L.A. Breaks Driving Addiction as Bike-Train Commutes Grow

L.A. Breaks Driving Addiction as Bike-Train Commutes Grow

Los Angeles embodied America’s love affair with the automobile in the last century. In this one it’s trying to kick the car to the curb.

The city that put drive-thru restaurants on the map has doubled its network of bike lanes to 292 miles (470 kilometers) and expanded light rail by 26 percent in the past eight years, with another 18 miles of track coming by 2015. Bus and train ridership is on the rise, while the total number of passenger cars registered has declined in Los Angeles County — evidence more commuters are breaking their dependence. Read more of this post

Student Debt Relief Industry Profits From Desperation

Student Debt Relief Industry Profits From Desperation

Polly Williams, a single mother who had recently lost her job, was desperate to lower the payments on her $23,000 in student loans. So, last June, she called one of the many companies advertising debt relief online.

For a $250 fee, the University of One, now known as Student Consulting Group Inc., offered to help. To come up with the money, Williams skipped an electric bill and lost power, forcing her to throw out $150 of food in her refrigerator, she said. Read more of this post

Jumping off the REIT bandwagon; Bond Investors Head for the Hills; As interest rates rise, banks face new stress tests

Jumping off the REIT bandwagon

Garry Marr | 13/06/18 | Last Updated: 13/06/18 6:32 PM ET

That pop you heard might have been the bubble finally bursting — at least for real estate investment trusts if not housing.

Reader wonders if his $100,000 should be invested in a private REIT. ‘That’s like going to the roulette table and putting all your money on red,’ says Jason Heath

Rising bond yields have brought down the publicly traded real estate sector since it hit an all-time high at the end of April. The iShares S&P/TSX Capped REIT Index Fund dropped about 12% before recovering about two percentage points off that fall in the past week or so. Read more of this post

To succeed in India, a company must meet these three criteria

To succeed in India, a company must meet these three criteria

By Ravi Venkatesan 5 hours ago

Ravi Venkatesan is the former chairman of Microsoft India and Cummins India.

Many multinational companies are quite pleased with their performance in India. That’s because they have set quite a low bar for success. To most, the fact that their business in India is meeting budget or growing at double-digit rates is significant. But that isn’t success. Companies can be growing at double-digit rates and meeting budgets, and still be irrelevant to their parent and in India. McKinsey & Company analysis shows that the 25 largest, publicly listed multinational companies in India contributed just 2% of their parent’s global revenues and profits in 2011. That’s telling, especially since many of them have been operating in India for a long time. The Indian operations of companies that have set up shop since 1991 as wholly owned subsidiaries contribute an even more anemic 1% of their parent’s revenues and profits. If all these operations grow at roughly the same pace as their industry, even after a decade their contribution will still be extremely modest. Real success in India, I would argue, means meeting three criteria:

Read more of this post

SEC Says It Will Seek Admission of Wrongdoing More Often

SEC Says It Will Seek Admission of Wrongdoing More Often

By Dave Michaels – Jun 19, 2013

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission will seek more admissions of wrongdoing from defendants as a condition of settling enforcement cases, the agency’s chairman said.

SEC Chairman Mary Jo White said the change in policy would probably apply to cases in which investors were significantly harmed and the alleged fraud was egregious. The former federal prosecutor said last month she was reviewing the practice of settling cases without requiring defendants to admit misconduct. Read more of this post

Global fish prices leap to all-time high

June 18, 2013 4:18 pm

Global fish prices leap to all-time high

By Emiko Terazono in London

Global fish prices have leapt to all-time highs as China’s growing appetite for high-end species – from tuna to oysters – runs up against lower catches.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation’s global fish price index, an industry benchmark that tracks the cost of wild and farmed seafood, hit a record high in May, up 15 per cent from a year ago and above the peak set in mid 2011. Read more of this post

Gems says it is the world’s largest private education provider with 130,000 students at 100 schools in 19 countries and $500m revenue this year

June 18, 2013 3:55 pm

School rooms for everyone

By Simeon Kerr

Desk work: Sunny Varkey keeps in touch with the ‘front line’ by regularly dropping into schools unannounced and talking to parents

In the library of Wellington International School, Sunny Varkey is chatting with a group of 20 or so five-year-old pupils about the books they read. The parents of these boys and girls in white and navy uniforms rifling the low shelves pay about $12,000 a year for them to attend one of the academically best performing schools inDubai. Read more of this post

India: A bumpy, crowded road for carmakers

June 18, 2013 7:35 pm

India: A bumpy, crowded road for carmakers

By James Crabtree and Henry Foy

Global groups looking to cash in on a boom face a dilemma about how much more to invest as sales slide

Sanand seems an unlikely spot for a global automotive hub. A small, dusty backwater in the western Indian state of Gujarat, its population is barely 30,000. Yet over the past few years this sleepy town has undergone an improbable transformation and is now often hailed as a “new Detroit” in the making. Read more of this post

North American Millionaires Regain Top Spot, Report Finds

North American Millionaires Regain Top Spot, Report Finds

North America reclaimed the top spot with the most millionaires last year as the world’s ultra-rich led the way in raising global wealth to a record high, according to a report by Cap Gemini SA and Royal Bank of Canada. Read more of this post

Why Companies Shouldn’t Write Off India

Why Companies Shouldn’t Write Off India

Asked late last year about the market for Apple Inc. (APPL) products in India, Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook more or less wrote off the huge country.

He blamed a “multilayer distribution structure” for making it too hard to reach consumers beyond elites in cities such as Mumbai and Bangalore. Apple (AAPL) would look elsewhere for growth: “In the intermediate term there will be larger opportunities outside there,” Cook said. Today, India — with a middle class the size of the U.S. population — accounts for less than 1 percent of Apple’s global sales. Read more of this post

Chinese TV Spy Thriller Producer Fu Meicheng, chairman of Zhejiang Huace Film & TV, Becomes a Billionaire

Chinese TV Spy Thriller Producer Fu Becomes a Billionaire

Fu Meicheng, chairman of Zhejiang Huace Film & TV Co. (300133), has become a billionaire as shares of the maker of Chinese TV shows climbed to a record after it boosted production of its historical dramas and spy thrillers.

Huace, based in Hangzhou, China, makes and distributes programming to TV channels and video-sharing websites. Its TV production increased 65 percent to 1,075 episodes in 2012, according to its annual report. Shares have more than doubled this year on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange. Read more of this post

Packaged-food companies are developing meals that aim to be quick and simple to prepare, but still feel like cooking from scratch. Kraft’s new line has two sauces. Testing showed people feel using two sauces feels more like real cook

Updated June 18, 2013, 9:22 p.m. ET

The Art of Almost Homemade

Companies Target Time-Crunched Home Cooks; Why Wednesday is the Worst

By SARAH NASSAUER

What do people want for dinner? To feel like they cooked “just enough,” food companies say, and they are trying to come up with products that hit that sweet spot. Sarah Nassauer joins Lunch Break with a look at new products that walk the fine line between too much and not enough cooking. This moment may sound familiar: It’s 4 p.m. on Wednesday, and you realize the dinner you had been planning to make isn’t going to work out. It’s one of the most stressful points of weekday life, according to consumer research. Now in response, packaged-food companies and grocery stores are developing meals that aim to strike a delicate balance. They are quick and simple to prepare, but still feel like cooking a homemade meal.

Read more of this post

Toxic Toast Concerns Feed Food Enzyme Sales at Novozymes to DSM; food companies want to be able to document that all along they were using the best technology

Toxic Toast Concerns Feed Food Enzyme Sales at Novozymes to DSM

Food companies, facing increased scrutiny over the potential cancer risks of baked and fried products in the $80 billion crackers and cookies market, are bingeing on enzymes used to reduce the level of toxins.

The beneficiaries are Novozymes A/S (NZYMB) and Royal DSM NV (DSM), the two main suppliers of enzymes that cut levels of acrylamide, formed when starchy foods are browned and coffee beans roasted. While a link between human cancer and acrylamide hasn’t been established, food companies such as Oreo cookies maker Mondelez International Inc. (MDLZ) are turning to enzymes to cut levels, preempting any regulatory move to introduce warnings labels.“People want to use best-available technology and, if this proves to be a serious issue, food companies want to be able to document that all along they were using the best technology,” Novozymes Chief Executive Officer Peder Holk Nielsen said in an interview. Novozymes is supplying 70 companies globally and demand is “going very well.” Read more of this post

Missing the Target: Target-date funds have become one of the most important ways that Americans save for retirement. But for many investors, the funds are still wide of the mark

June 14, 2013, 6:05 p.m. ET

Missing the Target

By LIAM PLEVEN and JOE LIGHT

Target-date funds have become one of the most important ways that Americans save for retirement. But for many investors, the funds are still wide of the mark. The funds generally are set up so that investors can put their entire nest egg into a single one linked to the year they expect to retire, in effect putting a savings strategy on autopilot. The funds typically shrink their stock allocation and boost the bond allocation to become more conservative as the retirement date nears. Read more of this post

The slow boat to China is what gives FedEx executives nightmares

June 18, 2013, 5:58 p.m. ET

FedEx Down, Not Out, on Express Slump

By SPENCER JAKAB

The slow boat to China is what gives FedEx Corp. executives nightmares.

Though it still dominates in express delivery, its customers are feeling less urgency these days—particularly those shipping packages internationally. The world’s largest air-freight company by volume is furiously cutting costs to accommodate those customers who don’t absolutely, positively have to get it there overnight. The slowdown in international trade and an even sharper one in time-sensitive deliveries loom over FedEx as it unveils results for fiscal 2013 Wednesday. Read more of this post

Niall Ferguson: The Regulated States of America; Tocqueville saw a nation of individuals who were defiant of authority. Today? Welcome to Planet Government

June 18, 2013, 6:43 p.m. ET

Niall Ferguson: The Regulated States of America

Tocqueville saw a nation of individuals who were defiant of authority. Today? Welcome to Planet Government.

By NIALL FERGUSON

In “Democracy in America,” published in 1833, Alexis de Tocqueville marveled at the way Americans preferred voluntary association to government regulation. “The inhabitant of the United States,” he wrote, “has only a defiant and restive regard for social authority and he appeals to it . . . only when he cannot do without it.” Read more of this post

Traders Try to Game Platts Oil-Price Benchmarks

Updated June 18, 2013, 10:38 p.m. ET

Traders Try to Game Platts Oil-Price Benchmarks

By JUSTIN SCHECK and JENNY GROSS

LONDON—The European Union says it is searching for evidence that oil traders manipulate prices. If oil trader Halis Bektas is correct, it shouldn’t be hard to find.

Mr. Bektas describes one strategy he has used himself: Offer to sell a small amount at a loss to drive down published oil prices, then snap up shiploads at the lower price.

The European Union is investigating whether oil traders manipulate the benchmarks posted daily by oil index publisher Platts in order to affect energy prices. WSJ’s Jenny Gross reports. Read more of this post

How China Fudges its Numbers

June 19, 2013, 12:42 PM

How China Fudges its Numbers

It’s typically advisable not to accept Chinese economic data at face value –as even the country’s own premier will tell you. Figures on everything from inflation and industrial output to energy consumption and international trade often don’t seem to gel with observation and sometimes struggle to stack up when compared with other indicators.

How the figures are massaged and by whom is as much a secret as the real data itself. But in an unusual move, the National Bureau of Statistics – clearly frustrated with the lies, damn lies – has recently outed a local government it says was involved in a particularly egregious case of number fudging, providing rare insight into just how just how we’re being deceived. Read more of this post

China: official stock-buying didn’t work before and won’t work now; Central Huijin’s purchase of shares is good for sentiment, but its impact on the market is likely to be small due to the effect of diminishing returns

China: official stock-buying didn’t work before and won’t work now

Jun 18, 2013 10:50am by Lydia Guo

Central Huijin Investment, a Chinese state-owned investment company, has bought stakes in six of the country’s largest financial groups in a bid to deliver a confidence boost to the tumbling domestic stock market in a slowing economy with interbank liquidity problems. Read more of this post

Directors Refuse to Go Naked for Chinese IPOs; cost of insurance to cover directors and officers of Chinese companies against lawsuits has skyrocketed, with premiums reaching as high as $100,000 per $1 million coverage

Directors Refuse to Go Naked for Chinese IPOs

By Noah Buhayar – Jun 17, 2013

Stephen Markscheid holds one of the riskiest jobs in the world — or so say insurers.

The 59-year-old former banker, a Mandarin-speaking American, sits on the boards of five U.S.-listed Chinese companies, includingJinkoSolar Holding Co. (JKS)

The group of about 500 Chinese firms came under scrutiny over the past two years as a rash of accounting scandals and irregularities sent shares tumbling, sparked investor lawsuits and halted new stock offerings on U.S. exchanges. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has revoked more than 50 Chinese company registrations since early 2011. Read more of this post

Elders is a bit like the rural services version of Billabong – an iconic brand with a business that strategically misstepped, bought the wrong assets, paid too much for them and is now lumbered with too much debt

Thanks but no thanks, says Elders, now it’s time for plan B

June 19, 2013

Elizabeth Knight

Elders is a bit like the rural services version of Billabong – an iconic brand with a business that strategically misstepped, bought the wrong assets, paid too much for them and is now lumbered with too much debt.

Both have spent the past year (or more in Billabong’s case) looking for a buyer. And neither could find one. Elders looks like it will find a home for its automotive division, but the centrepiece, the rural services business, has been left on the shelf. Read more of this post

Wall Street REIT Success Gives Investors Hangover Part II

Wall Street REIT Success Gives Investors Hangover Part II

Investors in companies buying mortgage bonds are discovering that coming late to the party can still leave them with the biggest hangover.

Mortgage real-estate investment trusts raised $7.4 billion in the first quarter by selling new shares, the most in two years, just before a plunge in the value of the firms. American Capital Agency Corp. (AGNC) has declined 17 percent since offering $2 billion in February and Armour Residential REIT Inc. (ARR) has slumped 24 percent after raising $444 million that month. Read more of this post

China Carbon Permits Trade 22% Below Europe on Market Debut

China Carbon Permits Trade 22% Below Europe on Market Debut

China traded its first carbon dioxide permits for 22% less than today’s price in Europe as the nation inaugurated the Shenzhen Emissions Exchange as part of its plan to limit heat-trapping gases linked to climate change.

The permits were priced from 28 yuan to 30 yuan ($4.90) a metric ton, according to Chen Hai’ou, chief executive officer and president of the exchange. That compares with 4.70 euros a ton ($6.30) today for European Union permits on London’s ICE Futures Europe exchange, the world’s biggest carbon market by traded volume. Read more of this post

Americans Exporting More Oil First Time Since ’70s

Americans Exporting More Oil First Time Since ’70s

The U.S. oil boom is moving Congress closer than it has been in more than three decades to easing the ban on exporting crude imposed after the Arab embargo.

Advances such as hydraulic fracturing are leading to record production that may outstrip refinery capacity within 18 months to three years, said Benjamin Salisbury, a senior energy policy analyst at FBR Capital Markets Corp. in Arlington, Virginia. Net petroleum imports now account for about 40 percent of demand, down from 60 percent in 2005, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the Energy Department research unit. Read more of this post