THE LATEST ARTICLES
WALL STREET
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June 29, 2022
The Billion-Dollar Book Deal of the Century
Penguin Random House has been waiting two years to pay some $2 billion for Simon & Schuster. Is the Justice Department sticking up for aggrieved authors, or being a political pain in the ass?
WALL STREET
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June 26, 2022
Crypto Civil War & Wall Street’s ‘24 Agenda
News and notes on Bitcoin’s true believers, BuzzFeed’s self-immolation, Buffett’s $19 million meal, and the cynical upside of divided government.
WALL STREET
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June 22, 2022
Elon’s Pivot & Banker Bonus Blues
Notes on Musk’s latest head-scratching monkey wrench in the Twitter saga, and the unveiling of a grim reality: inflation may be roiling the nation, but senior bankers are worried about what the stagnating deal flow will mean for their seven-figure bonuses.
WALL STREET
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June 19, 2022
Elon Agonistes & the Bull Case for Crypto
Notes on the Musk-Twitter town hall and Wall Street’s evolving arbitrage opportunity, and some hard truths about the crypto crash.
HOLLYWOOD
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June 19, 2022
Bob & Shari’s Sun Valley Winter
The inside conversation in Hollywood and Wall Street about Chapek’s future at Disney and Redstone’s M&A itch amid a looming recession.
WALL STREET
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June 15, 2022
Larry Summers, Obama, & a Fed Counterfactual
In an alternate universe, Obama would have picked Larry Summers to run the Fed in 2013. And we probably wouldn’t be in our economic fix if he had made good on his promise.
WALL STREET
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June 12, 2022
Elon vs. The Arbs
There are a lot of losers in Elon Musk’s hostile, weird, off-the-rails takeover/walk-away from Twitter—the company’s employees and board, chief among them. But the most vulnerable players may be the arbitrageurs.
WALL STREET
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June 8, 2022
The SPAC Stars of ’21: Where Are They Now?
The pandemic will forever be remembered on Wall Street as the height of SPAC-mania, a consensual hallucination in which everyone, from Ackman to A-Rod, got in on the SPAC craze. It may have been easy to raise all those billions, but it turned out to be much harder to put them to work.
WALL STREET
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June 5, 2022
Dimon’s “Hurricane” & Sheryl’s Wall Street
Wall Street and business gossips are already speculating about Jamie and Sheryl’s next moves. Plus: How Elon shot himself in the foot.
WALL STREET
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June 1, 2022
Biden’s Fed Gamble
Biden has wholeheartedly endorsed Fed chairman Jerome Powell’s painful decision to take the punchbowl—ZIRP, Q.E., etc—away after 14 years. Does the political calculus suggest a short-term recession and midterm bloodbath followed by a rebound in ‘24?