John At The Center

I see there is an economic difference between owning the actual stock and owning synthetic stock via options: If you own the actual stock, you can loan it out right now for a ridiculous rate of interest to people who seek to short it. You cannot similarly loan out synthetic stock, and this accounts for the price differential.

Put another way, the stock price is being amplified by a factor of 2.5 because so many people are willing to pay a premium to short it. Welcome to wonderland, Alice.

via self-evident » Ben Graham would be proud.

The professionals and the bloggers scored roughly the same — which in itself tells you something. As usual, the bloggers were more bullish than the pros, but this quarter Apple’s actual results in most categories blew past even the most optimistic of the bulls.

via Apple’s Q2: Analyzing the analysts – Apple 2.0.

Funware or gaming features such as points systems, leaderboards and other competitions have already moved from gaming to other sites, such as corporate Web sites and user-generated review sites, as a way of keeping users coming back often. Now personal finance sites are drawing on this trend as well.

via Start-Ups Trying To Bring Fun Back To Personal Finance – Venture Capital Dispatch – WSJ.

Financial Innovations is an independent publisher of advisory reports and subscription newsletters for the financial services industry: banks, credit unions, mortgage lenders, card issuers, professional advisors, and technology providers.

via Online Financial Innovations: Latest Trends in the Internet Banking Industry..

The Pew Research Center asked 1,003 Americans what they considered to be a necessity, as opposed to a luxury they could live without, and got these results:

via Felix Salmon » Blog Archive » Chart of the day: Necessities Blogs .

Fed study puts ideal interest rate at -5%

The ideal interest rate for the US economy in current conditions would be minus 5 per cent, according to internal analysis prepared for the Federal Reserve’s last policy meeting.

The analysis was based on a so-called Taylor-rule approach that estimates an appropriate interest rate based on unemployment and inflation.

via Greg Mankiw’s Blog: Fed staff goes negative.

A friend, and successful consultant, describes the value proposition for investors this way: “I can tell you the principal role is to be in charge of blame so as to relieve Chief Investment Officers and fiduciaries of that burden. The rest is ceremonial.”

via Hanz and Franz, and the Prudence Protection Racket.

Mint, the popular personal finance site that won 2007’s TechCrunch40, is launching a new feature called “Financial Fitness”

via Mint Turns Personal Finance Into A Game. It’s Better Than It Sounds.

Some analysts point to Morgan Stanley as an example of the compensation conundrum. The bank had a dismal quarter, losing $578 million, but still put aside $2.08 billion for compensation. That amount, though lower than the compensation at Goldman, was 68 percent of revenue.

Mr. Hintz, the analyst, said the bank could have avoided losing 57 cents a share if it had reserved less revenue for compensation.

via After a Pause, Wall Street Pay Bounces Back – NYTimes.com.

An examination of Mr. Geithner’s five years as president of the New York Fed, an era of unbridled and ultimately disastrous risk-taking by the financial industry, shows that he forged unusually close relationships with executives of Wall Street’s giant financial institutions.

via Geithner, Member and Overseer of Finance Club – NYTimes.com.