New Website Zero Hedge has Sharp Sticks for Financial Community (NY Magazine Expose)

[KoKo]

The Dow Zero Insurgency
The nothing-can-be-believed chaos of the financial crisis created a golden opportunity for a blog run by a mysterious ex-hedge-funder with a dodgy past and conspiracy theories to burn.

Last spring, in a far corner of the Internet, an unknown blogger began to piece together a conspiracy theory: The investment bank Goldman Sachs was using sophisticated, high-speed computers to siphon hundreds of millions of dollars in illegitimate trading profits from the New York Stock Exchange, invisibly undercutting the market and sidestepping the regulatory reach of the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Only a few loyal readers paid attention to the blog called Zero Hedge, a no-frills site full of arcane analysis decipherable only by finance professionals. But when a former Goldman Sachs computer programmer was arrested for allegedly stealing software codes used for the firm’s electronic trading arm, and a federal prosecutor was quoted saying the codes could be used to “manipulate markets in unfair ways,” the once-obscure blog ignited a chain reaction. While on a golf outing, an editor at the New York Times learned from a friend who worked on Wall Street that the Zero Hedge allegation was the talk of the industry, and an assignment ensued. On July 24, the Times published a front-page article on so-called high-frequency trading and its potential abuses, which in turn prompted Chuck Schumer, a member of the Senate Finance Committee, to draft a letter to the SEC that same day. Twelve days later, the SEC signaled that it was considering a ban on the very computerized trading that Zero Hedge had attacked.

Suddenly, the shadowy figure behind Zero Hedge was a full-blown cult hero—a blogger with a bullet. His readership of angry traders and anti-government malcontents celebrated his newfound power. “Welcome to the party pal!!!” declared one of his fans in the comments section.

In a sign of just how radically the order has shifted in the political and media world, neither the Times nor Schumer had a clue about the identity of the pseudonymous author behind Zero Hedge. As it happens, the founder is a 30-year-old Bulgarian immigrant banned from working in the brokerage business for insider trading. A former hedge-fund analyst, he’s also a zealous believer in a sweeping conspiracy that casts the alumni of Goldman Sachs as a powerful cabal at the helm of U.S. policy, with the Treasury and the Federal Reserve colluding to preserve the status quo. His antidote? A purifying market crash that leads to the elimination of the big banks altogether and the reinstatement of genuine free-market capitalism.

Never mind Dow 10,000. Dan Ivandjiiski is all about Dow Zero.

Last year’s financial implosion left the investing public deeply unsettled about who or what to trust. The information that flowed from the banks, the ratings agencies, the regulatory agencies, and the mainstream media—the bedrock of the financial markets, in a sense—was viewed with great suspicion, and that created an opportunity for financial bloggers: a motley assortment of amateurs and professionals from all over the map. There are traders, economists, venture capitalists, financial advisers, and pajama-clad cranks all vying to explain the complex machinations that got us into this mess and to critique governmental solutions. Sites like Naked Capitalism, Seeking Alpha, the Big Picture, Infectious Greed, Angry Bear, Calculated Risk, and Zero Hedge have hatched communities based on discontent and disbelief, forming a kind of ragtag insurgency against the financial Establishment and what they view as its feckless lackeys in the government and media.

“We’re all happily cruising along, doing our financial-journalism thing, until late 2007,” explains Felix Salmon, who now blogs for Reuters. “We have relationships with flacks, and suddenly they started lying to us. Outright lies. And you’re like, ‘Wait, that’s not kosher, you can’t do that.’ ” Among bloggers, Salmon is more of the Establishment type, with little tolerance for the sloppy thinking of excitable bloggers.

Financial blogs grew out of the message boards launched by Yahoo! Finance in the late nineties, which were primarily a forum for day traders to argue investment ideas and vent little-guy frustrations about the Wall Street power structure.

It's a Seven Page Article....maybe good to bookmark and get back to ...but it's an incredible read...reminds me of how we all congregated after the 2000 STOLEN ELECTION. Progressive Bloggers made the INTERNET...that Financial Bloggers are exposing the Wall St. Crimes is GOOD! Good for Idealists, EVERYWHERE!

READ MORE....Long Read, here.....

http://nymag.com/guides/money/2009/59457/

[katanalori]

1. Thank you for posting this site!

Not so "new," I have been following this blog for months. "Tyler Durden" is the pseudonym for the blogger at Zero Hedge. It is an awesome, educational site. Lots of intelligent posts there, despite the occasional trolls who visit. This site, IMO, is one that the Corporations would like to see gone - and all the more reason to follow it.
http://www.zerohedge.com

[KoKo]

2. Yep...many DU'ers have been over there..and watching...Thank You for

for posting that you knew what this was all about! :hi: Fellow Financial Blog Watcher along with our hearty crew of Ozy and the SMW..here on DU.

[katanalori]

3. after reading the whole long article.............

Seems NY Magazine is attempting to discredit zero hedge. No surprise, since he does not bow down to the powers thant be. Hope this expose' just gives him more hits.

[KoKo]

4. I didn't get that impression at all. I thought it was a fair article with much more attention

to what "Zero Hedge" exposed than dissing. :shrug: I guess "different strokes for different folks."