China’s Retail Grocers Consolidate Further; Wumart to Buy Stores and Equity Stake From Local Competitor CP Lotus for $372m

China’s Retail Grocers Consolidate Further

Wumart to Buy Stores and Equity Stake From Local Competitor

LAURIE BURKITT in Beijing and CYNTHIA KOONS in Hong Kong

Updated Oct. 15, 2013 12:06 p.m. ET

Chinese supermarket chain Wumart Stores Inc. will acquire stores and an equity stake from a local rival for about US$372 million in cash and stock, in the latest move to consolidate China’s fragmented retail grocery market. Wumart said Tuesday that it struck a deal to buy the majority of C.P. Lotus Corp.’s retail outlets in China for 2.34 billion Hong Kong dollars (US$301.8 million). The acquisition will add 36 stores to Hong Kong-listed Wumart’s 145 markets and 396 minimarkets across China, according to a statement from the company. Wumart will take control of C.P. Lotus stores in the cities of Beijing and Shanghai and provinces other than the southern regions of Guangdong and Hunan, the statement said. Read more of this post

Maersk Monster Ships Create Capacity Glut to Clip Kuehne

Maersk Monster Ships Create Capacity Glut to Clip Kuehne

A.P. Moeller-Maersk A/S (MAERSKB)’s fleet of 1,300-foot container ships has worsened a capacity glut that’s depressing freight rates and eroding earnings, Kuehne & Nagel International AG (KNIN), the No. 1 sea-freight forwarder, said today. The three Triple-E class ships, the largest in the world, are exacerbating the effects of slowing demand on routes linking Asian exporters with consumers in Europe, Kuehne & Nagel Chief Financial Officer Gerard van Kesteren said in an interview after the company’s third-quarter profit missed analyst estimates. Read more of this post

For U.S. bond traders, the Grinch may steal bonuses

For U.S. bond traders, the Grinch may steal bonuses

8:20pm EDT

By Lauren Tara LaCapra and David Henry

NEW YORK (Reuters) – With anemic bond trading revenue over the past few months hurting Wall Street profits, pay cuts and even layoffs are back on the table just when the future had started looking up for traders. Overall, bonuses on fixed-income, currency, and commodity trading desks will likely be down 10 percent to 15 percent, said Alan Johnson, head of the Wall Street compensation consulting firm Johnson Associates. It could be the third or fourth year in a row in which some Wall Street bond traders get $0 bonus checks, he added. Read more of this post

Time to fix flaws in Singapore’s contra trading system

Time to fix flaws in local contra trading system

Wednesday, Oct 16, 2013

Goh Eng Yeow

The Straits Times

Last week, the local stock market suffered its worst calamity since the global financial crisis when the Singapore Exchange (SGX) “designated” the trading of three counters – LionGold Corp, Blumont Group and Asiasons Capital. The SGX edict means investors must pay for these three stocks in cash, while contra trading and short selling are banned. It came after the trio’s share prices went into free fall the previous Friday. As the losses mount, there is the usual finger-pointing to find scapegoats, and soul-searching to determine if things could have been done better to prevent a similar incident in future. One important observation to make is the many flaws in the “contra trading system” that have been uncovered by the fiasco. Read more of this post

Singapore supermarkets still plagued by missing trolleys

Supermarkets still plagued by missing trolleys

Wednesday, October 16, 2013 – 07:30

Kash Cheong

The Straits Times

Despite having implemented various measures, supermarkets are still losing quite a number of trolleys, no thanks to inconsiderate shoppers who cart them away for convenience. Sheng Siong lost an average of 38 trolleys each month from January to July this year, almost double last year’s figures. FairPrice saw a 14 per cent drop in lost trolleys but the cooperative with 120 supermarkets and hypermarkets still lost about 100 trolleys a month in the first half of this year. Dairy Farm, which runs Giant and Cold Storage, declined to give figures, adding that the number of trolleys lost was “not significant”. Read more of this post

China to ban new projects in sectors facing overcapacity, including steel, aluminium, shipbuilding and cement

China to ban new projects in sectors facing overcapacity

3:50am EDT

BEIJING, Oct 15 (Reuters) – China said it would block new projects in a number of sectors suffering from overcapacity, including steel, aluminium, shipbuilding and cement, according to a statement issued by the government on Tuesday. The long-awaited plan to tackle long-standing supply gluts in five industrial sectors was published by China’s cabinet, the State Council, according to the statement on China’s official government website, www.gov.cn. Margins in sectors like steel and aluminium have been affected for years by a massive supply glut, leaving many firms suffering heavy losses and reliant on government subsidy. According to the new plan, China will also seek to absorb overcapacity by stimulating domestic demand, relocating plants overseas, restructuring and merging existing firms and eliminating plants by strengthening environmental, safety and energy standards.

Singapore Shows Asia How To Crack Down on Housing Bubble?

Singapore Shows Asia How To Crack Down on Housing Bubble

Singapore, the city-state that banned chewing gum to curb litter, is showing the rest of Asia how to cool a housing bubble. The government this year ramped up efforts to bring down property prices that surged to a record, adopting some of its strictest measures, including a cap on debt at 60 percent of a borrower’s income, higher stamp duties on home purchases and an increase in real-estate taxes. Read more of this post

How Ho Chi Minh City’s Filthy Canal Became a Park

How Ho Chi Minh City’s Filthy Canal Became a Park

Sewers and storm drains don’t stir most people’s deepest passions. But try creating a modern, economically vibrant city without them. Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam’s economic capital, has spent the past decade building a modern sanitation and flood control system for the 1.2 million people living along its Nhieu Loc-Thi Nghe canal. Cleaning up this once-filthy waterway and creating new sanitation infrastructure has changed the face of the city, transforming it into a model for improving urban infrastructure in difficult settings around the world. Read more of this post

Fed Gets Bigger in Markets as QE Prompts New Tools

Fed Gets Bigger in Markets as QE Prompts New Tools

The Federal Reserve is getting more involved in debt markets as it tries to compensate for the impact of its almost $4 trillion balance sheet on short-term interest rates. Policy makers are testing a new tool intended to improve their control of near-term borrowing costs. The facility would allow banks, broker-dealers, money-market funds and some government-sponsored enterprises to lend the Fed unlimited amounts of cash overnight at a fixed rate in exchange for borrowing Treasuries in so-called reverse repo transactions. Read more of this post

Two Out of Five Americans Cut Spending Amid Government Shutdown

Two Out of Five Americans Cut Spending Amid Government Shutdown

The U.S. government shutdown prompted two out of five Americans to curb spending, according to a survey commissioned by Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) The survey of 1,025 people, conducted from Oct. 10 to Oct. 13, found that the shutdown had a greater impact on lower income consumers, with 47 percent of respondents who earned $35,000 or less saying they would curb spending. Among those with income of more than $100,000, 32 percent said they would tighten spending. Read more of this post

Bodies Double as Cash Machines With U.S. Income Lagging: Economy

Bodies Double as Cash Machines With U.S. Income Lagging: Economy

Hair, breast milk and eggs are doubling as automated teller machines for some cash-strapped Americans such as April Hare. Out of work for more than two years and facing eviction from her home, Hare recalled Louisa May Alcott’s 19th-century novel and took to her computer. “I was just trying to find ways to make money, and I remembered Jo from ‘Little Women,’ and she sold her hair,” the 35-year-old from Atlanta said. “I’ve always had lots of hair, but this is the first time I’ve actually had the idea to sell it because I’m in a really tight jam right now.”

Read more of this post

Machines Trading $400 Billion of Bonds as Humans Retreat

Machines Trading $400 Billion of Bonds as Humans Retreat

A record share of U.S. corporate-bond trading has moved to computers as buyers who traditionally transacted over the phone seek faster ways to buy and sell in a market where Wall Street’s human traders are retreating. Investment-grade volumes on MarketAxess Holdings Inc.’s electronic system are on pace to exceed $400 billion in 2013 after surging 45 percent to $44 billion in September from a year earlier, according to data from the company, which estimates it captures about 90 percent of electronic trades among the dollar-denominated notes. That’s equal to 14.3 percent of all market activity, including business done over the phone, up from 12.2 percent a year earlier. Read more of this post

Mining M&A Decline Imperils Explorers’ Aspirations

Mining M&A Decline Imperils Explorers’ Aspirations

Mining acquisitions valued at less than $1 billion have slumped to an eight-year low as the industry’s largest players rein in spending after a drop in commodities prices. The slump threatens hundreds of exploration and development companies that don’t have revenue, more than half of which are based in Canada. Being bought by a larger miner is proving increasingly elusive as companies such as Toronto-based Barrick Gold Corp. (ABX), the biggest gold producer, avoid acquisitions and new projects in favor of improving existing operations. Read more of this post

Coal’s Slump Leaves Czech Town Facing Mass Unemployment

Coal’s Slump Leaves Czech Town Facing Mass Unemployment

Most mornings, Lubomir Nevrly drives past a forest of grimy chimneys and steel-mill towers spewing smoke over the eastern Czech city of Ostrava. He doesn’t want them to stop operating. “If they close another coal mine it will be a catastrophe for the region,” said the 60-year-old Ostrava native who spent two decades working as a miner. “Crime will go up, people will start drinking. Soon we’ll be afraid to go out on the streets.” Read more of this post

India Rupee Revived by Rajan as Carry Trade Favorite

India Rupee Revived by Rajan as Carry Trade Favorite

Reserve Bank of India Governor Raghuram Rajan has turned the rupee from a pariah to the world’s favorite currency after just a month in office as he intensifies efforts to quell inflation and lure capital. Investors selling dollars to buy rupees earned 10 percent since Rajan took over on Sept. 4, the most among 44 currencies tracked by Bloomberg and a turnaround from a 2.8 percent third-quarter loss. Options betting on one-month implied volatility show investors becoming more confident in the rupee than for any currency in Asia or the BRIC nations, which also include Brazil, Russia and China. Read more of this post

Indian sage dreams of gold to save economy, government starts digging

Indian sage dreams of gold to save economy, government starts digging

7:22am EDT

By Shyamantha Asokan

NEW DELHI (Reuters) – The Indian government is digging for treasure after a civic-minded Hindu village sage dreamt that 1,000 tons of gold was buried under a ruined palace, and wrote to tell the central bank about it. The state Archaeological Survey of India has sent a team of archaeologists to the village of Daundia Khera in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh. They are due to start digging on Friday, Praveen Kumar Mishra, the head archaeologist in the state, told Reuters. Read more of this post