Lisa joined FT Alphaville in September 2011 after a tour of duty through the guts of the financial industry, having worked as an analyst at a bank and for a financial data company.
Before the poor decision-making began, she enjoyed science and maths A-Levels and managed a full year as an engineering student at uni. It started to go downhill when she switched to economics, for which she was awarded a first class honours degree by the University of Durham. She’s been frustrated with people who don’t behave as rational agents ever since.
From there, Lisa travelled to the Netherlands, embarking on an inordinately long MPhil programme in Economic & Financial Research at Maastricht University. In a colossal failure of time management, she also learned Dutch even though everyone there speaks English. Wat jammer.
Upon graduation, it was off to a front office role at a Bank of America in New York City just in time for the financial system to collapse and all the deals in the pipeline to get shelved. It was, however, the biggest analyst class they’d ever had, so she got to make a lot of new (soon-to-be completely depressed) friends!
Two years and a CFA level later, she had had quite enough of not structuring anything and it was off to financial data company Markit in London. Lisa worked as a credit analyst and got to play with databases a lot which made her very happy, but not quite as happy as writing for Alphaville does!
In addition to reporting, Lisa also does a lot of behind the scenes work around the website and organises stuff, which is probably suitable for someone once described by a close friend as being about as spontaneous as a space shuttle launch.
When she’s not obsessing over details, reading finance-type things, or writing, Lisa enjoys hiking, folk music, comedy, science-y things, and has an obsession with good coffee that borders on freakish.
She also would prefer that you didn’t know she’s American, having grown up in Oregon.
Lisa has “subscribe” switched on for Facebook, so click here if you want photos of coffee and general ridiculousness showing up in your stream.
It’s going to take awhile to go over the report of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee for Investigations. There are 1,654 footnotes and we wouldn’t want to miss a single one.
This, however, is one of our favourite exhibits thus far. Not that it’s shocking. More that it’s kinda like a famous artifact that we never thought we’d get to see: Read more
FT Alphaville is currently experiencing a sensation of rubbernecking around the recently nationalised Dutch financial group SNS Reaal.
With two separate wrecks on either side of the motorway to gape at, it’s hard to look away. On one side, there is all that went wrong with the financial group, and its ultimate fate. With a turn of the head, there are credit derivatives referencing SNS Bank for which payouts were triggered when the government swooped in.
Here, we digest news of the arrest of another suspect in an investigation into alleged fraud at the Property Finance unit of SNS Bank. This reached us on Wednesday courtesy of Vasco van der Boon reporting for Het Financieele Dagblad (FD). The failure of SNS Bank is in many ways the failure of this unit, so it’s worth a bit of a history lesson before proceeding to the actual allegations. Read more
Adding to the list after doctors who smoke, psychologists with serious family problems, and engineers who can’t figure out how to work the lights: an organisation that handles insolvencies in the UK that wouldn’t be able to stay afloat were it not for £89m of “rescue cash” between 2008 and 2012.
Go on, have a giggle before we get to the serious part… Read more
Meanwhile at Harvard Business School || An argument about excess reserves || Xi Jinping, China’s new president || Also, there’s a new pope || Tim Cook has to testify in ebook case || Blackberry gets order for 1m Z10s || Obama has words for China on cyber espionage || CFTC probes gold pricing || JPM-MF Global accord approved Read more
From Google Reader* on Thursday,
- Mathbabe goes finance myth-busting.
- Cyprus and the politics of contagion fear.
The future of financial benchmarks || Transition at the BoJ || Spectre of stagflation in the UK || 787 Dreamliner could return within weeks || Turkey emerges as economic victor from Iraq War || IBM uses big data on brain injuries || Republican budget proposal || Silicon Valley hits India over trade || China’s steel output rises || Bailout talks in Cyprus || Market Update Read more
Good morning, New York
It’s the second business day that London and NYC are only four hours apart thanks to Daylight Savings Time. Just think of how much easier transatlantic communications would be if it was always like this. Sigh… Read more
Breaking: deputy prime minister Nick Clegg has hit soundbite pay dirt.
In Tuesday’s FT he is quoted as saying that the Funding for Lending Scheme, whereby financial institutions get cheap loans from the Bank of England to boost credit to the wider economy, should be “put on steroids”.
The nationalisation of the fourth largest bank in the Netherlands is proving to be a pain for the credit derivatives market. It’s only by virtue of the small number of contracts outstanding that referenced SNS Bank that this hasn’t been making more headlines and causing more consternation.
The Isda Determinations Committee has already declared that the expropriation of the subordinated debt of the bank was a restructuring credit event, and that there might be some auctions to determine payouts under the swaps. But it looks like that result of the auctions could prove a bit farcical, with buyers of protection walking away with very little compensation for the total loss experienced by subordinated debt holders. Read more
As the FT reports on Monday, banks in Europe are rushing to redraft executive pay deals in order to comply with recently passed legislation capping bonuses at the amount of fixed pay, or twice that amount where approved by investors.
We submit for discussion an illustration plus narrative on the subject the bonus cap, penned by Kevin Roose. (H/T Barry Ritholtz) Read more
Good morning, New York…
Daylight Savings Time started on Sunday, moving clocks forward an hour. British Summer Time doesn’t begin until March 31st, so enjoy easier to schedule transatlantic conference calls while it lasts. Read more
Elsewhere on Monday,
- The banking hierarchy explained.
- Economic expansion, here we come.
- Where the money in IPOs is. Read more
In Part 1, we looked at the Futuretrack data that showed female graduates in the UK earning less than their male colleagues. This appears to hold even when graduates did the same degree, went to a similar university, and so on. It is particularly concerning to see data that show women start out on lower pay, given the potential knock-on effects for one’s future earnings.
In this post, we move on to look at a few academic studies about why this might be, particularly around pay negotiation. Read more
Hurrah, it’s International Women’s Day! Time for a bunch of reports informing us of much less we earn than men! Aren’t you excited?
The formula:
Elsewhere on Friday,
- To boldly go to the moon for $30m.
- iBias, iLeverage, iFail spectacularly.
- And one day, when rates rise… Read more
When James Mac is away, the bloggers will play, but this is a rather serious tale. It relates to the nationalisation of SNS Bank, inclusive of its holding company SNS Reaal.
The above video tells the story of one investor in SNS Bank subordinated bonds. Read more
It’s the kind of motto one sees on a T-shirt in a shop in the touristy part of town, but over the last few years it’s had a particularly painful ring of truth to it. Students in America are staying in education longer and are struggling to obtain full, gainful employment once they leave. This, combined with the rising costs of tuition, has seen the outstanding balance of student debt go past the one trillion mark and delinquency rates increase.
Talk is in the air of a bubble, as pundits point to student loans themselves and to the securities that are built from them. But is what’s going on “a bubble” in the usual sense? And more importantly, what does this say about college education in America? Read more
Alright, we put our hands up, we’ve been reading Zero Hedge.
His Anonymous Handsome Midriffness is busy being his usual self, and on this topic he’s made us go hmmm about a certain Wall Street Journal story concerning SecondMarket Holdings, Inc. The platform is launching a service that will allow lenders to sell exposure in student loans to (accredited) investors. The WSJ describes it thus (emphasis ours): Read more
Evidently it’s time to get very excited about the risks posed by increasing student debt in the US, particularly as rates of delinquency are on the rise. Pretty graphs first, details follow…
Holy household debt, Batman! Student loan balances have surpassed credit card use and are still growing! Read more
It’s Friday quiz time! Ready? Here goes:
What do you get?
[Hint: It's America.] Read more
Frankly we’re bored of this, but:
That question deserves some serious thought, don’t you think? Read more
Elsewhere on Friday,
- Banker bonus FAQ (for bankers).
- What to do with fat cats? Chuck them in the swimming pool.
- More disclosure, smarter disclosure. Read more
Convexity in Vix futures || Deflating shadow credit in China || BoE deputy on NGDP || Italian election aftermath || JPMorgan job cuts || New US defence secretary || Online gambling approved in New Jersey || Visa & Samsung agree on mobile payments || Markets cautious but more stable Read more
With the freedom to publicise at a low cost at will, what place is there for the subset of writers and editors doing this for a living? Andrew Betts, director at FT Labs, opined in a recent TEDx talk that if media organisations are to weather the changing habits of consumers of news and analysis, technological innovations must occur. Read more
New president elected in Cyprus, now onto the bank bailout || New BoJ governor || China flash PMI || To the polls in Italy, with a low turnout || The UK’s downgrade hits pound || RBS to float Citizens || Revisiting the budget sequester || Markets update Read more
Let’s take a moment for a high level overview of public debt-to-GDP ratios in the eurozone. If that’s not your idea of fun, well, you probably wouldn’t be reading FT Alphaville.
Courtesy of a note by Lasse Holboell W. Nielsen of the Economics Research team at Goldman Sachs (we may have added some kittens)… Read more
Cyprus almost over first hurdle || Banks in the US can still become bigger to fail || BP squares up to US government in court over Deepwater || EU sets up working group on debt redemption || China tightens controls on housing loans || Google vs European privacy regulators || And Google to open stores? || Obamacare concerns || Potential OfficeMax & Office Depot tie-up || The Giving Pledge expands Read more
ROUND-UP
Markets: The Tokyo stock market enjoyed a sparkling start to the week, but elsewhere signals were more cautious as investors struggled to rediscover the bullish impetus that has pushed many equity barometers to multiyear highs. Activity had been bolstered by the return of China to the trading fold – the Shanghai Composite index lost 0.5 per cent – after the country’s week-long Lunar New Year holiday. However, that was counteracted by Wall Street’s closure on Monday for President’s Day. (FT’s Global Market Overview) Read more
Bloggers on FT Alphaville are, from time to time, asked how we decide what topics or events to write about. This post is no tell all, but is rather an example of exactly how funny the road travelled can be.
The end of the road saw us reading about whether banks still can get much bigger (to fail), despite the regulatory and legislative efforts of the last few years, particularly in the US. What we found is that there’s a big escape clause in the legislation that makes us a bit queasy. Read more
