At some point, Wall Street will dry out, the New York Stock Exchange will return to life, and the traders will roll back into Lower Manhattan. And by most accounts, they will continue their trend of purchasing garbage. Junk bonds are living up to their name again. Companies with junk credit ratings have been increasingly [...]

This seems like a fantastic idea. The new rage on Wall Street is a “synthetic” derivative that allows people to “take positions in the US junk bond market without owning the underlying securities.” Basically, you’re talking about mortgage-backed securities for the junk bond market. The junk bond market! We’ve known about increases in the junk [...]

Here’s something sure to make me shed a tear for that hedge fund manager who complained to the President about getting “whacked like a pinata.” Turns out his core businesses just aren’t generating the obscene profits of recent years anymore. Even after taxpayer bailouts restored bankers’ profits and pay, the great Wall Street money machine [...]