Another interesting article about Bear...

Making a market all by yourself...

Now investigators are trying to determine whether Cioffi and his team
crossed legal lines. The Klios provided the Bear hedge funds with a
ready, in-house trading partner. Their financial reports, which were
reviewed by BusinessWeek, show many months in which the Cioffi-managed
Klios traded only with the Cioffi-managed Bear funds. For example, in
April, 2006, one Klio CDO bought $114 million worth of securities from
one of the Bear funds. Such trades, says Steven B. Caruso, an attorney
who represents several Bear hedge fund investors, may be "indicative
of an incestuous, self-serving relationship that appears to have been
designed to establish a false marketplace."

If that's why the trades were made, the maneuvers could have falsely
boosted the hedge funds' returns—and the fees Cioffi and his team
collected. In an e-mail to Cioffi and co-manager Matthew Tannin cited
in a legal filing, Raymond McGarrigal, another executive at the Bear
funds, gushed about the Klio setup, writing that "one of the great
things we've done is allow the Klio to buy assets from the hedge
fund." Lawyers for Tannin and McGarrigal declined to comment.
The End of an Era?

Full article:
http://tinyurl.com/3bno5b

Latest on Bear...

...as stated here previously, lawsuits aplenty from the fallout.

Bear Stearns Sued by Barclays Unit Over Fund Collapse
2007-12-19 17:47 (New York)

By David Glovin and Yalman Onaran
Dec. 19 (Bloomberg) -- Barclays PLC, the U.K.'s third-
biggest bank, sued Bear Stearns Cos. over losses caused by the
implosion earlier this year of a hedge fund that invested in
subprime mortgages.
Barclays Bank PLC, a unit of London-based Barclays, claimed
the New York-based securities firm hid negative financial
information about the collapsed fund, according to a complaint
filed today in Manhattan federal court. Barclays said it was the
``sole participating shareholder.''
The collapse of the Bear Stearns fund was ``one of the most
high-profile and shocking hedge fund failures in the last
decade,'' Barclays said in the complaint, which seeks unspecified
damages.

What precision...

A very precise estimate for the Russian markets next year. One wonders aloud: "Why not 31% or 33%...or any number in between?

Russia's RTS May Surge to 3,000 in 2008, Banks Say (Update2)

By William Mauldin

Dec. 18 (Bloomberg) -- Russia's RTS Index will climb 32 percent to 3,000 by the end of next year as government spending shields the economy from a global slowdown, according to UralSib Financial Corp. and Renaissance Capital.

UralSib's Chris Weafer, the top-ranked Russian equity strategist in Thomson Extel's 2007 survey, and Renaissance's chief strategist Roland Nash recommended buying shares of OAO Gazprom, Russia's biggest natural-gas producer, and companies that will benefit from government investment in refining, smelting, railroads and electricity.