Read Online Money to Burn by James Grippando - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: James Grippando
Tags: Fiction, thriller, Suspense, Thrillers, American Mystery & Suspense Fiction, Suspense fiction, Mystery Fiction, Mystery And Suspense Fiction, Fiction - Espionage, Capitalists and Financiers
Ads: Link
grip of winter.
He said, “The plan had been to hold the bad news until after the close of trading today. But it leaked. Nothing we can do now but watch the big board and hold on to our asses.”
“How bad is it?” I asked.
He shook his head and said, “Another subprime write down.”
I swallowed hard. At the start of the housing slump last autumn, Eric had been forced to confirm a leak to the media that Saxton Silvers would burn $1.6 billion of its cash reserves to bail out two of its wholly owned hedge funds that were on the brink of bankruptcy from subprime losses. The firm still managed to report a profit of $9.3 billion for the year, even after payment of $16.5 billion in compensation and benefits.
“How big is this one?” I asked.
Eric turned and looked at me. “Twenty-two.”
The number hit me like a five iron to the forehead. “I assume you don’t mean million.”
“If only,” he said with a mirthless chuckle.
It was a staggering sum, but it was what happened when mortgage originators linked up with an unregulated Wall Street—two wires you really don’t want to cross. The irony was that since 9/11, most of the federal dollars that had gone toward regulation of financial institutions had been redirected to Homeland Security. Now, in the absence of that regulation, Saxton Silvers was writing down another $22 billion in losses—nearly half the entire annual budget for Homeland Security.
“Is it all subprime?” I asked.
“Every penny.”
Eric turned away again and looked out the window. His gaze swept across Midtown from Madison to Seventh Avenue, where in turn he could literally see the shining world headquarters of Bear Stearns and then Lehman Brothers. Sandwiched between the two, painted on the side of a building, was a big blue-and-white ad for AIG.
“And who the hell knows where it really ends?” he said.
11
C HUCK B ELL GOT TO WORK EARLY—EIGHT HOURS BEFORE HE USUALLY checked in for his talk-and-analysis program, Bell Ringer , the top-rated television show on Financial News Network.
“Morning, Chrissie,” he said on his way through the FNN lobby.
Bell called the receptionist Chrissie only because everyone knew that he hated to be called anything but Christopher. Bell continued through the lobby, slowing only to rub the hoof on a miniature replica of the famous seven-thousand-pound bronze sculpture of a charging bull that sits in the Financial District two blocks from the New York Stock Exchange. Bulls are good on Wall Street. Bears are bad. The financial world is big on animal references, most of which come from the nineteenth-century London Stock Exchange, including “lame duck,” which originally meant a debtor who couldn’t pay his debts.
This morning, Bell was poised to break a story that would turn plenty of bull riders into lame ducks in the classic sense.
Bell had made his mark as a hugely successful hedge-fund manager, and then he retired at the age of thirty-seven to pursue a second career in journalism. His first show on FNN—a serious attempt at market analysis—was a total flop. His research was suspect, his predictions were usually wrong, and the “nice-guy” demeanor the network foisted upon him just didn’t fit. Bell had been notorious for his temper in the business world, and finally the geniuses at FNN realized that he came across as someone who knew what he was talking about only when shouting angrily at the top of his lungs. They renamed the show Bell Ringer , created a set that looked more like a boxing ring than the stock exchange, and let Bell just be himself. The show was an instant hit. “Suze Orman meets Jerry Springer,” critics called it. Viewers especially loved his stunts—like the time Bell rolled up his shirtsleeves, pulled on a pair of boxing gloves, and beat the living crap out of two guys dressed up as Smokey and Yogi the last time the market went from bull to bear. Whenever something good happened—a stock catching fire, or a
He said, “The plan had been to hold the bad news until after the close of trading today. But it leaked. Nothing we can do now but watch the big board and hold on to our asses.”
“How bad is it?” I asked.
He shook his head and said, “Another subprime write down.”
I swallowed hard. At the start of the housing slump last autumn, Eric had been forced to confirm a leak to the media that Saxton Silvers would burn $1.6 billion of its cash reserves to bail out two of its wholly owned hedge funds that were on the brink of bankruptcy from subprime losses. The firm still managed to report a profit of $9.3 billion for the year, even after payment of $16.5 billion in compensation and benefits.
“How big is this one?” I asked.
Eric turned and looked at me. “Twenty-two.”
The number hit me like a five iron to the forehead. “I assume you don’t mean million.”
“If only,” he said with a mirthless chuckle.
It was a staggering sum, but it was what happened when mortgage originators linked up with an unregulated Wall Street—two wires you really don’t want to cross. The irony was that since 9/11, most of the federal dollars that had gone toward regulation of financial institutions had been redirected to Homeland Security. Now, in the absence of that regulation, Saxton Silvers was writing down another $22 billion in losses—nearly half the entire annual budget for Homeland Security.
“Is it all subprime?” I asked.
“Every penny.”
Eric turned away again and looked out the window. His gaze swept across Midtown from Madison to Seventh Avenue, where in turn he could literally see the shining world headquarters of Bear Stearns and then Lehman Brothers. Sandwiched between the two, painted on the side of a building, was a big blue-and-white ad for AIG.
“And who the hell knows where it really ends?” he said.
11
C HUCK B ELL GOT TO WORK EARLY—EIGHT HOURS BEFORE HE USUALLY checked in for his talk-and-analysis program, Bell Ringer , the top-rated television show on Financial News Network.
“Morning, Chrissie,” he said on his way through the FNN lobby.
Bell called the receptionist Chrissie only because everyone knew that he hated to be called anything but Christopher. Bell continued through the lobby, slowing only to rub the hoof on a miniature replica of the famous seven-thousand-pound bronze sculpture of a charging bull that sits in the Financial District two blocks from the New York Stock Exchange. Bulls are good on Wall Street. Bears are bad. The financial world is big on animal references, most of which come from the nineteenth-century London Stock Exchange, including “lame duck,” which originally meant a debtor who couldn’t pay his debts.
This morning, Bell was poised to break a story that would turn plenty of bull riders into lame ducks in the classic sense.
Bell had made his mark as a hugely successful hedge-fund manager, and then he retired at the age of thirty-seven to pursue a second career in journalism. His first show on FNN—a serious attempt at market analysis—was a total flop. His research was suspect, his predictions were usually wrong, and the “nice-guy” demeanor the network foisted upon him just didn’t fit. Bell had been notorious for his temper in the business world, and finally the geniuses at FNN realized that he came across as someone who knew what he was talking about only when shouting angrily at the top of his lungs. They renamed the show Bell Ringer , created a set that looked more like a boxing ring than the stock exchange, and let Bell just be himself. The show was an instant hit. “Suze Orman meets Jerry Springer,” critics called it. Viewers especially loved his stunts—like the time Bell rolled up his shirtsleeves, pulled on a pair of boxing gloves, and beat the living crap out of two guys dressed up as Smokey and Yogi the last time the market went from bull to bear. Whenever something good happened—a stock catching fire, or a
Similar Books
