Lehman,CitiGroup and Prashant Bhatia

It seem like only yesterday we were marveling at the analytical skills of the fine folks at Citigroup who time and again show us what it takes to be a global financial powerhouse.

It was only yesterday our chest was swelled with pride on the financial exploits of one Prashant Bhatia who has found fame and glory ( as also some good cash) in holding forth on the future prospects of the US financial sector based on some nifty spreadsheets, that he and his astrologer out together, whenever the unwashed masses need to be educated on arcane matters such as high finance and valuing such players.. in lay man's terms basically timing the toggle between "buy" and "hold" or sometimes "outperform" vs "neutral" (but the fine sense of timing is what separates these men from boys).

Prashant and his pals at Citigroup have honed their skills well enough to be couple of curves ahead of the market ( different curves altogether, as against just being ahead on the same curve). Of course their fine insights and have been responsible for creating immense wealth for all lucky recipients of same ( and who follow same unquestionably) ..as well as earning their firm formidable reputations as employers of talented "analysts".

We at Luddic Research have been hunting high and low for getting our hands on some comparable talent to analyze the local brokerage stocks behaviour here, but you have to admit Prashant is a talent hard to find (in fact we think his analytic skills are so blindingly obvious .. if such ever existed in the third world markets they would have long been put on their rightful pedestals and worshiped in local temples). Well, we did have the audacity to approach him (and his astrologer as a team) to offer him a position (and twenty temples ) to tempt him with a move to Mumbai but he felt his career span would be longer and less violent in the US where most all "analysts" and "strategists" seem to be in same boat,in sync, all the time and nobody is the wiser.
(Third world countries are not so developed or forgiving in that sense..and careers and limbs are quite expendable in these overpopulated markets).

Mostly, what has us foxed is, why the markets do not look past their short term noise and emotions to what these fine "analysts" are saying .. hell they spend all their waking hours "covering" and "following" and "analyzing" and "projecting" these companies.. only to be undone in the opening hours of the skittish herd.

Go Prashant!! ..don't let these losers drag you down.

This is all noise, all noise ...
Lehman has a little hiccup.
Fitch downgrades Lehman.
Moody's downgrades Lehman.

..but it does get a bit dicey when fellow "analysts" are jumping ship.. eh??