Gwen Robinson
Further reading
Elsewhere on Friday,
- The new world of regulation by investigation.
- Groupon IPO – meet the billionaires.
- A trader, an FBI witness and a suicide…
- Now comes the really hard part for Greece.
Further reading
Elsewhere on Thursday,
- The slow motion disaster that is the eurozone.
- Where to go for an IPO?
- For a whistle-blower, no good deed goes unpunished.
- The deal David Rubinstein missed.
- The UK’s ‘Generation Rent’.
Japan gets Moody-ed
Like so much in Japan these days, the economy is generating bad news and some good news. But circumstances — and some international views — appear to be conspiring against it.
On the day that Moody’s said it had put Japan’s credit rating on review for a possible downgrade,
Japan redefines ‘exemplary’…
A somewhat bemusing view of Japan’s responses to what we now know to be a partial nuclear meltdown after the country’s March 11 disasters comes via AP on Wednesday, (our emphasis):
TOKYO — An International Atomic Energy Agency team says Japan’s nuclear authorities underestimated the possibility of a massive tsunami hitting the Daiichi power plant but praised the overall response.
Further reading
Elsewhere on Wednesday,
- Are US taxes high, or low?
- The stupidity of hope, Greece is still going to default.
- Taking stock of Goldman.
- And some good news for The Squid.
- The revenge of Steve Jobs.
Further reading
Elsewhere on Tuesday,
- Happy birthday, Dow.
- 20 questions to ask anyone who thinks the crisis is over.
- The mathematics generation gap.
- The bubble in bubbles, reflexive version.
- Bubble-debt Denialism.
Further reading
Elsewhere on Tuesday,
- A Mexican stand-off.
- Pitching the hedge fund masters.
- Why Jim Chanos is wrong about China.
- The Bank of England is failing its country.
- Econobrowsing.
- A losing bet:
The biggest hedgies in Asia, and the world
Here’s something worth noting, amid the flux in Asian investment circles and the steady exodus of hedge funds from Japan to more investor-friendly climes of Singapore and Hong Kong — even as investment interest revives among Japan-focused funds:
Further reading
Elsewhere on Monday,
- Sudden wealth syndrome, now what?
- Other people’s politics.
- In defense of LinkedIn’s investment bankers.
- The ‘Goldman Bunch’: where are they now?
- The importance of fiscal versus monetary stimulus.
The tragedy of Tepco, yes it can get worse
The seemingly endless kabuki tragedy of Tepco lurches on, with Friday’s announcements that the utility behind one of the world’s worst nuclear contamination scares incurred Japan’s largest loss for a non-financial company ever.
Pink picks
Comment, analysis and other offerings from Friday’s FT,
Gillian Tett: Beware tail risks hanging over Treasuries
Three years ago, investors received a brutal lesson in why it can be risky for banks or other financial institutions to fund long-term holdings with short-term debt,
Japan’s ‘temporary’ recession?
The news from Japan on Thursday reinforced some of the worst fears about the state of the economy, but not everyone is gloomy — far from it — although the latest growth figures are truly horrible.
As the FT reports:
Pink picks
Comment, analysis and offerings from Wednesday’s FT,
Martin Wolf: The eurozone after Strauss-Kahn
The sight of Dominique Strauss-Kahn, managing director of the International Monetary Fund and prospective candidate for the French presidency,
Teva moves in on Japan’s nascent generics boom
The one certainty about a country with a rapidly greying population is that its demand for drugs — more and cheaper ones — will almost certainly grow.
Amid the latest acquisition frenzy taking hold in the world of big pharma,
Après Strauss-Kahn [Updated]…
No, you could not make it up, as FT Alphaville previously noted.
News of the weekend arrest of IMF managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn gave blogs and news media organisations an eventful Sunday night as more information emerged about the circumstances allegedly leading to Strauss-Kahn’s arrest.
Further reading
Elsewhere on Monday,
- No he Kahn’t.
- Strauss-Kahn, the tabloid take.
- The ‘red collar’ crime wave.
- NYT magazine discovers gold!
- ‘Quirky views’ on managing fixed income.
- “Act as if”:
In China, Coach and LVMH: win some, lose some
Slowly but steadily, it’s happening.
China’s famed production paradise for foreign companies is hollowing out. Amid spiralling wage costs and rising worker activism, some foreign manufacturers have been reassessing their China operations — and a growing number are beating a retreat to cheaper and more accommodating labour environments
The irony is that steadily increasing wages,
Further reading
Elsewhere on Friday,
- Time to be serious, according to Jeremy Grantham.
- Tight correlations muddy the (market) pot.
- Gloom and doom, and how to profit from it.
- HSBC and StanChart gain most from Chinese rule change.
Yen moves: what next?
Having seen a steady rise back up from lows immediately after Japan’s March 11 disasters, the yen continues to defy economic gravity. It’s now up about 5 per cent against its post-March 11 low of Y85.53 against the dollar on April 6.
Further reading
Elsewhere on Thursday,
- It’s not just “Fountainhead” — reading lists of the (really) rich.
- Matt Taibbi (again) on Goldman (again).
- Why Wall Street should worry about the ‘Raj precedent’.
Microsoft and Skype, for and against
Microsoft’s agreed $8.5bn acquisition of Skype evokes shades of the frenzied dotcom bubble era and M&A tech mania: the deal, unveiled on Tuesday, brings this year’s total of announced tech deals to $94.5bn — a 56 per cent increase from last year – and also marks the highest levels of tech M&A activity since 2000,
Further reading
Elsewhere on Wednesday,
- Economics in an imperfect world.
- Did Microsoft overpay for Skype? Hell yes.
- Silver’s modern day panic.
- Are banks hiding derivatives?
- China’s currency and trade balance,
Commodities on Monday, just a bad dream?
Was it all just a bad dream? Signs on Monday that commodities prices are at least stabilising amid positive economic news from the US, China and Europe might come as a relief markets after last week’s rout wiped a whopping $99bn off the overall market value of commodities prices,
Further reading
Elsewhere on Monday,
- Fill in the blanks, the commodities-rout song remains the same.
- Why FX reserves are so big.
- Three economic things that do not exist.
- Fed watch – a wild week leaves policy intact.
Fall-out from the imploding commodities complex
It was inevitable that Thursday’s commodites rout would claim some victims … just as Friday’s further slide in commodities prices will inevitably cause more casualties.
The FT’s Lex column, describing the sell-off as an “epic rout”
Pink picks
Comment, analysis and other offerings from Friday’s FT,
Gillian Tett: Why ETFs give an uneasy sense of deja vu
When the Financial Stability Board was established a couple of years ago, it declared that one of its goals was to produce better “early warning” systems of looming financial trouble spots,
What’s going on in IPO land?
First it’s RenRen, then Dunkin’ Donuts and of course, the mother of them all, Glencore, to name a tiny handful of the highest-profile IPOs – planned or executed – making headlines on Thursday.
In the US alone,
Pink picks
Comment, analysis and offerings from Thursday’s FT,
Alan Beattie: Britain was right to sell off its pile of gold
The continued run of the gold price is a global investment sensation, writes the FT’s international trade editor.
Man in Japan
After losing a lot (some estimated up to $2bn) as a result of Japan’s March 11 earthquake and tsunami, and giving a bit ($1m) to Japan’s relief effort, Man Group is recouping some losses and is back in serious business in Japan – and wants everybody to know about it.
US earnings season, ‘extraordinary resilience’?
After a flurry of first-quarter US corporate results figures, analysts have been pronouncing the Q1 earnings-per-share season “solid”.
But, as Morgan Stanley says in a recent note, margin expectations may be too high.