03/03/10 Baltimore, Maryland – Every crisis comes with political baggage. This morning, the US Justice Department is said to be “requesting” that certain hedge funds reveal their bets against the euro.
Under pressure from their EU counterparts, say rumors making their way around the Internet, the Department of Justice is tracking down fund managers who attended a particular dinner in February hosted by Monness, Crespi, Hardt & Co., a NYC brokerage firm. The managers there supposedly discussed taking short positions in the euro and in US banks while going long the Canadian dollar…all fantastic trading ideas, if you ask us.
But such “counterproductive” trading, as Ben Bernanke put it Monday, is irritating the masters of the universe. The Justice Department wants to investigate whether sharing such information amounts to collusion, and wants to crosscheck the trading histories of each firm.
(Hmmmn… We’re having a dinner tonight with several of our Agora Financial colleagues and analysts. We’ll no doubt be discussing gold, the euro, Wall Street banks and the Canadian dollar. Should we too be worried?)
On the blacklist: Greenlight Capital, SAC Capital Advisors, Soros Fund Management and Paulson & Co., all of which have announced large gold positions in the past year.
Last October, we saw Greenlight’s founder David Einhorn give a speech at the Value Investing Congress in NYC. He railed against the Fed and outlined his philosophical position in buying gold as an insurance against financial calamity. It wasn’t notable for what was said, we remember writing at the time, but who was saying it and where.
We also thought Mr. Einhorn was begging for an audit…or worse. Heh. We’ll let you know if these blogosphere horror stories have any merit.
Addison Wiggin
for The Daily Reckoning
Addison Wiggin
Addison Wiggin is the executive publisher of Agora Financial, LLC, a fiercely independent economic forecasting and financial research firm. He’s the creator and editorial director of Agora Financial’s daily 5 Min. Forecast and editorial director of The Daily Reckoning. Wiggin is the founder of Agora Entertainment, executive producer and co-writer of I.O.U.S.A., which was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival, the 2009 Critics Choice Award for Best Documentary Feature, and was also shortlisted for a 2009 Academy Award. He is the author of the companion book of the film I.O.U.S.A.and his second edition of The Demise of the Dollar… and Why it’s Even Better for Your Investments was just fully revised and updated. Wiggin is a three-time New York Times best-selling author whose work has been recognized by The New York Times Magazine, The Economist, Worth, The New York Times, The Washington Post as well as major network news programs. He also co-authored international bestsellers Financial Reckoning Day and Empire of Debt with Bill Bonner.
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Thanks Addison,
Great to know.
Please keep providing information abouthe whatever the Masters of the Universe are doing in the future. It is among the most useful financial information one can have and there is a shortage of such info.
You would certainly be at the top of my reading list if you could continue with such insights.
Best,
J.
Hugh Hendry is shorting too, it looks like.
Hi Addison,
It might also be that US governement rather have a weak dollar … So many read it as a Euro protection where it could be a dollar protection…