On or about July 28, 2011, Defendant Matranga was sitting in a chair adjacent Plaintiff’s desk. Plaintiff dropped a pen and went to retrieve the pen from the floor. When he did so Defendant Matranga stated, “While your down there, why don’t you help yourself to some ‘duck taco’.”

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Short seller John Carnes (who used to work with Muddy Waters LLC founder Carson Block) is tired of all the infamy and lawsuits brought about by the tactics he used to drive down share prices. What is he going to do now? Why of course, he is going to work for the Federal Government.

Read the article here.

Contrarians note: average investors are shunning stocks. But it may not be enough to restart a bull market.

Read the article here.

Despite his populist posturing, the president has failed to pin a single top finance exec on criminal charges since the economic collapse. Are the banks too big to jail—or is Washington’s revolving door at to blame? Peter J. Boyer and Peter Schweizer investigate:

Read the article here.

Financial executives are worried about tougher regulations should Socialist leader Francois Hollande win the French presidential election. They should be.

Read the article here.

Remarkably, Exchange-Traded Funds have grown from $0 to $1 trillion in just 20 years. As they are still a relatively new and rapidly growing asset class, it is time to consider how they might contribute to the instability of financial markets.

Read the article here.

Almost every recent SNL has opened with a skit mocking the GOP. Last’s night opening skit would have changed that, but for some reason, SNL scrapped the skit. Here is the transcript of the scrapped skit. Read the article which broke this story here.

Chris Turner, a guest contributor at Advisorperspectives.com, takes apart one of Paul Krugman’s recent commentaries. When he is finished, Krugman’s claims of “unprecedented austerity” by the Obama administration is shown to be a farce. Turner also includes many great charts showing the state and change of government spending over time.

Read the article here.

Photographer Stefan Koppelkamm travelled through East Germany just after the Berlin Wall fell. The photos show the stunning changes that have occurred in East Germany since the fall of Communism.

See the photo gallery here.

Mike Hapgood, who studies solar events, says the world isn’t prepared for a truly damaging storm. And one could happen soon.

Read the article here.

Trading volume has fallen off a cliff as the exchange is still troubled by the lingering fallout from the flash crash. Traders are literally sitting around doing nothing all day.

Read the article here.

Marx’s theories about society, economics and politics—collectively known as Marxism—hold that all societies progress through the dialectic of class struggle: a conflict between an ownership class which controls production and a lower class which produces the labour for such goods. Heavily critical of the current socio-economic form of society, capitalism, he called it the “dictatorship of the bourgeoisie“, believing it to be run by the wealthy classes purely for their own benefit, and predicted that, like previous socioeconomic systems, it would inevitably produce internal tensions which would lead to its self-destruction and replacement by a new system, socialism.^[5] He argued that under socialism society would be governed by the working class in what he called the “dictatorship of the proletariat“, the “workers state” or “workers’ democracy”.^[6][7] He believed that socialism would, in its turn, eventually be replaced by a stateless, classless society called communism. Along with believing in the inevitability of socialism and communism, Marx actively fought for the former’s implementation, arguing that both social theorists and underprivileged people should carry out organised revolutionary action to topple capitalism and bring about socio-economic change.^[8][9]

Revolutionary socialist governments espousing Marxist concepts took power in a variety of countries in the 20th century, leading to the formation of such socialist states as the Soviet Union in 1922 and the People’s Republic of China in 1949. Many labor unions and worker’s parties worldwide were also influenced by Marxist ideas. Various theoretical variants, such as Leninism, Stalinism, Trotskyism and Maoism, were developed. Marx is typically cited, with Émile Durkheim and Max Weber, as one of the three principal architects of modern social science.^[10] Marx has been described as one of the most influential figures in human history.^[11][12]

Wikipedia Karl Marx entry

Read the accompanying article here.

Ritholtz on the type of mutual funds and managers that active investors should avoid.

Read the article here.

Are the many new varieties of Vodka flavors (whipped cream, anyone?) a sign that the Vodka market is frothy and in danger of bubbling over?

Read the article here.