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People should just go to jail. Or the money from settlements should go to the tax payer. Fuck the SEC.

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The company expects to save $1.3 billion

Fist it was $600 mil, then a day or two ago $1.2 bil, and now it may even exceed that.

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The whole world seems to be in this position.

The question remains; will he be a scapegoat or pass go ?

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The bidding process for the order is crucial for both companies as sales have slipped recently.

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Tanking tankers…

NEW YORK (AP) — A dour quarterly report from the ocean shipping company Frontline sent a wave through the entire sector Tuesday and shares in some of the biggest operators tumbled sharply.

There were fears that shipping magnate John Fredriksen may have to step in once again to save Frontline, a company he founded, which said it would need to restructure or run out of money early next year.

The company posted third-quarter losses of $166.2, compared with a net income of $12.2 million during the same period last year.

Rates in the tanker market have been stagnant for years as a global economic funk settles across most developed countries, particularly in the West. Frontline warned that the tanker industry is likely to experience major financial problems if the market remains weak.

There is no quick recovery in sight.

Earlier this fall, Steve Ferdman celebrated getting a job offer from Credit Suisse in the usual Wall Street fashion. Over expensive oysters and dark rum cocktails at a trendy Manhattan restaurant with his parents, he toasted landing the full-time position after working six months as a consultant without benefits.

A week later, Mr. Ferdman, 28, sat alone at the same place and ordered a gin and tonic to lament getting laid off by the bank, for the second time since 2008. When he told the bartender about his misfortune, his next round was on the house.

“I did everything right. I came into work every day, I put in long hours, and I still got punched in the face,” Mr. Ferdman said. “People shouldn’t want to work in this industry anymore.”

Being young on Wall Street once meant having it all: style, smarts and too much money to spend wisely. Now, twenty-somethings in the finance industry are losing both cash and cachet.

Andrew Sullivan for The New York TimesSam Meek, 27, of Greenwich, Conn., was laid off from his job at a hedge fund. “I’m scraping by right now,” he said.

Three years after the global financial crisis nearly brought Wall Street firms to the brink, the nation’s largest banks are again struggling. As profits wane, layoffs have claimed thousands of jobs and those still employed have watched their compensation shrink. These problems are set against the morale-crushing backdrop of the Occupy Wall Street movement, which has made a villain of a once-lionized industry.

Much of the burden of Wall Street’s latest retrenchment has fallen on young financiers. The number of investment bank and brokerage firm employees between the ages 20 and 34 fell by 25 percent from the third quarter of 2008 to the same period of 2011, a loss of 110,000 jobs from layoffs, attrition and voluntary departures.

By comparison, industry headcount dropped by 17 percent in the same period, according to an analysis by The New York Times of data for New York City provided by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The number of staff members over the age of 55 decreased by only 11 percent.

Young financiers have experienced setbacks in the past. Bankers and traders who rushed wide-eyed to Wall Street in the halcyon days of the 1980s were waylaid by the stock market crash of Oct. 19, 1987, known as Black Monday. Then they got pummeled in 2000 by the dot-com collapse and the recession that followed.

But experts say that today’s doldrums, unlike previous downturns, are here to stay.

“A lot of the positions that are being cut right now aren’t coming back,” said Leslie K. Hild, a vice president with the recruiting firm Right Management. “It’s an emotional roller coaster for almost everyone.”

The industry’s woes have also affected the plans of undergraduate and graduate students at the nation’s top colleges.

At Harvard Business School, where a relatively high 39 percent of this year’s graduates went into finance, compared to 34 percent last year, there has been a “heck of a lot more anxiety” about next year’s hiring season, according to William A. Sahlman, a professor of business administration.

“People used to think of some of these organizations, like a Morgan Stanley or aGoldman Sachs, as safe career bets,” Professor Sahlman said. “Those firms are not going away, but they’re going to hire half the people they hired before.”

Several large firms are not recruiting new entry-level analysts for their investment banking divisions this fall, having filled their entire incoming class with last summer’s interns. At the University of Pennsylvania, whose Wharton School is the closest thing that exists to a Wall Street farm team, Goldman Sachs canceled its informational session.

The mood is even darker outside the Ivy League. Matthew Slotnick, a senior economics major at Boston College, said that he had sent more than 100 résumés to contacts on Wall Street and received several interviews. But he has not gotten any offers. Mr. Slotnick, who has wanted to work at an investment bank since entering college, is now applying to smaller banks and firms outside of New York.

“People are saying it’s sort of a 2007, 2008-type hiring climate,” he said. “I haven’t given up, but it’s a bit depressing.”

Any sympathy for Wall Street’s huddled masses yearning to get rich should be tempered by the fact that financial sector recessions often deal a soft blow. Laid-off financial workers typically get large severance packages, including the use of outplacement services. During their job hunt, many can draw on substantial savings built off past bonuses, on top of collecting unemployment.

But for those laid-off Wall Street workers whose golden tickets have vanished, the disillusionment is real.

Sam Meek, 27, who was laid off in September when his Connecticut hedge fund decided to downsize, used to spend $500 on charity dinners and lavish golf outings. Now, it’s home-cooked meals and beer on the sofa. Recently, Mr. Meek and his roommate, another unemployed banker who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he did not want to jeopardize his job search, sat together in the kitchen filing for unemployment and drinking a bottle of Champagne.

“I’m scraping by right now,” he said.

Mr. Meek, a former Marine, says he is pursuing several job options, including an opportunity to help develop a social network for the military. But he remains reluctant to commit to a new company.

“I’m doing full due diligence,” he said.

Older financiers are having problems, too. Ian C. Horowitz, 40, a former equity researcher at Rafferty Capital Markets, was laid off in June when his firm decided to outsource its research division. Mr. Horowitz currently collects $400 a week in unemployment benefits and has been mowing lawns and doing odd jobs around his New Jersey town to support his wife and two children.

Mr. Horowitz, who lived through the downturn of 2001, said that the latest cuts felt different.

“There have been economic moments where things were bad, but you knew the pendulum would swing the other direction,” he said. “This is structural. The playing field has changed.”

Wall Street’s social scene has also changed, thanks to Occupy Wall Street and the fear of reproach from industry outsiders. Today’s young bankers no longer brag about their jobs, especially in public. One twenty-something Goldman Sachs employee, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not allowed to speak on the record, said he now told new acquaintances he worked at a consulting firm.

The mood has darkened so much that even the young Wall Street workers who still have prestigious jobs are considering letting go of the brass ring.

“It’s lost its luster,” said a former Goldman analyst who left the financial sector this year. The former analyst, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he signed a confidentiality agreement with the firm, said that in addition to losing some of the monetary benefits of their jobs, his friends who remained in finance were suffering from peer envy. “The new status jobs aren’t at Goldman Sachs. They’re at Google, Apple and Facebook.”

For many of the high-achieving, type-A young professionals who end up on Wall Street, being tossed around by an industry in tumult can amount to the first real failure of their lives. Even if the industry recovers, some may not stick around long enough to see their fortunes improve.

“I’m still scratching my head,” said a former employee of Nomura, the large Japanese bank, who was laid off on Oct. 1. “I went to the right schools, I know the right people and I’m very good at what I do. But when you have to cut costs, you have to cut costs.”

The ex-Nomura employee, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because a confidentiality clause is attached to her severance package, said she had recently come across a group of Occupy Wall Street protesters in Lower Manhattan. While she said she did not support all their ideals, she could now sympathize with their frustrations about high unemployment and a growing sense of economic hopelessness.

“I’m in the same boat as these guys,” she said of the protesters. “I just want to start working.”

SOURCE: THE NEW YORK TIMES DEALBOOK

JPM will now own 4.7% of the London Metals Exchange

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Iraq said there was no approval from Baghdad or D.C.

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Stock markets were flat on Tuesday as the U.S. economy grew slower in the third quarter than estimated earlier, and the euro surrendered gains against the dollar after Spanish and Italian bond yields surged.

Wall Street’s S&P 500 index remained below 1,200 points after data showed U.S. gross domestic product grew at a 2 percent annual rate in the third quarter, down from a previous estimate of 2.5 percent.

While the stock market was quiet, tension continued to grow in funding markets, the key arteries of the financial system.

Severe dollar funding strains supported the U.S. dollar as European banks scrambled to secure cash in dollars after their longtime vehicle for short-term funds – U.S. prime money markets – have continued to cut exposure to that market.

Stress in the dollar money market showed little sign of abating, with the cost of swapping euros to dollars for three months near its widest level since 2008 on Tuesday.

U.S. Treasuries turned higher as safe-haven assets continued to attract demand. <US/>

Gold <GOL/>, theoretically a buy in times of distress, rose along with bonds, as did other commodities like oil <O/R>, copper <MET/L> and grains <GRA/> as investors looked for places to put their money besides stocks.

“It’s going to be tough sailing with no real clear-cut signs of global growth, coupled with the geopolitical situation on a worldwide basis,” said Michael Mullaney, a portfolio manager who helps manage $9.5 billion at Fiduciary Trust Co in Boston.

Half an hour after the open, Dow Jones industrial average .DJI was down 17.07 points, or 0.15 percent, at 11,530.24. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index .SPX was up 0.05 points, or 0.00 percent, at 1,193.03. The Nasdaq Composite Index .IXIC was up 4.49 points, or 0.18 percent, at 2,527.63.

World stocks as measured by MSCI .MIWD00000PUS were up 0.02 percent. The pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 .FTEU3 fell 0.08 percent after a 3.3 percent loss on Monday.

“This does not look like any weakness that one could buy into with a high degree of confidence,” said Jeremy Batstone-Carr, strategist at Charles Stanley.

Spain’s Treasury paid the highest yields in 14 years to issue short-term bills, heaping pressure on center-right Prime Minister-elect Mariano Rajoy to soothe nervous markets by fleshing out austerity plans following Sunday’s emphatic election victory.

SOURCE 

The price was not disclosed. 

The board has warned management that the company needs to strengthen it’s balance sheet or else face enforcement by regulators.

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Fun times for NFLX shareholders

“I got a raw deal”

BOSTON (AP) — Investment bank Jefferies Group Inc. on Monday tried to calm recent market worries about its financial exposure to Europe’s debt crisis with a letter stating that it has been the target of an orchestrated campaign of “malicious lies and false rumors” in the wake of the MF Global Holdings collapse.

The company said it has recently cut its exposure to debt-burdened European countries, and that it expects to post record operating results for its fiscal fourth quarter.

The letter follows a sell-off of Jefferies shares that has reduced their value by about one-third since Oct. 27.

A six-page letter addressed to “clients, shareholders, bondholders, employees and friends” from Chairman and CEO Rich Handler and Executive Committee Chair Brian Friedman said: “Throughout the month of November, Jefferies has been barraged by a group of people maliciously spreading rumors, half-truths and outright lies through every means possible, including calling analysts and security holders, as well as using the mass media in an effort to amplify and legitimize their efforts.”

GILD to buy VRUS

Rajoy and his peoples party took the majority vote over the socialists. In his acceptance speech he made clear that hey will ge to work right away to avoid becoming a bigger problem in the ongoing sovereign debt crisis.

This may spur a rally in equities as this is pretty much what markets were hoping for.

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Hell no, we won’t go — unless we get goose down pillows.

A key Occupy Wall Street leader and another protester who leads a double life as a businessman ditched fetid tents and church basements for rooms at a luxurious hotel that promises guests can “unleash [their] inner Gordon Gekko,” The Post has learned.

The $700-per-night W Hotel Downtown last week hosted both Peter Dutro, one of a select few OWS members on the powerful finance committee, and Brad Spitzer, a California-based analyst who not only secretly took part in protests during a week-long business trip but offered shelter to protesters in his swanky platinum-card room.

J.C. RICE

NO PARK-ING: Instead of Zuccotti Park squalor a swanky room at the W Hotel Downtown was more comfy for Brad Spitzer (pictured) and other well-heeled protesters.

J.C. RICE

A room at the W Hotel Downtown

Peter Dutro

“Tents are not for me,” he confessed, when confronted in the sleek black lobby of the Washington Street hotel where sources described him as a “repeat” guest.

Spitzer, 24, an associate at financial-services giant Deloitte, which netted $29 billion in revenue last year, admitted he joined the protest at Zuccotti Park several times.

“I’m staying here for work,” said Spitzer, dressed down in a company T-shirt and holding a backpack and his suitcase. “I do finance, but I support it still.”

During his stay, hotel sources said, he and other ragtag revolutionaries he brought into the hotel lived like 1 percenters. He would order up a roll-out bed to accommodate guests, they said.

“He’s here all the time,” a hotel source said. “We all see him at the protest.”

Spitzer denied sheltering Occupiers. He claimed he only invited in a blogger buddy living at the park to wash off his camp grime.

Meanwhile, Dutro, 35, one of only a handful of OWS leaders in charge of the movement’s $500,000 in donations, checked in on Wednesday, the night after police emptied Zuccotti Park.

While hundreds of his rebel brethren scrambled to find shelter in church basements, Dutro chose the five-star, 58-story hotel, with its lush rooms and 350-count Egyptian cotton sheets. He lives only a short taxi ride away in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn.

“I knew everything was going to be a clusterf–k in the morning,” he told The Post, alluding to Occupy’s own disruption plans. “How would I get over the bridge when they were shutting it down?”

The tattoo artist-turned-Occupy money man took the elevator up to the fifth-floor welcome desk, where a disc jockey spins tunes and guests enjoy a vista of the growing freedom tower.

He said he spent $500 of his own money to get the room because he wanted a good night’s rest ahead of the cause’s two-month ceremony the next day and raucous post-raid protests.

“I knew . . . there was a high probability of getting arrested,” he said. “I wanted a nice room. That’s OK. Not everybody there is dirt poor.”

He paid for the palace with his American Express card.

“It is an expensive hotel. Whatever,” he said.

The rooms have 37-inch flat-screen TVs, window seats overlooking the city and iPod-dock alarm clocks. Visitors can order 12-year-old Glenlivet scotch for $375 a bottle, or an $18 pastrami sandwich, from room service. There’s even a menu for four-legged guests, including a $16 dog dish of Niman Ranch ground beef.

He claims he chose the W for its convenience, not its luxury.

“I’m not in the business of throwing money away,” he said. “It’s the only room I could find.”

And he claims he took care of comrades in less-comfortable digs.

“I took food to all those churches,” he said. “I got them cigarettes.”

Occupiers told The Post that they witnessed other General Assembly and group leaders stay in both the W Downtown and the Marriott Hotel — and said that key players were not present when cops stormed Zuccotti.
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