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Articles by Ryan Chittum | Email the Author

 

1. The Audit

   CDO Complexity in Context

   April 30, 2009 02:15 PM

   Thought you were the only one who really doesn't understand collateralized debt obligations or, better yet, CDO-Squareds? Rest easy. No one really does. The Alea blog pulls this fascinating quote from a speech by Bank of England official... Continue reading

2. The Audit

   Bloomberg: Schapiro’s FINRA Dumped Debt Early

   April 30, 2009 09:29 AM

   Bloomberg has a good scoop on FINRA's, the financial industry's self-regulator, suspiciously well-timed exit from the auction-rated securities market. FINRA had jumped head first into that market, loading up with $862 million in auction-rated securities before it got out... Continue reading

3. The Audit

   The FT, Germany, and the Weimar Republic

   April 29, 2009 04:44 PM

   This FT story seems like a reach to me. It reports that Germany is abuzz that the financial crisis resembles the Weimar days. And you know what that implies. The story opens cinematically, with a scene from a meeting... Continue reading

4. The Audit

   WSJ Scoop on Citi’s $100 Million Man

   April 29, 2009 01:41 PM

   The Journal has a nice scoop that Citigroup is begging the government to let it pay big bonuses to "key employees," particularly those in its energy-trading group. How big might those bonuses be? Well, the head of the energy... Continue reading

5. The Audit

   Yet Another Reason to Dislike Securitization

   April 29, 2009 09:20 AM

   The Rortybomb blog has an illuminating post on how the mortgage industry used credit scores to replace old-fashioned due diligence—and how it didn't work. It points to an academic paper that found that securitization, unsurprisingly, backfired. Apparently, there was... Continue reading

6. The Audit

   Bronte Capital with a Major Scoop on Alleged Fraudster

   April 28, 2009 06:12 PM

   John Hempton the excellent Aussie blogger who writes Bronte Capital appears to have a blockbuster of a scoop. A Connecticut hedge fund called Ponta Negra Group, run by 27-year old Francesco Rusciano has been frozen by the SEC,... Continue reading

7. The Audit

   FDIC’s Pitch to End “Too Big to Fail”

   April 28, 2009 04:52 PM

   Is it me or does it seem like FDIC Chairwoman Sheila Bair is about the only person in Washington who gets it. Just the other day, we saw her fighting Tim Geithner's bumbling plan back in mid-2007 to let... Continue reading

8. The Audit

   NYT’s GM Lede Is in the Trunk

   April 28, 2009 11:34 AM

   The New York Times leads its front page with news of the latest General Motors plan for its future, but the paper buries the lede. And when i say "buries" I mean buries. The paper doesn't tell readers until... Continue reading

9. The Audit

   SEC Follows Journal’s Ponzi Story

   April 28, 2009 09:07 AM

   Remember that awesome Wall Street Journal story a couple of weeks ago on the shady financier Danny Pang? It took less than two weeks for the SEC to charge him with fraud and freeze his assets—or what's left... Continue reading

10. The Audit

    NYT, Portfolio Profiles Land a One-Two Punch on Geithner

    April 27, 2009 03:20 PM

    Tim Geithner is the subject of two major profiles in recent days. He doesn't come out so well in either of them. Today's New York Times has a deeply researched blowout on Geithner running some 5,400 words—not many of... Continue reading

11. The Audit

    Condé Nast Shuts Down Portfolio

    April 27, 2009 12:56 PM

    The writing has pretty much been on the wall for Portfolio since the recent news that it had a staggering 46 percent decline in advertising (60 percent if you don't account for the fact that it decreased publication from... Continue reading

12. The Audit

    The Newspaper Death Spiral Accelerates

    April 27, 2009 09:25 AM

    If you haven't made your peace with the coming wave of newspaper deaths, now might be a good time. Editor & Publisher has the six-month circulation numbers for the Top 25 newspapers, and they're just devastating. Half of... Continue reading

13. The Audit

    The Journal Just Loves This Obama Flip-Flop

    April 24, 2009 03:38 PM

    You know something's up when The Wall Street Journal editorial board gives President Obama "three cheers" for anything. You really know something's up when it praises him for lying to voters during the campaign. But Gigot & Co. are... Continue reading

14. The Audit

    Newspapers Blank on Billions in Fed Losses

    April 24, 2009 01:19 PM

    The Federal Reserve finally opted for a little transparency with some of the trillions it's put us on the hook for to bail out the financial industry. How many newspapers covered it? Zero. And what did we find out? That... Continue reading

15. The Audit

    NYT Is Excellent on Mortgage-Biz Linchpin

    April 24, 2009 09:04 AM

    Here's a good angle on the mortgage mess. The New York Times reports on an entity I haven't read much about: A firm called MERS that holds 60 million mortgages in the U.S. and is causing all sorts of... Continue reading

16. The Audit

    FT Editor Criticizes Financial Press’s Performance

    April 23, 2009 01:41 PM

    We're going on two years into this still-unfolding crisis and most of the financial press has yet to cop to not doing all it could in the years leading up to the crash. So, it's refreshing to see Lionel Barber,... Continue reading

17. The Audit

    Lewis on Merrill: The Government Made Me Do It!

    April 23, 2009 09:10 AM

    A Journal scoop this morning goes a ways toward filling in the details of just what Bank of America's Ken Lewis was thinking during the last weeks of his disastrous merger with Merrill Lynch, when he didn't disclose the... Continue reading

18. The Audit

    Why Pay $100 a Year for the Journal?

    April 22, 2009 07:41 PM

    Amy Gahran over at Poynter points out something I've been wondering about, too: Why is The Wall Street Journal giving its content away—on mobile phones? I downloaded the WSJ iPhone application last week and have to say it's pretty... Continue reading

19. The Audit

    Portfolio to Credit Suisse: “Good Doggie”

    April 22, 2009 12:18 PM

    Jesse Eisinger of Portfolio points to a bank doing something right on compensation for once and throws them a deserved bone in the form of some rare positive press. Somehow I'm not surprised the good-actor bank is not an... Continue reading

20. The Audit

    Journal Gives “Too Big to Fail” Some Play

    April 22, 2009 09:13 AM

    Applaud The Wall Street Journal for, alone among most papers, reporting on the congressional testimony yesterday on the "too big to fail" problem. The paper gives it good play, too, though its just a short wire story (I'll take... Continue reading

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