CNBC reports that the US economy is slowing. The markets are volatile. Trading glitches bedeviled the biggest IPOs in recent memory. A huge bank has suffered an unexpected loss.
It’s shaping up to be another rough summer on Wall Street - in more ways than one.
It’s not just that markets seem to be entering their third consecutive summer slump. If you listen closely enough to conversations among Wall Streeters, you’ll hear a different kind of complaint.
'We really haven’t had one good summer since 2006. No one can relax on the beach - again!', an executive at one of the best-known private equity firms said on a recent evening, while waiting for a fourth martini at a once-fashionable midtown bar.
In the meantime, Reuters reports that browsing glossy brochures in search of an exotic and relaxing summer holiday is the norm for Swiss private bankers at this time of year.
But many will be going no further than the Alps, fretting that Switzerland's tax disputes with the United States and other nations could leave them open to arrest and extradition if they leave the country and are suspected of aiding tax cheats.
Even secretaries working on U.S. accounts at the banks are reckoned to be at risk, while one banker rang an advice hotline because he was worried about nipping over the French border to buy groceries.
Finally, Bloomberg reports that Andy Frankenberger, a former equity derivatives trader turned professional poker player, collected $446,000 with his second win at a World Series of Poker event.
Frankenberger, 39, outlasted a field of 179 players to win the 17th event on the World Series schedule yesterday in Las Vegas, where he beat Phil Ivey in head-to-head action to take the top prize in the $10,000 pot-limit hold ‘em tournament.
Frankenberger left the trading desk at BNP Paribas in New York three years ago to travel and in 2010 started playing tournament poker, which has now turned into his career
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