Who is betting at least a franchise will disappear (be it via a merger or take over ).What are the odd's for those name to vansish?Morgan Stanley (MS) ?Merril Lynch (ML) ?Lehman Bros (LEH) ?Moreover how would you calculate this odd?

Hi All, the fact that I haven't received any text to the question below indicates really how the Quant community on Wilmott forum is blind. I do think that "Quants" should better recycle in math or physics where they belong. But the incentive of money is so powerfull that even the brighthest among you will carry on putting prices on exotic products that serve no purpose except the one of defraunding Counterparts or States for the sole purpose of buying a porsche or a Patek Philippe... Think twice, some of you could have made science discoveries, but most of you are making useless sense of your lives.

Response: 100%

I, for one, welcome our new commercial banking overlords.

QuoteOriginally posted by: tournesolResponse: 100%This is quite good, as you recognized the danger far ahead of myself. On the other hand, we in the US certainly need some regulation. Isn't interesting that financial crises mostly happens in the US, and not say, France, England, etc ... There was a bad loan crisis related to real-estate in Japn during the 1990s, but its magnitude was no where near this.

QuoteOriginally posted by: tournesolHi All, the fact that I haven't received any text to the question below indicates really how the Quant community on Wilmott forum is blind. I do think that "Quants" should better recycle in math or physics where they belong. But the incentive of money is so powerfull that even the brighthest among you will carry on putting prices on exotic products that serve no purpose except the one of defraunding Counterparts or States for the sole purpose of buying a porsche or a Patek Philippe... Think twice, some of you could have made science discoveries, but most of you are making useless sense of your lives.I've been lurking here since last year. With some exceptions, most on here seem to lack any sense of the broader economic picture.

QuoteOriginally posted by: tournesolHi All, the fact that I haven't received any text to the question below indicates really how the Quant community on Wilmott forum is blind.No. It's because talking about what companies will go up or down could be construed as market manipulation or spreading insider information by the SEC and by legal and compliance, and a lot of us have gotten memos on not spreading rumors about market conditions or insider information from legal and compliance. If you want information on how to calculate the market probability of default from CDS spreads that's one thing. But anything that could move the price of a stock in one direction or another is a strictly taboo discussion for a lot of us.

Why no one of us told this boy to keep track of CDS spreads. he asked the question Jan2008. very few probably ever thought that Lehman would go Kaput or belly-up or sink like Titanic,fast and furious( some one who would be writing a book).Dear Tournesol,I am sure that no one(inside the three banks, almost no one,i would say) in Jan might have thought that ML,LB,MS can sink. MS is still there,though. The share prices of each of the companies gave ample signals. "Market is never wrong". Why they went down. OH! the anwser is simple. With massive "EGO", most of these overpaid Investment Bank chiefs think that they are indispensable. They were "cock-sure" about their size. But, alas, they never realised that what they were looking at from inside looked different from outside. From outside, IT WAS A BIG BUBBLE. Very,very prominent bubble. This is my view.It is sad that WaMu has gone down This one pains me. I would love to see some heads on the floor for screwing up the system though. The contagion is yet to spread.Everypart of the globe,baring Ethiopia,Sudan,and Iraq( It is already at the nadir,right!) and some dark corners of Africa, will be adversly affected. I am afraid, the guys who would suffer are the fresh young ones. The "FAT cocks" would be the least affected.Yes, Paul and other stalwarts might have got the idea of the impending storm. But, my friend, will they tell you that in this Forum. I think NO,never.Ask me in private if you want to know somethink which I know and cann't tell you in a forum.I am happy to know that you had put that question in January 2008. That was cool,man!. Great foresight.Forgot to add that I have been bearish since ages. In 1998, our Macro Economic professor, told me that too many Dollars were being printed by Fed which will eventually come back to hunt us. he also said, "Finance is the back side of Economics". Disclaimer - Whatever I have said here is purely my view. Welcome to Chaos!

QuoteOriginally posted by: penguinaQuoteOriginally posted by: tournesolHi All, the fact that I haven't received any text to the question below indicates really how the Quant community on Wilmott forum is blind. I do think that "Quants" should better recycle in math or physics where they belong. But the incentive of money is so powerfull that even the brighthest among you will carry on putting prices on exotic products that serve no purpose except the one of defraunding Counterparts or States for the sole purpose of buying a porsche or a Patek Philippe... Think twice, some of you could have made science discoveries, but most of you are making useless sense of your lives.I've been lurking here since last year. With some exceptions, most on here seem to lack any sense of the broader economic picture.That's why Quant, not Economist or Physicist

Good call! I'm impressed!