Friday, April 29, 2016

"Bloomberg Outs Zero Hedge Today; Zero Hedge Strikes Back"

From Wall Street On Parade:

Bloomberg L.P., majority owned by billionaire Michael Bloomberg, with a net worth of $45.3 billion according to Forbes, has today outed the anonymous writers responsible for the popular financial blog, Zero Hedge, a competitor to Bloomberg L.P.’s financial web site. Raising eyebrows in journalism circles, Bloomberg’s reporters obtained the text of internal chat sessions at Zero Hedge which contained strategies for building traffic at the site. To some, that raises alarms of obtaining trade secrets – an issue over which Wall Street firms have sought, and received, criminal prosecutions.

Tim Backshall, a Derivatives Expert and Frequent Guest on CNBC, Was Outed Today as an Anonymous Writer at Zero HedgeAlso noteworthy, the article’s authors, Tracy Alloway and Luke Kawa, seem to take aim at the financial comfort of the people behind the blog, while failing to mention that their boss is the 8th richest person in the world, whose wealth intricately derives from the industry they cover. During Michael Bloomberg’s 12 year stint in public office as Mayor of New York City, his wealth mushroomed more than ten-fold, growing from $3 billion to $31 billion according to Forbes. The sine qua non of the former Mayor’s wealth stems from those iconic Bloomberg Terminals which cost approximately $24,000 a year each and populate, to the tune of hundreds of thousands of terminals, the expansive trading floors of Wall Street and global banks.

According to the Bloomberg article, three men have been churning out all of the content at Zero Hedge, using the joint pseudonym “Tyler Durden” from the Brad Pitt film “Fight Club.” The 1999 cult film, according to Rolling Stone, is “about being young, male and powerless against the pacifying drug of consumerism. It’s about solitude, despair and bottled-up rage.” That ethos is frequently on display at Zero Hedge.

The three “Tyler Durdens” outed by Bloomberg reporters are Colin Lokey, who has now left Zero Hedge in a fit of pique and is responsible for handing over the internal chat sessions from Zero Hedge on traffic-building strategies and other matters. Bloomberg says “the other two men are Daniel Ivandjiiski, 37, the Bulgarian-born former analyst long reputed to be behind the site, and Tim Backshall, 45, a well-known credit derivatives strategist.”

The article notes that “Ivandjiiski has a multimillion-dollar mansion in Mahwah, N.J., and Backshall lives in a plush San Francisco suburb,” suggesting these are “not exactly reflections” of the anti-capitalism reflected in the moniker “Tyler Durden.”...MORE
ZeroHedge commented that Lokey is:
"an emotionally unstable, psychologically troubled alcoholic with a drug dealer past, as per his own disclosures."