Andy Kessler

NPR: Navigating Wall Street's Lexicon

2008-11-04T07:00:00-08:00

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=965575701:02 mark"The last fund manager or the last set of individuals out in the marketplace, have they given up hope, have they just said, 'you know what, sell everything,' and just en mass, people are puking out stocks, that would...

WSJ: What Paulson Is Trying to Do

2008-10-15T01:00:00-07:00

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122402984044334627.htmlLess than two weeks into it, the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) is stuck between a rock and a hard place. Next week, several hundred billion dollars of credit default swap (default insurance) payments on Lehman's debt default...

Forbes.com - New Life

2008-10-13T09:28:04-07:00

Thank you, sir, may I have another? As the stock market gets spanked,down 40% in a year and a day, there is a silver lining. We Americans get our lumps out the way, and start a new life. Much has...

New York Magazine: Why Wall Street Will Prevail

2008-10-11T01:00:00-07:00

Why Wall Street Will PrevailThings are bad now, but the world will never out-finance us.http://nymag.com/news/intelligencer/51168/With the stock market tanking and Wall Street’s top firms either vanished or trembling under the skirt of commercial banks, is finance as we know it...

Weekly Standard: What is Wall Street these days, anyway?

2008-10-05T13:38:10-07:00

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/015/654vucfz.aspBefore the last of Wall Street gets sold off as day-old fish on Fulton Street or washed into the East River altogether it’s worth asking, what is Wall Street these days anyway?Thanks to Dick Grasso and CNBC, most of us...

Radio, Radio: NPR and Rush

2008-09-29T10:25:25-07:00

Doesn't get much different than these two radio outlets!NPR Morning Edition September 16, 2008 http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=94658913 Investors Feel the Pain of Lehman Bros. Collapse by Chris Arnold At 2:00 mark: “This happens every cycle and I used to work on Wall...

WSJ: Clean Up Print

2008-09-25T03:00:00-07:00

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122230704116773989.htmlIn 1992, hedge-fund manager George Soros made $1 billion betting against the British pound. In 2007, John Paulson's Credit Opportunities fund correctly bet against subprime mortgages, clearing $15 billion for the year and $3.7 billion for him. Warren Buffett is...

Forbes.com: Lehman = Pan Am

2008-09-15T13:24:56-07:00

Not to sound harsh, but Lehman Brothers reminds me of Pan Am Airlines. No one (well, beyond their employees) is going to miss them. There are plenty of others to take their place. In the '70s and '80s, a deregulated...

Forbes.com: Google's Offensive Strategy

2008-09-03T15:49:26-07:00

Back in 1983 on the hit TV show The A-Team, George Peppard's Hannibal said to Mr. T's Bad Attitude Baracus, "There's an old saying: 'The best defense is a good offense.'" Mr. T replied,"You got that wrong, man. A good...

Tech Ticker: Is It Safe?

2008-06-10T19:33:01-07:00

ABX Indicator Click on ABX-HE-AAA 06-2 for the chart.

WSJ: The War for the Web

2008-05-06T07:11:58-07:00

Microsoft was smart to walk away (for now) from its $44 billion bid for Yahoo. It's never good to overpay. But the software giant – whose stock has flatlined for eight years – was onto the right strategy in looking...

Tech Ticker: The Woz

2008-04-11T08:29:04-07:00

Part 1 - Get Ready for the Woz! Part 2 - Creating the Computer of My Dreams Part 3 - Today's Young Innovators Part 4 - Favorite Gadgets (yes, he packs a laser) Part 5 - Stock jock/news junkie Part...

NYT: QOTD

2008-04-04T10:02:00-07:00

Huh?

Tech Ticker: Working Hard and Playing Hard

2008-03-21T16:14:00-07:00

Carbon Fiber Lifestyle...

NYT: Tough Times for Buyout Lords

2008-03-08T14:42:00-08:00

I don't normally post these, but I couldn't resist. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/08/business/08mogul.html Tight Credit, Tough Times for Buyout Lords By LANDON THOMAS Jr. Published: March 8, 2008...“The crowds are smaller at cocktail parties, the aura is stained, but there still is the...

Tech Ticker: Why Everyone Works So Hard in Silicon Valley

2008-02-27T17:11:15-08:00

WSJ: Internet Wrecking Ball

2008-02-25T07:29:08-08:00

Imagine a town that has all sorts of gasoline pipelines running by it but only one gas pump. Rationing is inevitable. So are price controls. Everyone gets equal amounts, except of course first responders like police and ambulances, which should...

Tech Ticker: The Game Changer

2008-02-20T08:38:00-08:00

Tech Ticker: Soap Opera

2008-02-11T10:45:32-08:00

Tech Ticker on Yahoo Finance launched today. Enjoy.

WSJ: What's Next for the Banks

2008-01-24T07:38:14-08:00

If you want to know what's going to happen to the big banks and investment banks, you've got to go back to early 2003, when the seeds of destruction were planted. It had been a year or so since a...

I Still Hate Dividends, Professor Siegel

2008-01-07T14:49:22-08:00

Wharton Professor Jeremy Siegel is much revered. His students sing his praise, his books are best sellers, the press adores him. I’ve heard him speak and he is very engaging, even convincing. He is also totally wrong. About dividends. About...

TCS: Cali Cupcake Cops

2007-11-02T08:22:04-07:00

I tried. I really tried. But it took all of a few days with the kids back in school before I ran into the new "policy" that finally pushed me over the edge. Look, school is hard, starting with no...

Weekly Standard: YouTube U.

2007-10-22T08:20:29-07:00

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/014/250klogu.asp Without much fanfare, college lectures are being put online, for free. MIT lectures can be downloaded from iTunes University, and you can watch Cal professors pontificate on your computer via YouTube. Is this some new trend? Do colleges feel...

Wallstrip Interview

2007-08-15T09:24:00-07:00

WSJ: Blackstone's World of Cash

2007-06-21T08:04:53-07:00

Will the private equity party -- this week's Blackstone IPO is icing on the cake -- end with a bang or a whimper? Let's recall that on Friday, Oct. 13, 1989, the almost $7 billion employee-led buyout of United Airlines...

WSJ: A Future For Newspapers

2007-05-24T06:38:01-07:00

New technology is mucking up the media, and newspapers seem to be taking the brunt of it. Craigslist and eBay took away classified ad sales, direct advertisers are allocating budgets to search engines and circulation is receding faster than Bruce...

NYT: Trust Me

2007-04-26T00:01:00-07:00

Is there trust anymore? We are caught between Obi-Wan Kenobi saying, “Let go, Luke. Luke, trust me,” and Eric “Otter” Stratton in Animal House declaring, “You [Delta House language] up. You trusted us!” Heck, the civilized world still shakes hands...

NYT: Blank Slate Hedgies

2007-04-24T08:59:04-07:00

As heard on TV one morning while shaving: Morning Show Talking Head: So tell us what drives hedge fund managers?Hedge Fund Dude: It’s just never ending. Thinking about what is going to work next. I have a friend who is...

NYT: A Colossus Mistake

2007-04-20T08:54:02-07:00

In H Block at Bletchley Park, the historic code-breaking facility 50 miles from London, visitors can view a rebuilt working model of a Colossus, one of the first electronic digital computers, built during World War II to decrypt Nazi codes....

NYT: Share the Air - A Capital Idea

2007-04-19T16:37:03-07:00

Our friends at the Prague Stock Exchange would agree that common ownership of property has been proven to limit innovation. So should our airwaves be publicly owned or privately controlled? Bet I surprise you with my view! In less than...

NYT: Hot Stocks and Vice Precedence

2007-04-17T17:52:32-07:00

Should you care if the companies you invest in have a dark side, if they make money in ways that might end conversations at cocktail parties or operate in the same slop bucket as the seamy underworld you’d rather not...

NYT: In Medicine, It's Man vs. Machine

2007-04-12T12:49:00-07:00

Last week, a new study showed that radiologists don’t need no stinking machines. Radiologists read mammograms, at $120 a pop, to look for breast cancer. One out of every 200 films shows a suspicious pattern the radiologist recognizes from years...

NYT: A Fork in the Road for Google

2007-04-10T05:48:00-07:00

Whenever companies sue each other, my ears perk up. Not that I really care who wins, but lawsuits often showcase hidden vulnerabilities. Inevitably, as the fight plays out, the market thinks a lot differently about the long-term prospects of both...

NYT: Sloshing

2007-04-05T00:01:00-07:00

Left to their own devices, and couches, humans instinctively resist change. Kings and C.E.O.s like it at the top. Workers don’t volunteer to give up their jobs in the name of progress. Profits and productivity may create wealth, but how...

NYT: It's a Profit Deal

2007-04-03T10:33:50-07:00

Needing relief from medieval churches and cutesy cafes on a trip to Prague a few years back (O.K., and a tax break), I paid a call on the Prague Stock Exchange, tucked in a blocky, Soviet-style building off the main...

WSJ: Weekend Interview with Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg

2007-03-24T07:58:26-07:00

Where are you from? “Dobbs Ferry.” What’s your major? “Mostly computer science but also psychology.” Where did you live? “Kirkland House at Harvard.” I’m meeting with Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Facebook, and have already run through the extent...

Wired: Make Backdating a Thing of the Past

2007-03-05T13:28:19-08:00

How the tax man can help get us out of this options mess. http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/15.03/start.html As you read this, hundreds of Silicon Valley CEOs are under their desks in full duck-and-cover mode, fearing that the Department of Justice or a shareholder...

WSJ: Circular Hedge Fund

2007-02-07T09:04:49-08:00

I’m thinking of starting a hedge fund that only invests in the stocks of other hedge funds. Who’s in? Most people think of hedge funds as secretive pools run by a bunch of cowboy traders shooting for the moon. Think...

WSJ: Beijing Duck

2006-12-12T07:04:55-08:00

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and other polished cabinetry are visiting China later this week. They'll see fields of skyscrapers, traffic jams of new cars and designer couture replacing the old Maoist uniform with five buttons...

Email exchange with Milton Friedman

2006-11-17T13:34:26-08:00

My friend Peter Robinson at the Hoover Institute at Stanford was kind enough to pass along a copy of my book The End of Medicine to his colleague, Nobel Laureate and father of free market thinking, Milton Friedman, who sadly...

Media 2.Uh-Oh in a single file

2006-10-29T18:08:33-08:00

Here is the entire Media 2.Uh-Oh series in a single file. Media 2.Uh-Oh: Intro There is always hidden meaning to deals - the Google-YouTube deal is no exception. Why YouTube sold is pretty easy - $1.65 billion ain't bad for...

Media 2.Uh-Oh Part 4: Go Wide

2006-10-18T04:00:00-07:00

Here is Part 4, the final piece in the series, the others are here:IntroPart 1: PipePart 2: Layer CakePart 3: Virtual Pipes So what is a Media Mogul to do? They control pipes in a world of zero margin costs....

Media 2.Uh-Oh Part 3: Virtual Pipes

2006-10-16T06:50:48-07:00

IntroPart 1: PipePart 2: Layer Cake Yup, Media is about controlling pipes and Technology is (now) about horizontal layers, and on the Web, with all those packets whizzing around like bumper cars, there are no natural end to end pipes...

Media 2.Uh-Oh Part 2: Layer Cake

2006-10-13T07:09:25-07:00

IntroPart 1: Pipe I had a college roommate, Franz, who after taking business classes would come back to our house, pound a few beers, proclaim, “Dude, when in doubt, get horizontal” and then proceed to pass out in front of...

Media 2.Uh-Oh Part 1: Pipe

2006-10-11T11:20:02-07:00

With all this talk of new media, web media, Google as a media company (read the intro to this series) - it's time to go back to basics. According to answers.com, media is defined as:me·di·a - Channels of communication that...

Media 2.Uh-Oh: Intro

2006-10-09T18:28:01-07:00

There is always hidden meaning to deals - the Google-YouTube deal is no exception. Why YouTube sold is pretty easy - $1.65 billion ain't bad for 20 months work and it would have taken at least $50-100 million from Sequoia...

Barron's, Business Week and Across the Board

2006-08-10T14:13:35-07:00

Here are a few more reviews of The End of Medicine “Entertaining. A smart-aleck tour of academic labs where Kessler says the future is being invented. Think Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure meets The New England Journal of Medicine.” Read...

Dealbreaker Interview and Excerpt: Healthcare Hedgies

2006-07-24T14:23:25-07:00

Dealbreaker has an interview and an excerpt from The End of Medicine.Ex-hedge fund guy Andy Kessler, recently took time to talk to DealBreaker's Carolyn Okomo about his new book, The End of Medicine, a witty, engaging examination of the heathcare...

End of Medicine Excerpt: Breakfast at Bucks

2006-07-24T14:07:25-07:00

This excerpt of The End of Medicine originally ran on GigaOm. I never turn down a chance for breakfast at Bucks in Woodside. Any place with a motto of ‘Flapjacks and Tomfoolery’ gets my devotion. It’s a daily ritual for...

USA Today Review of The End of Medicine

2006-07-24T08:38:09-07:00

Medicine + tech = great investment (someday)By Kerry Hannon, Special for USA TODAY It's hard to know what to make of Andy Kessler's latest book, The End of Medicine. The former research analyst and investment banker spent 20 years on...