Youngest Japanese Boards Beating Oldest With Stocks Rising 139%

Youngest Japanese Boards Beating Oldest With Stocks Rising 139%

Youth is beating experience in Japan’s stock market, where only 4 percent of companies have boards where the average age is less than 50, generating returns twice those of corporations with older directors. Of the companies listed in Japan where Bloomberg compiles data on the board ages, 68 have an average age of below 50. Their shares surged 139 percent in the three years through Sept. 6, a period spanning the plunge following Japan’s biggest earthquake, and the steepest rally in a quarter century after the election of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Among the 80 firms with boards aged 65 or older, returns were 52 percent. Read more of this post

Tokyo Bay’s Properties Are Biggest Olympic Victory Beneficiaries; About 90 percent of the competition venues will be located within 8 kilometers (5 miles) of the Olympic Village in Harumi, an area of reclaimed land about 2 miles southeast of downtown Tokyo

Tokyo Bay’s Properties Are Biggest Olympic Victory Beneficiaries

Tokyo Bay area property prices stand to benefit the most in the lead up to the 2020 Olympic Games, adding to the recovery in the city’s real estate values after 20 years of declines.

About 90 percent of the competition venues will be located within 8 kilometers (5 miles) of the Olympic Village in Harumi, an area of reclaimed land about 2 miles southeast of downtown Tokyo, according to the Tokyo 2020 Bid Committee. Apartment prices in the area may increase as much as 20 percent, said Sanyu Appraisal Corp., a property appraisal company. Read more of this post

Short-selling interest on the rise for Tokyo Olympic-related stocks

Short-selling interest on the rise for Tokyo Olympic-related stocks

10:41pm EDT

TOKYO (Reuters) – Hedge funds have begun shorting some Japan stocks that have had huge gains in the lead up to and aftermath of Tokyo’s winning bid for the 2020 Olympic Games, with mid-sized building contractor Tekken Corp (1815.T: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) a case in point. Tekken on Tuesday jumped by its daily limit of 50 yen, up 26.3 percent, to 240 yen, and has doubled in value over the past month. Read more of this post

Price Cartels Exploiting Poor Governance in Indonesia

Price Cartels Exploiting Poor Governance

By SP/Novianti Setuningsih & Dyah Ayu Pitaloka on 8:50 am September 10, 2013.
Production of soybean products were on hold at this home in Tangerang on Monday as workers took part in a strike protesting consistently rising prices. (JG Photo/Fajrin Raharjo)

The government’s poor management of commodities has caused loopholes that have resulted in the creation of cartels among several groups looking to control the market, an official from the national anti corruption agency said. Read more of this post

Indonesian president Celebrates Birthday as Makers of His Favorite Food Strike

President Celebrates Birthday as Makers of His Favorite Food Strike

By Ezra Sihite on 7:45 am September 10, 2013.
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono turned 64 on Monday and probably celebrated his birthday with a plateful of tempeh, one of his favorite dishes. However, unlike the president, many Indonesians will have difficulties finding tempeh in markets over the next couple of days because hundreds of tempeh and tofu producers have decided to go on strike in protest against the soaring prices of soybeans. Read more of this post

Cows on Runways Show Indonesia Growth Challenge: Southeast Asia

Cows on Runways Show Indonesia Growth Challenge: Southeast Asia

Jakarta’s Soekarno-Hatta airport, Southeast Asia’s busiest, couldn’t offer Lion Group the space it needed to build a new airplane maintenance facility. Instead, the company ended up picking a site near Singapore. With its Lion Air unit poised to overtake Singapore Airlines Ltd. (SIA) as the region’s largest carrier by fleet size, the Jakarta-based company’s maintenance arm is spending $250 million to build the facility on Batam, an Indonesian island a short ferry ride from Singapore. When finished, it will have four hangars that can handle a total of four Boeing Co. (BA) 747 aircraft or 12 single-aisle planes. Read more of this post

Why Indian exports need more than a cheap rupee

Why Indian exports need more than a cheap rupee

5:33pm EDT

By Manoj Kumar and Frank Jack Daniel

NEW DELHI (Reuters) – The upside of the Indian rupee’s slump is an export boom that sets the economy straight, right? Wrong. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh echoed classical economic theory when he told parliament last month that the plunging rupee, which has lost 18 percent against the dollar since selling pressure picked up in May, would spur exports and discourage imports. Read more of this post

McDonald’s Selling Steak for Breakfast in Menu Overhaul

McDonald’s Selling Steak for Breakfast in Menu Overhaul

Breakfast just got meatier at the Golden Arches. McDonald’s Corp. (MCD) is introducing a new “thick, juicy steak” for the morning crowd, Lisa McComb, a spokeswoman for the Oak Brook, Illinois-based company, said in an e-mail. Customers can get steak on any breakfast sandwich and the new morning fare will be featured in advertisements, she said. The fast-food chain began introducing the steak across the U.S. last month and is continuing to roll it out now, she said. It will be sold in about 9,600 of the chain’s more than 14,100 domestic locations, she said. A steak, egg and cheese biscuit with grilled onions has 540 calories — 10 less than a Big Mac – – while a steak patty on an English muffin packs 430 calories. Read more of this post

Jeweler Pandora Charms Investors With 76% Stock Revival; Danish jeweler is taking a page from Zara, which introduces designs as often as twice a week., in adding collections seven times annually, up from twice last year

Jeweler Pandora Charms Investors With 76% Stock Revival

Diamonds, it’s been said, are forever. That’s far too long for Pandora A/S, (PNDORA) which is counting on women to update their jewelry boxes several times a year with charms crafted from silver, gold, and gemstones. The Danish jeweler, which has gone from stock market darling to disaster to darling again since its 2010 initial public offering, is taking a page from fast-fashion retailers like Zara, which introduces designs as often as twice a week. Read more of this post

US Equity Trading Volume Hits Fresh 15-Year Low

US Equity Trading Volume Hits Fresh 15-Year Low

Tyler Durden on 09/09/2013 20:50 -0400

Record $175 Billion Due Makes Banks Worst Losers

Record $175 Billion Due Makes Banks Worst Losers

Banks are leading losses in China’s bond market this quarter as investors brace for a record $175 billion in debt due in 2014 and Standard & Poor’s warns that bad loans will escalate. Notes issued by financial companies including China Construction Bank Corp. have lost 2.7 percent since the end of June, the most among the sectors tracked by Bank of America Merrill Lynch’s China Broad Market Index. The overall gauge slipped 1.8 percent, more than the 0.1 percent drop for industry securities globally. China’s banks have 1.07 trillion ($175 billion) of bonds maturing in 2014, up from 970 billion yuan this year, according to Citigroup Inc. Read more of this post

JPMorgan Warns: Increasing Rates Have “Reduced The Remaining Refinance Opportunity By More Than 50%”

JPMorgan Warns: Increasing Rates Have “Reduced The Remaining Refinance Opportunity By More Than 50%”

Tyler Durden on 09/09/2013 19:57 -0400

About an hour ago, Bank of America served the latest indication that the US housing “recovery” (also known as the fourth consecutive dead cat bounce of the cheap credit policy-driven housing market in the past five years) may be on its last breath. Namely, the bank announced that it will eliminate about 2,100 jobs and shutter 16 mortgage offices as rising interest rates weaken loan demand, said two people with direct knowledge of the plans and reported by Bloomberg. In some ways this may be non-news: previously we reported, using a Goldman analysis, that up to 60% of all home purchases in recent months have been, which of course shows just how hollow the “recovery” has been for the common American for whom the average home has once again become unaffordable. However, judging by an update presentation given earlier today by the CFO of none other than JP “fortress balance sheet” Morgan, things are rapidly going from bad to worse for the banking industry as a result of the souring mortgage market for which, absent prop trading, loan origination is the primary bread and butter. Read more of this post

Hidden fund costs are hurting investors

September 9, 2013 11:52 am

Hidden fund costs are hurting investors

By Pauline Skypala

The easiest way to make money is to take it from other people: that is what the financial services industry does, and for proof of its efficacy look no further than the results last week of UK fund platform provider Hargreaves Lansdown. It reported a 28 per cent rise in pre-tax profits over the year to the end of June, and an impressive profit margin of 65.8 per cent. The company’s two founders are now billionaires, and shareholders have done well too, with the shares up more than 400 per cent over five years. They have prospered by sharing in the growth of customers’ assets. Read more of this post

DeVry Lures Medical School Rejects as Taxpayers Fund Debt

DeVry Lures Medical School Rejects as Taxpayers Fund Debt

When he was a child, David Adams pretended to operate on his stuffed animals. As a teen, the Salt Lake City native became a paramedic. He wanted to train to become a physician after graduating from the University of Utah with a bachelor’s degree in health promotion and education in 2009 but was rejected by two dozen U.S. medical schools. Three years later, he earned a Master of Science in medical health sciences from Touro University Nevada and applied again, Bloomberg Markets will report in its October issue. Adams was accepted to American University of the Caribbean School of Medicine, which is owned by Downers Grove, Illinois-based DeVry Inc. (DV) Read more of this post

Canada’s public retirement funds are moving into dealmaking and taking on more risk

September 9, 2013 7:48 pm

Pension plans: Flying solo

By Anne-Sylvaine Chassany

Canada’s public retirement funds are moving into dealmaking and taking on more risk

Hunting for a bargain: following years of low interest rates that have dented their returns, Canadian pension funds are seeking to cut back on the fees they pay private equity firms  In October 2010, London-based private equity group BC Partners found itself in abidding war over Vue, the UK’s second-largest cinema operator. Its rivals included an assortment of buyout firms but one of the bidders stood out: a Canadian pension fund. In the end, neither BC Partners nor the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System (Omers) won the auction. But the bid whetted the Canadians’ appetite. Read more of this post