Earlier this month, Macquarie Group Limited (ASX:MQG), announced record profits on higher fees earned from deal making and strong equities trading. Macquarie is the leading investment bank in Australia and has intrigued me for quite some time because of its strength in the infrastructure industry. The megatrend of globalization means that infrastructure will play an increasingly important part of a global investment portfolio. Macquarie has carved itself a valuable niche as the leading investment bank for infrastructure assets and is consistently found all over the world making direct investments or …

The market takes a breather after several weeks of blistering recovery from last winter’s doldrums. Commodities all around saw amazing advances. Crude oil rose 8.3% last week and has more than doubled over the last year. I remember taking my first car, a Honda (HMC) Civic, out for the first time and pumping gas for about $1.18 per gallon. This was also in the notoriously gas-expensive San Francisco Bay Area. Base commodities and gold continue to follow oil’s lead in going the opposite direction of the U.S. dollar. Will the …

Life is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” Thomas Hobbes might say the same about life in the stock market for hedge fund managers. The mortality rate found in the hedge fund world is extremely high; it is an ecosystem that is filled with predators and would-be predators. By mid-2007, an estimated 9,700 hedge funds controlled approximately $1.7 trillion in assets. According to Hedge Fund Research, 1,518 launched in 2006 and nearly as many called it quits. The battle for investment survival mirrors Hobbes’ State of Nature found in his …

Macro

More pain in the housing market anticipated as some homeowners find themselves “underwater” or owing more on their homes than what their homes are worth on the market. According to Mark Zandi at Economy.com (MCO), 10% of all homeowners currently face this negative equity situation. Zandi also sees home prices falling 20% as the economy worsens into a recession. Zandi could be underestimating the damage; homeowners abandon their homes and mortgages at a high rate when they enter negative territory on their equity. Foreclosures and abandoned mortgages exacerbate the problem …