The Big Picture - Macro Perspective on the Capital Markets, Economy, Technology, and Digital Media

• James Bianco has run Bianco Research out of Chicago since November 1990. He has been producing fixed income commentaries with a circulation of hundreds of portfolio managers and traders. Jim’s commentaries have a special emphasis on: money flow characteristics of primary dealers, mutual funds, hedge funds, futures traders, banks, and institutional investors. Prior to founding Bianco Research, Jim spent time in New York as Market Strategist for UBS Securities, and Equity Technical Analyst at First Boston and Shearson Lehman Brothers. He is a Chartered Market Technician (CMT) and a member of the Market Technicians Association (MTA).

• Peter Boockvaar is the Equity Strategist at Miller Tabak + Co., LLC., in addition to his role as a salestrader on the equity desk. He is often seen on Bloomberg TV, CNBC, and Fox Business and is frequently quoted on Reuters, Dow Jones Newswires,  Wall Street Journal, and The Associated Press. He joined Miller Tabak + Co., LLC in 1994 after working in the corporate bond research department at Donaldson, Lufkin and Jenrette. He is on the Board of Directors of Ameritrans Capital Corporation, a publicly traded Business Development Company. He is also president of OCLI, LLC and OCLI2, LLC, farmland real estate investment funds. Mr. Boockvar graduated Magna Cum Laude with a B.B.A. in Finance from George Washington University.

• Paul Brodsky co-founded QB Asset Management Company and is its Head of Operations, in addition to helping manage the assets it oversees. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1982 and has traded and invested within and across markets since then for firms including Kidder Peabody, Drexel Burnham Lambert, and Spyglass Capital. With his partner, Lee Quaintance, Mr. Brodsky considers macroeconomic trends and outcomes and applies them in the markets. QBAMCO’s monthly letters often contain literate essays through which the firm seeks to explain relevant economic and market rationales and expectations to fund investors. Though QBAMCO prefers to maintain a low profile, the firm’s reports are frequently reviewed and reprinted by elite business journalists including Alan Abelson and Kathryn Welling.

• David R. Kotok co-founded Cumberland Advisors in 1973 and has been its Chief Investment Officer since inception. He holds a B.S. in Economics from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, an M.S. in Organizational Dynamics from The School of Arts and Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania, and a Masters in Philosophy from the University of Pennsylvania. Mr. Kotok’s articles and financial market commentary have appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Barron’s, and other publications. He is a frequent contributor to CNBC programs. Mr. Kotok is also a member of the National Business Economics Issues Council (NBEIC), the National Association for Business Economics (NABE), the Philadelphia Council for Business Economics (PCBE), and the Philadelphia Financial Economists Group (PFEG).

• Dan Greenhaus is at the Equity Strategy Group at Miller Tabak + Co. where he covers markets and portfolio theory. He has contributed several chapters to Investing From the Top Down: A Macro Approach to Capital Markets (by Anthony Crescenzi).

• Bill King is a Wall Street veteran with 35 years of institutional equity, proprietary and derivatives trading experience, giving him a unique perspective on current market conditions and forecast. As author of The King Report, Bill’s candid observations and forecast on the economic, financial, and political forces that are impacting the markets is read by major institutions and hedge funds. However, this report is not the usual garden variety tripe that is issued by the financial media and Wall Street. Bill, in plain language, refutes conventional rant about Wall Street activity and articulates the real factors and impetuses that drive market activity. The inside world of Wall Street is far different than what is disseminated to the masses. Wall Street insiders seldom adorn their own portfolios or trading accounts with ‘recommended list’ issues.

• Marion Maneker writes about business subjects for a variety of print and online outlets. He is the managing partner at Colle, Hochberg & Grey, a media firm that publishes ArtMarketMonitor.com. Previously the publisher of HarperCollins’s business books imprint–where he worked with some of American’s leading CEOs, journalists and management experts–Maneker was once an editor at New York Magazine.

• John Mauldin is a Fort Worth, Texas businessman, now living in Uptown Dallas, and the father of seven children, ranging from ages 13 through 30, five of whom are adopted. John is the President of Millennium Wave Advisors, LLC (MWA) which is an investment advisory firm registered in multiple states.  John is a frequent contributor to numerous publications, and guest on TV and radio shows as well as quoted widely in the press.

• Jack McHugh is a partner with Praetorian Advisors. His 30 year career in the financial services business began in High School when he worked as a runner, broker’s assistant and phone clerk at the Chicago Board of Trade. Mr. McHugh was an institutional salestrader at Drexel, Burnham and Lambert. After Drexel’s demise in 1990, Mr. McHugh helped start an institutional sales team at Salomon, Smith Barney. During his 10 year stint at SSB, Mr. McHugh became co-head of the firm’s institutional equity futures and options team in Chicago. Mr. McHugh was later hired to start and run institutional futures and options desks for the Chicago offices of both Prudential Securities and UBS.  In 2005, Mr. McHugh joined colleagues Lawrence Ryan and David Fenn in forming Praetorian Advisors. Our mission has been to use our extensive list of institutional contacts to raise capital for smaller firms with great ideas that are considered not large enough to attract the attention of bulge bracket firms. In 2008, Praetorian Advisors formed an affiliated relationship with Chicago Investment Group in order to extend the reach of our products and services. Mr. McHugh highly regarded, capital markets commentary which is sent daily to 200 clients who collectively have more than $5 trillion under management.  In addition to his regular contributions to BP Think Tank, Mr. McHugh has been cited by Briefing.Com, Bill Fleckenstein’s “Daily Rap”, and Jim Grant’s “Grant’s Interest Rate Observer”.

• Michael Panzner is a twenty-five-year veteran of the global stock, bond, and currency markets and the author of three books, including Financial Armageddon and When Giants Fall: An Economic Roadmap for the End of the American Era, due out from Wiley in February 2009.

• Dr Prieur du Plessis is an investment professional with 26 years’ experience in investment research and portfolio management. More than 1,300 of his articles on investment-related topics have been published in newspapers, journal and Internet columns (including his blog, Investment Postcards from Cape Town: www.investmentpostcards.com). He has published a book, Financial Basics: Investment. Prieur is chairman and principal shareholder of South African-based Plexus Asset Management, which he founded in 1995. The group conducts investment management, investment consulting, private equity and real estate activities in South Africa and other African countries. Prieur also serves as Honorary Consul of Slovenia for South Africa, actively developing economic, cultural and scientific relations between the two countries. He is 54 years old and lives with his wife, television producer and presenter Isabel Verwey, and two children in Cape Town, South Africa. His leisure activities include long-distance running, traveling, reading, motor-cycling and scripophily (the study and collection of stocks and bonds).

• Joshua Rosner is Managing Director at independent research consultancy Graham Fisher & Co and advises regulators and institutional investors on housing and mortgage finance issues. Previously he was the Managing Director of financial services research for Medley Global Advisors. In early 2003 Mr. Rosner was among the first analysts to identify operational and accounting problems at the Government Sponsored Enterprises, in the third quarter of 2005 Mr. Rosner identified the peak in the housing market, In October of 2006 Mr. Rosner highlighted the likely contagion from structured securities and credit markets into the real economy.

• James Welsh has been writing his monthly investment letter “The Financial Commentator” since 1985, and managing money since 1986. He provides a unique blend of fundamental and technical analysis. In December 2007, he explained why the Federal Reserve would have a more difficult time containing the credit crisis, and in January 2008 stated that a bear market had begun. He is armed with a degree in sociology, and has never taken a business or economics class. He has learned about the financial markets and economics the old fashioned way – reading, writing, and learning from his mistakes! Mr. Welsh has developed a quantitative trading model for S&P futures, using a third party research firm, after crunching 30 minute data from 1987. This trading strategy made money in 2008.

• Christopher Whalen is the co-founder of Institutional Risk Analytics, the Los Angeles based publisher of risk ratings and provider of risk management tools and consulting services for auditors, regulators and financial professionals. He edits The Institutional Risk Analyst, a news report and commentary on developments in and around the global financial markets. Christopher founded newsletters such as The Mexico Report, Washington & Wall Street and The Edge. He is global risk editor of The International Economy magazine and has contributed to Insight on the News and Barron’s. In the early 1990s, Christopher helped found The Herbert Gold Society, an informal group of current and former employees of the US Treasury and the Federal Reserve System. Christopher volunteers as a regional director of the Washington DC chapter of Professional Risk Managers International Association. You may see Christopher in media such as The Globalist, CNBC, Bloomberg, and American Banker.