- Read the full article and see the video here:
Monday, 17 October 2011
SocGen Asia Strategist Has Near Fit On Bloomberg TV After Making It Clear That It's All The Blogosphere's Fault
SocGen's Todd Martin, who is the bank's Asia equity strategist, appeared on Bloomberg earlier today to discuss the Volcker Rule and prop trading, against which the anonymous blogosphere had some very "strong views" back in 2009 before anyone had even considered prop trading. Sure enough, prop trading ended a few months later with the adoption of the Volcker Rule. Somehow, the topic of the Volcker rule shifted to the topic of whether or not Morgan Stanley is exposed to France, and its insolvent banks (ahem), and who is to blame. Take a wild guess on Mr. Martin's opinion in the matter: "For example one blog just a week ago, had a very, very strong view against Morgan Stanley. They quoted Sanford Bernstein who actually was telling people to buy the stock. And then they were quoting Gross Exposures not Net, and then concluding that Morgan Stanley had to go down and be dismembered [sic]. Now I have a serious problem with this.... If I get regulated why isn't this place regulated. It's also very dangerous because they are using psudonames [sic] and we don't know who they are. They could be the guy on the street. They could be a hedge fund dangling out information. It could be the head of a prop desk. Thing is it is supposed to be regulated. And they get their revenues from trading platforms on US soil. And I don't think it's fair. And I think the US should go and take a look and regulate the blogosphere. I think it's really, really out of control." In other words: it is all the blogosphere's fault.
