Dear Clients, Industry Colleagues and Friends of Barnhardt Capital Management,
It is with regret and unflinching moral certainty that I announce that Barnhardt Capital Management has ceased operations. The reason for my decision to pull the plug was excruciatingly simple: I could no longer tell my clients that their monies and positions were safe in the futures and options markets – because they are not. And this goes not just for my clients, but for every futures and options account in the United States. The entire system has been utterly destroyed by the MF Global collapse.
I have learned over the last week that MF Global is almost certainly the mere tip of the iceberg.
There was nothing regulated about the MF Global clowns and Mr. Corzine comingling company and client money. MAJOR NO NO!
They could make this into a movie: “Honey I Blew Up the Company.”
It is one thing to trade on the companies money, it is quite another to go to the gaming table with client money.
Cheers
Hans Rupprecht, Commander in Chief
1st Saint Nicolaas Army
Army Group “True North”
As the comments at zerohedge noted, Barnhart was just a small company, with just a few million under management. Nonetheless, the smaller companies are more nimble, and thus it was easier for her to get out than a larger managed futures firm. Tip of the iceberg indeed!
McCain spent most of the campaign saying he was not Bush and Obama spent most of his saying that McCain is bush. We don’t have that problem anymore.
Many people believe Anne B. is insane. Just sayin’ (scroll down)
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/going-galt-hedge-broker-shuts-down-firm-with-chilling-letter-about-the-market/
Yeah, that post put a cold chill in my gut.
Just in time for my retirement. Who’d a thunk the world would come to an end during my lifetime?
How many of us have pieces of paper we can hold up and believe they have value. It says so right on them. The rest of our life may depend on them and their intrinsic value.
It is well within the realm of possibilities that within a year or two we might have far more value out of a half dozen large bags of dogfood than all the stock options and other monetary investments.
Did you know that dog/cat food has to meet standards for human consumption. May have a lot of skin, lips and assholes but you can’t eat paper. Or gold. Invest wisely and stock up on edibles with long shelflife. Hopefully we can laugh about this 5 years from now, but for now I’m picking up another 23 kg bag of Old Roy dogfood. We have a Shi tzu and she rcommends the taste. That will be 7 bags in dry storage. Just so we do’nt have to eat the dog of course.
Bit of levity here, but not that much.
MF Global was levered over 100:1? That’s insane.
I truley wonder what will happen let’s say it does splatter all over the fan…..then what ?
I mean there are mature responsible law abiding people in this world who have managed money responsibly and fairly to the benifit of there investors …like the company i work for they sell airplanes and have recieved payment for 60 in total that means i will have work for at least 5-7 years for sure ….do i bother to go to work ? what if what i am working for is worthless by the time i cash it into my bank account? i hold physical silver we try to stock up on food a little bit here and there but i mean we also have to live as well ….i want to buy guns and lot’s of ammo but i need a licenese and i don’t have one ..i need medical supplies but it’s like do i take my actual cash and go spend it on these items or do i pay my bills and save and continue to live , i can’t reaslly afford to go any where “SAFE” i livei n my home with my wife so how is the sh!t hitting the fan going to affect me? If someone can put it into perspective i would appreciate it.
@ paul in calgary
Live by logic. If the sh*t hits the fan there will be at least a 6 month window where we can watch the train wreck in the US without affecting Canada drasticly and probably a year before the social safety nets start to fray up here. Pay your bills and live like nothing will change. Hell , nothing may happen. Need a gun license ? Get one. Lot simpler than a drivers license. Typical government brain dead course and I believe you can even do it on line. If you need medical supplies, buy them. Do’nt worry about saving until you have the essentials. When you and/or the wife go shopping just pick up a few extra dry edibles and put them away.As far as going somewhere safe ? Not at the cost of your job. If things really fall apart you will have lots of warning and you can make a decision then. When people start marching on Government buildings, that might be a good time to get out of the big cities. Relatives in the countryside ? Most country folks are more self sufficient and public discontent will hit the cities first.
Hopefully you will never have to make the big decisions and live to a ripe old age with all your investments intact. It does not hurt to be prepared for some rough times though. As the old song goes….Dont worry…..be happy. Just remember the Boy Scout motto, be prepared.
Wow … a real John Galt moment!
@PETERJ
Thank you i appreaciate it , i would not mind a serious re adjustment of thing’s in this world as people don’t know how good they have it (OWS types) , It is just that if it goes awray i wouldl iek to be prepared so thank you i will continue to buy odds and sods ..like water filtration pills and systems , and little by little i will slowly build my arsinal!!
@ommag
yea, I’m a fan too. My favorite :
For twelve years you’ve been asking “Who is John Galt?” This is John Galt speaking. I’m the man who’s taken away your victims and thus destroyed your world. You’ve heard it said that this is an age of moral crisis and that Man’s sins are destroying the world. But your chief virtue has been sacrifice, and you’ve demanded more sacrifices at every disaster. You’ve sacrificed justice to mercy and happiness to duty. So why should you be afraid of the world around you?
Your world is only the product of your sacrifices. While you were dragging the men who made your happiness possible to your sacrificial altars, I beat you to it. I reached them first and told them about the game you were playing and where it would take them. I explained the consequences of your ‘brother-love’ morality, which they had been too innocently generous to understand. You won’t find them now, when you need them more than ever.
We’re on strike against your creed of unearned rewards and unrewarded duties. If you want to know how I made them quit, I told them exactly what I’m telling you tonight. I taught them the morality of Reason — that it was right to pursue one’s own happiness as one’s principal goal in life. I don’t consider the pleasure of others my goal in life, nor do I consider my pleasure the goal of anyone else’s life.
I am a trader. I earn what I get in trade for what I produce. I ask for nothing more or nothing less than what I earn. That is justice. I don’t force anyone to trade with me; I only trade for mutual benefit. Force is the great evil that has no place in a rational world. One may never force another human to act against his/her judgment. If you deny a man’s right to Reason, you must also deny your right to your own judgment. Yet you have allowed your world to be run by means of force, by men who claim that fear and joy are equal incentives, but that fear and force are more practical.
You’ve allowed such men to occupy positions of power in your world by preaching that all men are evil from the moment they’re born. When men believe this, they see nothing wrong in acting in any way they please. The name of this absurdity is ‘original sin’. That’s inmpossible. That which is outside the possibility of choice is also outside the province of morality. To call sin that which is outside man’s choice is a mockery of justice. To say that men are born with a free will but with a tendency toward evil is ridiculous. If the tendency is one of choice, it doesn’t come at birth. If it is not a tendency of choice, then man’s will is not free.
And then there’s your ‘brother-love’ morality. Why is it moral to serve others, but not yourself? If enjoyment is a value, why is it moral when experienced by others, but not by you? Why is it immoral to produce something of value and keep it for yourself, when it is moral for others who haven’t earned it to accept it? If it’s virtuous to give, isn’t it then selfish to take?
Your acceptance of the code of selflessness has made you fear the man who has a dollar less than you because it makes you feel that that dollar is rightfully his. You hate the man with a dollar more than you because the dollar he’s keeping is rightfully yours. Your code has made it impossible to know when to give and when to grab.
You know that you can’t give away everything and starve yourself. You’ve forced yourselves to live with undeserved, irrational guilt. Is it ever proper to help another man? No, if he demands it as his right or as a duty that you owe him. Yes, if it’s your own free choice based on your judgment of the value of that person and his struggle. This country wasn’t built by men who sought handouts. In its brilliant youth, this country showed the rest of the world what greatness was possible to Man and what happiness is possible on Earth.
Then it began apologizing for its greatness and began giving away its wealth, feeling guilty for having produced more than ikts neighbors. Twelve years ago, I saw what was wrong with the world and where the battle for Life had to be fought. I saw that the enemy was an inverted morality and that my acceptance of that morality was its only power. I was the first of the men who refused to give up the pursuit of his own happiness in order to serve others.
To those of you who retain some remnant of dignity and the will to live your lives for yourselves, you have the chance to make the same choice. Examine your values and understand that you must choose one side or the other. Any compromise between good and evil only hurts the good and helps the evil.
If you’ve understood what I’ve said, stop supporting your destroyers. Don’t accept their philosophy. Your destroyers hold you by means of your endurance, your generosity, your innocence, and your love. Don’t exhaust yourself to help build the kind of world that you see around you now. In the name of the best within you, don’t sacrifice the world to those who will take away your happiness for it.
The world will change when you are ready to pronounce this oath:
I swear by my Life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man,
nor ask another man to live for the sake of mine.
It’s easy to ‘go Galt’. I’ve been doing it for years.
Get out of debt, then start saving. Simplify your life, and stop trying to ‘keep up with the Jonses’. Most importantly don’t be conned by the sophisticated marketing that tries to get you to buy stuff you don’t need with money you don’t have. Unrestrained advertising is at the root of our economic problems, don’t fall for it, you’re smarter than that.
Easy there, Kathy. I recall a while back you being humbled by so many of your fans comparing you to the lovely Ms. Barnhardt.
Let’s try this again…..
Go easy on Ms Barnhardt, Kathy. It wasn’t that long ago you were humbled by the favorable comparison between Ann and yourself.
Sorry for the double post. 5 minutes ago my first one wasn’t there. Weird.
I understand what you are saying Kathy. I read you both every day.You Ladies have far more “balls” than most men I know , or read. Ann can be cringe inducing for me, but I think its mainly a”duck” I am doing just imagining the flack headed her way. Some of the things she(and you) say, remind me of the good old days, when we could actually say what we thought. So Good for you, and her and I certainly have to include our esteemed host here.Thanks to the chicks who carry our water.