Zzzzzzzzzzzz ...

I overslept, so a short post.

Here is another example of how Wall Street was nuts.

***quote begins***

WSJ: Deutsche Bank Fallen Trader Left Behind $1.8 Billion Hole

The fall of Boaz Weinstein, once one of Wall Street's hottest traders, speaks volumes about why financial firms still are reeling from the shattered global markets.

As a chess master, poker and blackjack devotee and top trader at Deutsche Bank AG, Mr. Weinstein made big bets using complex financial instruments, generating large returns for the bank and about $40 million in annual pay for himself. But in 2008 the group he ran saddled the bank with $1.8 billion in losses, erasing more than two years of trading gains.

On Thursday, the German banking giant reported a 2008 loss of $5 billion (€3.9 billion), its first one-year loss in over five decades and a reminder that financial firms are not out of the woods. In an earnings conference call, Chairman Josef Ackermann described the market environment as a "series of earthquakes with constantly changing epicenters."

***quote ends***

Why oh why would ANY corporation let some guy take such risks with shareholders money ?

Word of the Day

"Natiform" - adjective [$1000]
Natiform means resembling or having the form of the buttocks. Natiform complements Samuel Johnson's fine word, "asshead" in the physical sense. From "World Wide Words" - "[Natiform] derives from Latin nates, plural of natis, a buttock. It has never been used to refer to the buttocks themselves, instead always to some anatomical feature that contains a deep cleft."

Sentence: (from OED 1898 usage) The skull assumes a peculiar and characteristic shape, to which the term natiform has been applied.
Current Sentence: I suppose that one could alter "natiform" into a humorous pejorative, "natiface" or perhaps even "natihead" as a erudite version of "butthead".

[I wonder if James Fenimore Cooper was having a bit of obscure fun with the name of his character, Natty Bumpo ?]

Le Mot du Jour

"Se réveiller" - a reflexive verb
Se réveiller means 1. to awake, to wake up; 2. to be roused, to be reawakened; 3. to reawaken, to stir again.
La Phrase: Je me suis réveillé trop tard.
English: I woke up too late. [I overslept.]