We hope this doesn’t prejudice any bankers against certain pink financial newspapers or websites, but according to Reuters on Thursday (emphasis ours):
RTRS-OBAMA SAYS “FINANCIAL CRISIS RESPONSIBILITY FEE” ON FINANCIAL FIRMS TO RECOVER “EVERY DIME” FROM WALL ST BAILOUT
15:46 14Jan10 RTRS-WHITE HOUSE SAYS BANK FEE WILL BE IN PLACE 10 YEARS OR LONGER IF NEEDED TO FULLY REPAY TARP
15:47 14Jan10 RTRS-WHITE HOUSE SAYS BANK FEE IS AIMED AT LARGEST AND MOST HIGHLY LEVERAGED FINANCIAL FIRMS
15:48 14Jan10 RTRS-OBAMA SAYS DETERMINED TO COLLECT FEE AFTER REPORTS OF “MASSIVE PROFITS AND OBSCENE BONUSES” AT FINANCIAL FIRMS
15:49 14Jan10 RTRS-WHITE HOUSE SAYS IMPORTANT THAT FINANCIAL FIRMS REIMBURSE TAXPAYER DOLLARS SO DEFICIT IS NOT INCREASED
As an aside: can the Obama administration decide once and for all what the official name for the Great Wall Street Levy of 2010 will be?
So far, we’ve seen two acronyms, equally unattractive: FCRT (Financial Crisis Recovery Tax) and FCRF (Financial Crisis Recovery Fee). FT Alphaville readers have also weighed in. Not all of their suggestions are fit for publishing here…
Meanwhile, more carrot and stick from President Obama:
RTRS-OBAMA SAYS FINANCIAL FIRMS TOOK RECKLESS RISKS
16:46 14Jan10 RTRS-OBAMA SAYS GOVT HAS RECOVERED MAJORITY OF BAILOUT FUNDS BUT THAT’S NOT ENOUGH H
16:46 14Jan10 RTRS-OBAMA SAYS ‘WE WANT OUR MONEY BACK AND WE’RE GOING TO GET IT’
16:47 14Jan10 RTRS-OBAMA SAYS IF FINANCIAL FIRMS IN GOOD ENOUGH SHAPE TO PAY BONUSES, THEY’RE IN GOOD ENOUGH SHAPE TO PAY BACK TAXPAYERS
16:48 14Jan10 RTRS-OBAMA SAYS RECOGNIZES THAT FINANCIAL FIRMS ESSENTIAL TO ECONOMY
16:48 14Jan10 RTRS-OBAMA SAYS GOAL IS NOT TO PUNISH WALL ST FIRMS, BUT TO PREVENT ABUSES AND EXCESS FROM HAPPENING AGAIN
Related links:
Fact Sheet: Financial Crisis Responsibility Fee – US Treasury
Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission: Live Coverage of Day 2 – FT
Details of that Wall Street levy – FT Alphaville
Investors Shrug at TARP Tax – Deal Journal
Meeting with David Hauner, Head of Emerging EMEA Economics at Bank of America Merrill Lynch
Sources/workflow:
- Bloomberg (first thing in the morning and throughout the day)
- FT (in the evenings, at the end of the day, in print. “The bank has an online subscription but I prefer print as I spend so much time in front of a screen”
-
Comments:
- Politics coverage is “top notch”
- Corporate coverage is “also excellent”
- Supplements are “really quite excellent”
- “As an economist, I very much like the global economy coverage, with experts giving their views”
Headlines:
January 12 2010
Meeting with Taras Rybak, headhunter for private equity/investment banks, focus on Russia and CIS
Sources/workflow:
- Bloomberg (“indispensable”) – first thing he reads in the morning
- FT – every day, primarily online
- efinancialnews – every day
- efinancialcareers
- emergingmarkets.me (blog focussed on Russia/CIS in which he is a partner)
- vedomosti.ru
- kommersant.ru
- networking/trips back to region
Comments:
- “The FT is good at the big picture, the big news, but weak on depth and detail”
- “Smaller stories are still interesting [to me and my clients]”
- “FT coverage of Russia/CIS is relatively poor, not very deep”
- “The emerging markets section online is not very well organised – it seems to be quite random”
- A lot of investor interest in the Stans, Belarus opening up as a market, interest in agriculture funds and projects, Islamic finance in Russia
- Growing interest by Russian companies in secondary listings in Chinese markets
Headlines:
- There’s a definite lack of markets-focussed CIS commentary in the financial blogosphere
- “People moves – senior level, like the current people column – would be very useful”
- Deals (including the people/players), fund launches/fund raising (“often a very good indicator of future EM deal activity”)
- These regions need independent views and analysis
- Reportage
- Would be willing to pay a premium for a dedicated FT service
January 11 2010
Meeting with Citi – Albert May, Head of Banking for CEE; Geoffrey Dennis – former head of LatAM Equity Research, now Head of EM Strategy; Farhang Mehregani – Head of Equities for CEEMEA, former head of Trading Risk for Global Equities; Julian Mylechreest, Chairman CEEMEA Global Banking
Overview: A very senior, very opinionated group. Again, Bloomberg obsessed but devoted FT readers (primarily in print). Again, found the FT coverage too general, too “For Dummies”. Comments etc broken out by person, have omitted comments that are essentially reiterations of the same point (except for praise, because praise is awesome). These guys have a rigorous travel schedule – Bloomberg Anywhere and Blackberries once again prevail. They do, to a man, request that the FT be waiting for them in their hotel rooms once it’s available (but it’s often not).
Geoff Dennis
Sources/workflow:
- FT (print only, though will “periodically glance” at FT.com) (“Unless I have an FT in my hands by 9am I start shaking”)
- CNBC (“for headlines and breaking news”)
- NY Times (mostly for sport)
- Bloomberg (TOP and TOPL) (“Everyone who goes to our morning call at 7.30am ET will have read TOP”; “We’re all pressed for time in the morning and that’s what Bloomberg does very well”)
Comments:
- “The FT does a better job of covering the world than any other major daily newspaper” (but…)
- “The FT gets it when it comes to the breadth of political and news coverage – wouldn’t tamper with that” (but…)
- “As for coverage of markets, I just don’t need the upsy-downsy stuff. A lot of the markets coverage is dull because it’s all old and stuff I know”
- “There isn’t an EM equity or fixed income column of its own (besides Asia) – I understand the difficulties with time zones but not covering LatAm/EMEA is inexcusable”
- “Markets commentary needs to be beefed up”
- “There’s just not enough coverage of EM FX and fixed income”
Headlines:
- “My job is to make sure my salesforce has every piece of information they need when they go to meet clients”
- “FT’s website is complicated – for EMs, it just doesn’t organise the stories well. There’s no integration of corporate news, macro and opinion pieces”
- “There is no one place on FT.com where you can find EM stories – there’s no geographical sort”
- Would be interested in a 6am Cut for regions (“which would provide a very effective commanality with Bloomberg’s TOP)
- “There’s much more UK in the UK edition than there is US in the US edition”
Albert May
Sources:
- Local newspapers
- Poland AM, which collects every press article from other Polish newspapers and translates into English; similar services for other Central European countries (Jeff weighed in here to say: “For Brazil, you need to know every day what the five daily papers are saying. So that kind of headline aggregation is very useful”)
- Bloomberg (“I am locked into Bloomberg”) – first thing he reads in the morning and throughout the day
- FT – primarily in print, reads in the morning when not travelling; when travelling will read online
- IFR
Comments:
- “The FT is better by far than any other publication, including the WSJ, which I’m not really reading anymore as it doesn’t give me what I want”
- “Beyond news-driven or big events, coverage of emerging markets is sporadic and deficient. It lacks broad views that are not episodic or deal oriented”
- “The supplements are written for the guy who’s never gone to Nigeria; for us, you need to dig deeper”
Headlines:
- “It’s difficult to see anywhere in the FT, print or online, at a glance what’s happening in EMs”
- FT should break out EM coverage by subregion and category
- Would be interested in a 6am Cut for regions
Julian Mylechreest:
Sources/workflow:
- Bloomberg – first thing and throughout the day
- FT – primarily in print, in the morning
- BreakingViews – “much more high quality stuff on EMs than the FT”; “much more challenging of the status quo”
- Moscow Times
- Pravda
- Gulf News
- “Part of what I do is being on the ground”
- Colleagues
Comments:
- “Supplements and special reports are only skin-deep; very much ’101′”
- “FT’s coverage tends to provide a good view of Emerging Markets for those who are mostly focussed on the developed world”
- “You guys are competing for our time – how do you want to do that? More pages in the paper?”
Headlines:
Farhang Mehregani
Sources/workflow:
- FT (“only in print, but I will read FT.com articles that people send me”) – in the morning, but after Bloomberg and WSJ
- WSJ (“WSJ.com is MUCH better than FT.com – I pay for it myself, and use it more, even though I get FT access for free, because I can scroll down and get alot more information. FT.com seems to have 15 stories, max, on the front page at any point in time”)
- Regional press (print when there, online when not)
- Bloomberg
- Reuters
- Emails from colleagues
- Efinancialnews
- Euromoney (“I don’t read it regularly, but it’s one of those things you want to have access to”)
- “The point of all the travelling is to get a sense of what’s out there”
Comments:
- “The Asia edition is great; the middle east edition is great; why does the UK edition suck?”
- “The paper does not seem to be well presented in terms of emerging markets”
- “Political EM coverage is very, very good; companies can be good; markets – that’s a struggle. Your EM markets stories tend to refer to a very small pool of analysts who might give great quotes, but aren’t actually very good or insightful.” [He excluded Michael Hartnett of BofAML from this, calling him 'excellent']
- “You need more diverse and interesting sources”
- “Africa definitely loses out in terms of coverage”
Headlines:
- “EMs are relevant enough, important enough, that people would look for and reading a designated EM section (in the paper)”
- “The FT is not seen as competitive in the real time space”
- “You should look more at Turkey, that’s the country we have been getting the most questions about”
- “Focus is shifting from Brazil to Mexico”
- “If it’s not going to move the market we don’t really care”
Meeting with Ashmore’s Jerome Booth, a shamless self-propagandist and talker of own book, but big player in EM fund management
Sources/workflow:
- FT (in print, on the train in to work; “v old fashioned and don’t like reading things online”; “the FT is not a source of primary information for me, for that I rely on primary sources; I have access to raw information, so for me the FT brings perspective and analysis”)
- “Books”
- “I stopped reading the Economist about 15 years ago”
- “Ocassionally glance at the NY Times and the WSJ”
- Reuters
- Bloomberg
- Traders
- Sell-side research from about 30 banks
Comments:
- “Want to see more emerging markets politicians, finance ministers, academics and economists in the paper”
- “Stop the core-periphery, quite colonial treatment of EMs”
- News stories are often not accompanied by any analysis
Headlines:
- “Any changes or improvements to EM coverage must also be applied to the print edition”
- “Heard of China Confidential, but don’t subscribe to it”
Phone call with Viktor Rosenblitz, LR-er and analyst at DB Advisors
Sources:
- Brokerages/broker notes
- FT – “Read it as a general news source,on EMs I look for in-depth analysis of an industry or a country; views of the experts”)
- Bloomberg
- Blogs
- Colleagues/contacts
Comments:
- Wouldn’t and do not rely on FT as a sole source of EM coverage – too superficial
Headlines:
- Willing to pay extra for a dedicated EM service if it’s not exorbitant – but depends on the content. “If it’s something similar to FT now wouldn’t pay more”
Phone call with Alan Chan, LR-er and PE type at Alberta Investment Management Corporation (AIMCo), interest in global macro, China and sovereign debt
Sources/workflow:
- “Checking Bloomberg on my phone is the first and last thing I do every day”
- Does not subscribe to FT – “I prefer the WSJ”
- Blogs
- Colleagues pinging notes around
Phone call with Viriya Tim, LR-er and investor in EM small and micro-caps, focussed on very exotic/frontier markets
Sources/workflow:
- Google-fu
- Networks of contacts emailing tips/notes
- “It’s really hit and miss; for those markets there isn’t one major player that everybody goes through”
- Used to subscribe to the FT – not anymore – left the company that used to pay for it
- “I’m not going to trust Bloomberg for analysis, just checking prices”
Comments:
- “I’d like a little bit more on local stocks – like when I go on Alphaville I hear about AIM listed companies, but not local companies in these markets”
- “You need a proper platform to do that – the guys at the FT are based in London”
- No use to pay to get stock moves; rather pay for CEO profiles, interviews, company profiles
Headlines:
- “You can get the big picture everywhere, you want granularity. Trade ideas, actionable ideas”
- “Everybody knows China is booming – I want to know which companies, details”
- “if I pay for something, I want it to be updated daily” (r.e. dislike of China Confidential)
Email exchange with Henry Tang, LR-er, Singapore-based investment advisor to private equity and sovereign wealth funds seeking EM opportunities
Sources/workflow:
- FT.com (online subscriber).
- Major news and analyses through FT online. Additional in-depth reports on EM topics/issues, balanced by general overview of the market by FT Alphaville.
- Free versions of Wall St Journal Chinese edition / FTChinese.com and Reuters Chinese edition for China-HK news
- Channel News Asia / Business Strait Times (Singapore) for South-east Asia-specific news.
Occasionally use Bloomberg, Reuters for additional coverage.
- Paid broker notes for specific company analysis.
Comments:
- More coverage on South East Asian markets (especially Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam and Philippines) as well as China-HK/Northern Asia countries (especially Korea). A particular
focus on regulatory news/actions affecting equities would be great.
- Not willing (to pay for standalone EM service) but depends on pricing and coverage vs other more established Asia-based companies.
- Websites such as Zawya DJ is too narrowly focused on MidEast, or the very premium pricing of FT China Confidential will price out readers/investment practitioner like myself.
- A more extensive coverage through existing infrastructure (e.g. FT.com) would be better i think.
Phone call with Thomas Rossman (John Locke in Long Room), Financial Consultant at Al Osaimi Group in Kuwait City
Sources/workflow:
- Reads widely and primarily online (mainly do to difficulty getting hard copies/timely subscription delivery in Kuwait City)
- FT.com subscriber, regularly FT AV reader (and Long Room member)
- “Read a number of papers a day – AV is interesting because i get non-traditional, non-CNBC type information”
- Bloomberg
- WSJ
- New York Times
- WaPo
- Economist
- Foreign Policy Magazine
Comments:
- On EMs, the FT “generally do a pretty good job”
- “What I find find most interesting – out of the box thinking – that’s why AV is more interesting to me.”
- “Thing I look for more than anything is a survey of the really smart guys – Faber et al vs the bulge bracket investment banks”
- “Chanos on China – that kind of stuff is v attractive to me”
- “The Middle Eastern markets are not EMs – they’re kind of in a separate category – markets with GDPs per capitas equal to or above developed countries, but social and political institutions that are far below EMs. I call them ‘emerging autocracies’”
- Analyst reports and market analysis really have very little to do with the markets here – primarily driven by political and financial elite
- “Most of the companies aren’t even real companies – just shells that people move assets into and out of”
- “I don’t think anybody covers the middle east very well. Dearth of understanding of how things work here. If anyone, would be FT as have longer history and focus here.”
- Bloomberg has a few people floating around
- “too many people focus on the phenomena, and completely miss the numina. The phenomena means nothing. Appearances are maintained, but the decisions are being made behind the scenes.”
Headlines:
- “[on what he's looking for] you want to have a good demographic read, how is the shifting population affecting the markets and the politics; understanding local politics and what’s happening between the rulers and the elites”
- e.g. on Dubai – reports on occupancy rates for hotels and residences, that kind of stuff where you’re actually seeing real numbers.
- “What’s real vs not real? As much as you can focus your coverage on identifying what’s real and what’s just nonsense, you can add value”
- Dedicated EM service – that would be interesting – EMs are becoming almost more interesting than developed markets research.
- Willingness to pay would depend on value add (“I don’t have a problem paying for things – pay for a lot of material.”)
- “it all comes down to value – information, unique research. AV like [i.e. in terms of briefing emails, aggregation] would be useful.”
- Would be interested in a free trial to assess.
January 7 2010
Meeting with Standard Chartered
Overview: They love their Bloomberg at StanChart – every single one of them regularly uses Bloomberg Anywhere on their Blackberries. They do read the FT, and thoroughly, though not all of them subscribe. Interesting feedback on interest in in-depth analysis/bespoke research: “we can do that ourselves.” A lot of reliance on real-time market colour from their trading desks and dealing rooms, and on research done by their colleagues. Overall, not convinced by the FT’s existing EM proposition, but not necessarily keen on a Tilt (standalone) idea – what they want is a one-stop shop with relevant (and improved) FT coverage from across editions, supplements, online, Lex (etc) as well as the market granularity Tilt proposes. When asked if they could only have one source what they’d pick, split between Bloomberg and Factiva.
Social media (read: Twitter) was totally not of interest; SMS also dismissed.
Workflow:
This was largely standard – the London day starts with a 7:15 am ‘board meeting’ in which the heads of the various departments will present to their colleagues what they think are the top themes/stories of the day across the various geographies/asset classes. These presentations will draw in their own early perusal of the headlines (named here: Bloomberg TOP, 6am Cut) and overnight notes from their colleagues and teams in Asia. All of the interviewees travel extensively, and when they do they rely heavily, if not exclusively, on Blackberries and Bloomberg Anywhere to keep up to speed on news. When they are not travelling, however, the consensus was overwhelmingly that any reading/research is done at their desks.
Interviewee: Stephen Green, Head of China research
Current sources/workflow:
- Dow Jones (“provides good detail on the inner workings of banks and markets, like CNY, rates and interbank sterilization”)
- Traders
- Google China news
- Chinese language newspapers
- Reads both print and online (including AV)
- Significant amount of information/reading comes from colleagues at StanChart
- Does not subscribe to China Confidential (though knows James Kynge, wouldn’t say why, has seen it)
- Does not personally subscribe to the FT, uses office copy
Comments:
- “The problem with the FT, the WSJ and especially the Economist is that there’s so much going in China, so writing two stories about big and obvious trends isn’t very useful.”
- “Need more on the ground stories that aren’t based on press conferences that absolutely everyone covered”
- “Newspapers like the FT just aren’t in the market – so much of what we need comes from and resides in the market – you can’t compete with banks when it comes to writing a market analysis”
Headlines:
- Looking for more reportage, coverage/analysis of actual market activity (gave example of surprise move by China’s cen bank to raise auction yield of 3-month bills)
- Any subscription service would have to be “really compelling” and provide “more than just the same trend stories about Chinese growth”
Razia Khan, head of Africa
Comments:
- “There’s just not enough on a day to basis on Africa”
- “Nigeria is a huge story – it’s facing unprecedented upheaval; what happened to the Nigerian banks this summer was one of the biggest African
financial stories in decades, and there was barely any FT coverage”
- “There’s almost no markets coverage of Africa at all – be that credit, equity, FX, fixed income or commodities”
- “There’s no sense of what’s happening in the economies of the continent”
- “FT supplements have lost their gravitas – they are more frequent but more superficial, no longer the must-read they were in the 90s, when they featured information you couldn’t find anywhere else”
- “I’m not looking for human interest – I want the FT to cover African banks the way they do in London”
Headlines:
- “I’d like to be able to go online and click on something and get all of the FT’s Africa coverage, whether it came from Lex or companies and markets or a supplement”
- “If there was a dedicated Africa service that was online only I’d definitely be all over it – but it would have to combine the depth of analysis you get in FT print (vs say the wire services) but be fast and reactive to breaking news”
- “Would still like to see [this type of coverage] in the print edition” (which she reads from cover to cover)
- Would sign up for a daily email and/or RSS, but would “still like to go to FT.com and find exactly what I need”
- Would prefer FT.com/africa (for example) “rather than having another URL or site to remember”
- “As a premium subscriber I would expect to get any additional, EM specific stuff”
- She pays for her own subscription (StanChart only has a print sub), “anything on top of that would have to be above and beyond what is currently available for free, or else, why bother?”
Robert Minikin, Senior FX Strategist
Sources:
- “Bloomberg is awesome”
- WSJ (“often more informative than the FT, which can be quite basic.” “The UK print edition is not at all helpful”)
- Colleagues
- Does not currently subscribe to FT.com (but uses office print sub)
Comments:
- FX strategists based across the world, concentrated in Asia, Africa and ME
- Frequent collaboration with colleagues in research r.e. those geographies, and Eastern Europe
- “There is a very wide gap in the coverage that you see of G10 markets vs how EMs are covered”
- “A lot of coverage of the EMs tends to be more political/economic and less to do with market pricing and market developments”
- Wants more specific coverage across FX and rates
- “Print edition coverage should be expanded – the FT devotes vast tracts to UK unit trusts and other mundane data no one reads, they can do more on EMs”
- “The market overviews/columns are totally out of date by the time you read them”
Headlines:
- Would be interested in a widget-like ticker with rolling headlines (like Bloomberg TOP), finds email “too intrusive”
- Aggregation of information from multiple sources
- “Better emerging markets coverage would probably be a good argument for buying an online subscription”
Christine Shields, Global Head of Country Risk Research
Sources:
- ControlRisks
- Factiva
- EIU
- Bloomberg
- BBC Monitoring
- WSJ is good on LatAM “but they can be so bloody American”
- Colleagues on the ground
- “I try to read the paper, but the quality of the UK FT is lower [than other editions]. The UK print edition focusses far too much on the UK rather than international coverage”
- Meetings with FT foreign correspondents (esp John Burton in Singapore on Asia issues)
Comments:
- “The FT’s coverage of the emerging world has deteriorated in recent years”
- “Possibly due to the tendency of correspondents to move around; very few demonstrate depth and understanding” (e.g “Now that Andrew Ward is gone there’s much less coverage of Korea than there used to be”
- “The focus has been on financials rather than fundamentals”
- “[The FT has tended to] take political risk in places like the Midle East for granted”
- Better coverage “provides a lot of scope for widening your readership”
Headlines:
- Don’t mind getting email, not big on RSS, only just beginning to explore mobile internet.
- “Would be good to get email alerts from the FT on areas of interest”
- Reportage would be useful
Dan Smith, Metals Analyst
- Does not subscribe to the FT, but does read the print edition and occasionally FT.com (via Google or Bloomberg)
- Bloomberg (esp TOP), Bloomberg Anywhere
- Reuters
- Specialist/trade mags
- “Probably 80 to 90 per cent of my reading is online, mainly at my desk”
Comments:
- “Commodities coverage is generally pretty good, has insights you might not find elsewhere”
- Wants more context to commodity moves
- “We’re bombarded with information – frankly I only want to read commentary from people that might know more than we do”
- Really likes the Reuters “tailored newspaper” – a personalised website with selected headlines/stories
Headlines:
- Not an RSS user, hates email
- Wants a “daily filtering of the news”; intelligent aggregation
Helen Henton, Head of Commodity Research
Sources:
- Factiva (almost exclusively)
- Bloomberg
- Reuters
- Does not subscribe to FT, does not often read FT online content unless through Factiva
Comments:
- Finds in-depth analyses most useful
- Wants the rumour and speculation (“Bloomberg’s aversion to reporting rumours gives Reuters an advantage”)
Headlines:
- Too much email, but does want the headlines
- Would sign up for a 6am-Cut style morning update, esp with overnight coverage of Asia
- Likes reading things online, and since often works from home prefers mobile applications/web based
Alex Barrett, Global Head of Client Research
- FT (does not subscribe, buys a copy daily)
- FT Alphaville
- Bloomberg (“on mobile, tend to rely 100 per cent on Bloomberg’s TOP”)
- Colleagues
- Google (“if it’s not available through Google, I’ll find another source” [i.e. for free])
Comments:
- “Everybody’s talking about the rise of China, but there’s an awful lot of other stuff going on that drops below the radar screen”
- “I doubt we or clients would be interested in in-depth stuff – for that they come to us or people like CSLA”
- Tends to read at desk when not travelling
- Tends to go directly to websites rather than use RSS
- Would be interest in a mobile app with top headlines
Headlines:
- “I’m very bored of emails – I tend to just filter them to a folder and then not read them”
- “Aggregation is what everyone wants”
- “We want aggregation and reportage”
- Would be interested in European wraps, “Lunch Wrap style”
- We want breaking news, a service that is reactive, fast and well-sourced