Skip to main content

FSN interview: Richard Eckert (Lahde Capital)

There's a great interview in the latest Financial Sense Newshour with Richard Eckert, the former CFO/risk manager at Lahde Capital Management.

The interview topic: "The Greatest Trade Ever: An insider's behind the scene view of how a hedge fund made millions out of the credit collapse."

For those who don't recall, Lahde Capital is the small Santa Monica hedge fund set up by Andrew Lahde, which profited mightily from short bets on the subprime housing market. After raking in his dough, Lahde famously kissed the hedge fund world goodbye in a widely circulated, and widely discussed, farewell letter to clients.

Lahde is also one of the main investors profiled in Gregory Zuckerman's book, The Greatest Trade Ever, a treasure trove of information on the subprime crash and the hedge fund managers who profited in the downturn.

As I come to the end of Zuckerman's book, one thing that I'm totally struck by are the obstacles that investors like Andrew Lahde, Michael Burry, and John Paulson met in executing their subprime trades and keeping those trades on in the face of financial worries, personal doubts, and total opposition to their ideas from nearly everyone they came in contact with (including their own investors).

How did they maintain their vision and stay with their winning trades until the end? That's an interesting subject, and perhaps FSN's interview with Richard Eckert will shine a little added light on that, and other aspects of Lahde's trade as well. Enjoy.

Related posts:

1. Michael Lewis on Charlie Rose: The Big Short - Finance Trends.

2. Michael Burry: Betting the Blind Side - Finance Trends.


Subscribe to Finance Trends by email or get new posts via RSS. You can follow our real-time updates on Twitter. 

Popular posts from this blog

Nasdaq credit rating junked.

S&P cut Nasdaq's credit rating to junk status citing debt burdens and its questionable strategy to buy a controlling interest in the London Stock Exchange. Financial Times reported that the exchange's counterparty credit & bank loan rating were lowered fromm BBB- (lowest investment grade rating) to BB+. The change will increase Nasdaq's borrowing costs should it wish to pursue aquisition targets. For an earlier look at the exchange consolidation trend that brought about Nasdaq's push for a stake in the LSE, please see "Exchange fever" .

Jesse Livermore: How to Trade in Stocks (1940 Ed. E-book)

If you've been around markets for any length of time, you've probably heard of 20th century supertrader, Jesse Livermore . Today we're highlighting his rare 1940 work, How to Trade in Stocks (ebook, pdf). But first, a brief overview of Livermore's life and trading career (bio from Jesse Livermore's Wikipedia entry). "During his lifetime, Livermore gained and lost several multi-million dollar fortunes. Most notably, he was worth $3 million and $100 million after the 1907 and 1929 market crashes, respectively. He subsequently lost both fortunes. Apart from his success as a securities speculator, Livermore left traders a working philosophy for trading securities that emphasizes increasing the size of one's position as it goes in the right direction and cutting losses quickly. Ironically, Livermore sometimes did not follow his rules strictly. He claimed that lack of adherence to his own rules was the main reason for his losses after making his 1907 and...

Finance Trends 2019 Mid-Year Markets Review

Email subscribers of the Finance Trends Newsletter receive the first look at new articles and market updates, such as the following piece, sent out to our email list on Sunday (6/14).   Hello and welcome, everyone! If you received our last email notice over the July 4th holiday, you'll know that this weekend's newsletter will serve as a mid-year market update and a follow-up to issue #29, " How to Reinvest in a Rising Market ".   Ladies and gentlemen, without further ado, let's start the show...  Finance Trends Newsletter: Our Mid-Year Market Review When we last spoke, back in February, the U.S. stock market was rallying off its December-January lows. As the S&P 500 and Nasdaq reclaimed their 200 day moving averages in February and March, it became increasingly apparent that a lot of retail investors (and perhaps some institutional investors) were left under-invested while watching this recovery move from the sidelines.  The U.S. stock ...