Category: Economics

She was a smart lady:

I still remember Ed Seykota would not speak with me until I read Atlas Shrugged.

Consider a wire excerpt:

Now, the collateral damage is likely to add to the chaos that has already been ravaging hedge funds. Spooked by losses and forced to raise cash quickly as the financial crisis ballooned, investors have sought to pull out their money from hedge funds, causing serious pain, and even some forced closures. A growing list of large, well-known firms have sought to block redemption requests in an effort to stem a mass exodus of investors who now desperately want to get into cash. In a letter sent Friday, the Citadel Investment Group said it was halting redemptions at its two largest hedge funds through March 31. Confidence will only weaken further with the Madoff firm scandal, intensifying pain for the industry. “If you couple this with the deleveraging already, this means one thing: more redemptions,” said Campbell R. Harvey, a professor at the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University.

So is this a bullish sign for U.S. stocks? Heavy sarcasm.

I mentioned the other day I was meeting with a trader in Dallas. Well, that ‘trader’ corrected me today during the interview. Boone Pickens prefers to be called an investor and doesn’t consider himself a trader. To hear about his +600% for 2005 is simply inspiring. He is the rare man whipping Wall Street when many of his peers have retired. I don’t get the impression Boone Pickens is slowing down – he seems to be picking up speed at 78.

Note: Pickens is quoted about Salem Abraham in my book TurtleTrader.