Paul Murphy is the founding editor of FT Alphaville and an associate editor of the Financial Times. He joined the FT in London in 2006 as development editor of FT.com, concentrating on the expansion of the online business. Prior to that, he served as the Guardian’s financial editor for seven years. He has also held senior positions in business journalism at the Sunday Business newspaper and the Daily Telegraph. Murphy is a graduate of the London School of Economics.
The Nikkei 225 was clearly over-cooked. But just how over-cooked, we found out on Thursday…
Elsewhere on Thursday,
- The real Fed story from yesterday.
- A giant carry trade, gone wrong.
- Bargaining power matters, everywhere. Read more
Yes, the rally in Japanese equities has caught many an eye. There’s been hardly a step backwards in six months.
Yet prices seem to be accelerating from here. With the Nikkei 225 already up 1.6 per cent on Wednesday, closing at 15,627. Here is the after-hours action, courtesy of the CME: Read more
From historical chart specialists Global Financial Data — the yield on perpetual Consols versus the stock of UK sovereign debt…all the way back to 1742. Click to view… Read more
Maybe.
Nomura carries out an annual survey on individual investors’ voting intentions and this year’s results suggest 43.8 per cent of respondents plan to exercise their rights — a a 5.1 percentage point jump from 2012. That compares with a record activism reading of 45.1 per cent in 2010, but it’s also worth noting that those investors saying they would not use their voting rights dropped from 30.6 per cent to 25.8 per cent. So engagement is clearly on the rise.
What are they likely to vote on? Directors pay, of course (34.5 per cent) – and retirement bungs (37 per cent). Read more
London’s Takeover Panel has clearly thrown a murphy…
MESSRS CHODIEV, IBRAGIMOV AND MACHKEVITCH AND THE COMMITTEE OF THE STATE PROPERTY AND PRIVATISATION OF THE MINISTRY OF FINANCE OF THE REPUBLIC OF KAZAKHSTAN AND JSC SOVEREIGN WEALTH FUND “SAMRUK-KAZYNA” Read more
The quote is from Gerard Minack, Morgan Stanley’s celebrated equity strategist, based in Australia.
He retired from the bank on Friday and his final thoughts are in the usual place.
A taste…
Investing is an unusual profession: perhaps the only one where amateurs have a good shot at beating the pros. However, evidence suggests that amateurs don’t: flow data indicate that retail often buys high and sells low.
A slightly confusing statement on Friday out of Morgans Hotel, the group founded by Ian Schrager, who is credited with creating the whole concept of a boutique bed-for-the-night…
NEW YORK, May 17, 2013 /PRNewswire/ — Morgans Hotel Group Co. (MHGC) (“MHG” or the “Company”) today provided clarification regarding statements made in a filing submitted by The Yucaipa Companies (“Yucaipa”).
On Markets Live on Friday we offered some speculation on the level ENRC’s controlling shareholders might table to take the business private.
Once we’d zapped a few arbs amongst the ML Rabble, and got over an associated sulk, we offered a price: 340p Read more
From the Skyman, writing in his CityAM column on May 2…
GLENCORE BOARD SIZING UP HAYWARD
What is it about former BP chief executives and the top boardroom post at Glencore, the commodities trader?
So, there was evidence this week that the US authorities might finally be getting to grips with the Chinese reverse merger scandal, whereby a string of Chinese companies exploited lax listing rules to shake down naive American investors.
Executives at RINO International, a steel industry supplier, have been charged by the SEC with inflating revenues 15 fold in their US filings, while some of the proceeds from a reverse merger and $100m cash raising in 2007 were diverted to buy a house in Orange County, two Mercedes Benz cars and also funded shopping trips to the Chanel and Valentino stores in Beverley Hills. Most of the rest of the money was dispatched to China. Read more
Yes, we know it’s not new, but the divergence between stock markets and commodity prices is now looking extreme. Consider this chart from Julian Jessop at Capital Economics…
Don’t mean to scare-monger, but consider this chart, plucked from a Credit Suisse note penned by Yiagos Alexopoulos and team. On the bank’s number crunching, the UK is just one of just two countries where fiscal stress has worsened this year — the other being Slovenia…
Elsewhere on Monday,
- Blackberry’s Plan B.
- TED’s Kellaway obsession.
- Winkler holding himself accountable…
- …and a few words from another (former) newswire chief. Read more
Spare a moment for Felix Vulis, chief executive of embattled miner ENRC. At pixel time, Kleinmanwire was reporting (exclusively, obvs) that both Deutsche Bank and Morgan Stanley have resigned as brokers to ENRC.
In the middle of a possible takeover bid and a very real SFO investigation… Read more
Elsewhere on Thursday,
- The most important economic story that people aren’t paying attention to.
- Don’t take his advice.
- “Something happens to your brain after a big bonus“. Read more
Someone at Bloomberg will be getting it in the neck for not having done this already.
Here’s the concentration of ultra wealth by city, courtesy of Wealth Insight. Click to enlarge. Read more
Usually, when a chief executive of note retires after an extended tenure, the valedictories talk about corporate growth. Think, for example, of Mick the Miner turning a $500m coal asset called Xstrata into a global miner worth $50bn or more. Or Chris Gent producing similar magic in the field of mobile telecoms at Vodafone.
What’s rarely mentioned is the amount of stock issued in the process; rather than executive graft, the growth in size typically reflects equity financing of acquisitions. Xstrata investors never saw a 100-fold increase in their investment; at Vodafone, investors are still nursing burnt fingers from backing Gent’s extraordinary land grab. Read more
Elsewhere on Tuesday,
- The Big Fight is ON
- Lawson wants out
- Soros goes short Down Under (maybe)
- Some Berkshire Kremlinology Read more
With the S&P 500 making a fresh run higher at pixel time, it would be rude not to share the latest thoughts of Albert Edwards, Socgen’s Ice Age bear. Rather than gawping stocks, he reckons we should be mindful of the red metal…
Elsewhere on Thursday,
- Under-employment in the UK.
- Energy fact of the day.
- A funny chap. Read more
Some stagnant stats out of Eurostat on Tuesday….
Euro area unemployment rate at 12.1%
EU27 at 10.9%
Here’s the damage, broken down… Read more
Elsewhere on Tuesday,
- The algo trader nexus.
- Desperately seeking $6bn.
- Better mental hygiene. Read more
And so to Victorville. Nothing to do with FT Alphaville maybe winning some debate, but a real live city, east of LA, beyond the mountains where the desert starts, near Apple Valley. It’s what American friends would call an “ex-urb” and here’s the welcome sign:
From the London Stock Exchange on Monday…
As part of a reorganisation of London Stock Exchange Group’s (“LSEG”) Italian legal entities earlier this year, a valuation report was prepared for the specific purposes of the reorganisation and was filed with the Companies Register of the Milan Chamber of Commerce and has recently been made public. This report included a LSEG revenue projection for the year ending 31st March 2016 of €1.4Bn with 12% annual LSEG revenue growth from the start of FY14. It also included 5 year (FY14 to FY18) financial projections for the Italian legal entities together with historic information for such entities for the 9 months to 31 December 2012.
Nothing like taking the long view – such as this snapshot of Spanish, Portuguese and Italian 10 year paper, over 150 years. Click to enlarge
Wanna know what you have to put up with being an internal investigator at a Kazakh miner like ENRC?
Lombard supremo Jonathan Guthrie got hold of this email after writing last week about the threatened resignation of ENRC’s chairman, Mehmet Dalman. Read more
From the RNS on Friday…
Mr. Alexander Machkevitch notes the recent press speculation with respect to Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation plc (“ENRC”). Read more
From Adam Posen, writing in the Cato Journal…
Abstract:
This article challenges the validity of the the assumption that monetary policymakers can correctly identify asset price bubbles in time to respond preemptively (or at least usefully). This is something where many policymakers even previously skeptical now feel they can be like Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart and recognize obscenity in asset prices when they see it. Some patterns do emerge if we look more carefully at the historical record of asset price booms and busts, but, in light of those patterns, the prospect of getting the call right becomes very daunting. The difficulty arises because of the complex nature of asset price booms and busts, a complexity that seems to be overlooked in the advocacy of leaning against the wind.
