Hour 10 - Galaxy Financial Poised for a Big Year
A friend of mine has some money in a fund called Galaxy Financial and last night he sent me their year end letter to investors. There is one paragraph in the letter that is particularly relevant and I thought I would share an excerpt.
“The partners at Galaxy are very bearish on the future of the North American equity markets. While we are confident that we will see modest earnings growth and low interest rates throughout 2005, we are quite concerned that geopolitical factors could negatively impact the equity markets in the year ahead. In particular, some of our intelligence suggests that 2005 will be marked by major terrorist activity that is not limited to the Middle East. We think that the there is a strong possibility of a North American event and that is why we have initiated a very bearish bet on US Equities. In particular, Galaxy has also shorted a basket of electric utilities and insurance companies on the belief that an attack could target the United States electricity grid.”
For the first time in show history, it looks as if the producers of 24 are taking on Wall Street, and hedge funds in particular. That is my general conclusion based on the evidence presented in Hour 10 last night. In a patented 24 twist, it now looks as if the Turks are merely a pawn in a larger chess game being played by Galaxy Financial. I’ve been waiting for this changeup and it came right on schedule. As we have seen in previous seasons, storylines tend to end and begin around the halfway point of the show. In this instance, it looks as if the Turk storyline is about to conclude, or at least move into an entirely new direction. But as the Turks move off into the sunset, a new group of bad guys will emerge and in this case, the bad guys will be the folks a Galaxy. In fact, it looks to me like we could have an event on the Galaxy trading desk next week.
I don't have much to say on Paul Raines other then he is an idiot and in real life, he probably ends up with someone closer to Chloe then Audrey. However, I do think the writers screwed up one part of his storyline. If I were the show's top scribe, I would have had Jack interupt a good old-fashioned attempted rape scene. So as Jack breaks down the door of the hotel, he gets a birds eye view of Paul doing an impression of Kobe Bryant at the Lodge and Spa in Cordelia Colorado. I would love to see Jack cleanup that situation.
Now I am not certain of the following conclusion so it remains only a thesis at this point. But with a gun to my head, I gotta think the guys who took down Curtis and killed Marianne are linked back to Galaxy. I am pretty confident in my theory, but I remain a bit cautious on the call. As an alternative, I think there is a shot that they are renegade feds. Don't rule out some fed involvement in this whole debacle.
As for Curtis, some people may think that my call to buy his stock last week was a real loser. After all, he has been taken prisoner and the previews for next week don’t look promising. I will concede that his stock pulled back a bit this week, but I see this as a big buying opportunity. Curtis would be dead by now if he didn’t have a role going forward. With every breathe he takes, I get more confident Curtis will be pivotal down the road. In fact, I would consider him a rising start at this point.
Another star on the rise is Sarah. What a few hours she has had. First she gets accused of treason and then she gets electrocuted within an ounce of her life. When its disclosed that she isn’t a treasonous mole, she forgives her torturers and goes back to her desk. Now that is a team player. No moping back to the clinic. Instead, its put me in coach, I am ready to play. I have electrical burns all over my neck but I am ready to set up a level three protocol if need be. But I do have to question her demand for only a modest pay increase. She should have held out for much more then two paygrades (that is like an additional $600/month for civil servants) and I hope she didn't forfeit any of her future legal rights. I am not an employment attorney, but I think plaintiffs usually get seven-figure settlements when their employers are found guilty of shocking them into submission.
Tony Almieda had a very strong week and that should quiet those of you who doubted his commitment to solving this caper. Jack put him on the spot this week, but Tony came up large with an Almeida classic: “Thanks Jack, I’ll do it!” My no mistake about it, Tony is now “all in.” And how about his return to CTU? It was like a king returning to his lands after being wrongly exiled. Powerful stuff indeed.
Ok, Edgar didn’t have a great week but even Hakeem Olajuwon took nights off. I wouldn’t go crazy selling Edgar short just because he didn’t have those meltdown reports updated for Driscoll. On the plus size, Edgar played a key role in unraveling the corporate structure of Galaxy and I did love his briefing for Sarah which concluded with, “we have to mobilize tactical to support Jack.” Great stuff if you ask me.
One thing that caught me by surprise last night was the difficulty Jack had in putting away Navi. Jack has handled much tougher opponents in the past and I was expecting a first round knockout. But Navi took that fight into the third round and scored a few points before Jack was able to put him away. Nice supporting move by Tony to come in and bully Beruz into a surrender. On a realted note, i think its worth noting that Beruz did kill two guys in about five hours, one of which was his dad. That is pretty good work for a kid who eats a ton of shit at school.
One last thing I wanted to point out, did anyone notice the following? When Navi calls the head Turk, there are a bunch of Arabs sitting down at a table in the background. Its hard to tell, but I think they are playing cards. We have six nuclear plants melting down and these guys are playing Go Fish?
“The partners at Galaxy are very bearish on the future of the North American equity markets. While we are confident that we will see modest earnings growth and low interest rates throughout 2005, we are quite concerned that geopolitical factors could negatively impact the equity markets in the year ahead. In particular, some of our intelligence suggests that 2005 will be marked by major terrorist activity that is not limited to the Middle East. We think that the there is a strong possibility of a North American event and that is why we have initiated a very bearish bet on US Equities. In particular, Galaxy has also shorted a basket of electric utilities and insurance companies on the belief that an attack could target the United States electricity grid.”
For the first time in show history, it looks as if the producers of 24 are taking on Wall Street, and hedge funds in particular. That is my general conclusion based on the evidence presented in Hour 10 last night. In a patented 24 twist, it now looks as if the Turks are merely a pawn in a larger chess game being played by Galaxy Financial. I’ve been waiting for this changeup and it came right on schedule. As we have seen in previous seasons, storylines tend to end and begin around the halfway point of the show. In this instance, it looks as if the Turk storyline is about to conclude, or at least move into an entirely new direction. But as the Turks move off into the sunset, a new group of bad guys will emerge and in this case, the bad guys will be the folks a Galaxy. In fact, it looks to me like we could have an event on the Galaxy trading desk next week.
I don't have much to say on Paul Raines other then he is an idiot and in real life, he probably ends up with someone closer to Chloe then Audrey. However, I do think the writers screwed up one part of his storyline. If I were the show's top scribe, I would have had Jack interupt a good old-fashioned attempted rape scene. So as Jack breaks down the door of the hotel, he gets a birds eye view of Paul doing an impression of Kobe Bryant at the Lodge and Spa in Cordelia Colorado. I would love to see Jack cleanup that situation.
Now I am not certain of the following conclusion so it remains only a thesis at this point. But with a gun to my head, I gotta think the guys who took down Curtis and killed Marianne are linked back to Galaxy. I am pretty confident in my theory, but I remain a bit cautious on the call. As an alternative, I think there is a shot that they are renegade feds. Don't rule out some fed involvement in this whole debacle.
As for Curtis, some people may think that my call to buy his stock last week was a real loser. After all, he has been taken prisoner and the previews for next week don’t look promising. I will concede that his stock pulled back a bit this week, but I see this as a big buying opportunity. Curtis would be dead by now if he didn’t have a role going forward. With every breathe he takes, I get more confident Curtis will be pivotal down the road. In fact, I would consider him a rising start at this point.
Another star on the rise is Sarah. What a few hours she has had. First she gets accused of treason and then she gets electrocuted within an ounce of her life. When its disclosed that she isn’t a treasonous mole, she forgives her torturers and goes back to her desk. Now that is a team player. No moping back to the clinic. Instead, its put me in coach, I am ready to play. I have electrical burns all over my neck but I am ready to set up a level three protocol if need be. But I do have to question her demand for only a modest pay increase. She should have held out for much more then two paygrades (that is like an additional $600/month for civil servants) and I hope she didn't forfeit any of her future legal rights. I am not an employment attorney, but I think plaintiffs usually get seven-figure settlements when their employers are found guilty of shocking them into submission.
Tony Almieda had a very strong week and that should quiet those of you who doubted his commitment to solving this caper. Jack put him on the spot this week, but Tony came up large with an Almeida classic: “Thanks Jack, I’ll do it!” My no mistake about it, Tony is now “all in.” And how about his return to CTU? It was like a king returning to his lands after being wrongly exiled. Powerful stuff indeed.
Ok, Edgar didn’t have a great week but even Hakeem Olajuwon took nights off. I wouldn’t go crazy selling Edgar short just because he didn’t have those meltdown reports updated for Driscoll. On the plus size, Edgar played a key role in unraveling the corporate structure of Galaxy and I did love his briefing for Sarah which concluded with, “we have to mobilize tactical to support Jack.” Great stuff if you ask me.
One thing that caught me by surprise last night was the difficulty Jack had in putting away Navi. Jack has handled much tougher opponents in the past and I was expecting a first round knockout. But Navi took that fight into the third round and scored a few points before Jack was able to put him away. Nice supporting move by Tony to come in and bully Beruz into a surrender. On a realted note, i think its worth noting that Beruz did kill two guys in about five hours, one of which was his dad. That is pretty good work for a kid who eats a ton of shit at school.
One last thing I wanted to point out, did anyone notice the following? When Navi calls the head Turk, there are a bunch of Arabs sitting down at a table in the background. Its hard to tell, but I think they are playing cards. We have six nuclear plants melting down and these guys are playing Go Fish?
posted by bruinsinruins at 12:03 AM
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