China’s US$3.6tn forex reserves becoming an unruly monster

China’s US$3.6tn forex reserves becoming an unruly monster

Staff Reporter

2013-11-10

At US$3.6 trillion, China’s forex reserves have become a major headache, not a symbol of national power. According to the State Foreign Exchange Administration, China’s forex reserves increased by US$301.7 billion in the first three quarters this year and may top US$400 billion for the whole year. The number will triple 2012’s US$130.4 billion, assuming the renminbi continues at its expected revaluation. Read more of this post

Beijing Weighs Bigger Private Role in State Firms; Reforming State-Owned Enterprises Has Been Thorny Because of Their Size, Political Clout

Beijing Weighs Bigger Private Role in State Firms

Reforming State-Owned Enterprises Has Been Thorny Because of Their Size, Political Clout

Nov. 11, 2013 11:26 a.m. ET

BEIJING—China is considering letting private investors take larger stakes in state-controlled firms, according to one official, in what would be a modest move toward greater private-sector involvement in areas of the economy dominated by Beijing. “We welcome private capital to invest in the state-owned enterprises. And there are many ways to do that,” said an official from the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission, or Sasac, in response to queries following a report by the state-run China Daily newspaper on Monday that said Beijing will allow private investors to hold up to 15% of state firms. Read more of this post

Asia’s low-cost carriers hit turbulence

November 12, 2013 1:33 am

Asia’s low-cost carriers hit turbulence

By Jeremy Grant in Singapore

“The People of India deserve to fly. Everyone should be able to fly,” Tony Fernandes, owner of AirAsia, tweeted recently. His comment was a call to arms typical of the Malaysian entrepreneur’s relentless drive to expand his low-cost carrier across the region – most recently to India. The ambitions of Mr Fernandes are another sign of how low-cost carriers (LCCs) have been aggressively growing in Asia as a rising middle class starts to afford air travel for the first time. Read more of this post

Teens Flee Abercrombie for Upstarts as Phones Top Malls

Teens Flee Abercrombie for Upstarts as Phones Top Malls

Teens don’t shop the way they used to.

Where young consumers with spare cash once thronged the likes of Abercrombie & Fitch Co. (ANF) and American Eagle Outfitters Inc. (AEO) for clothing that telegraphed their identities, the new generation is poorer, shuns logos and socializes more on the Internet than at the mall. They’re also increasingly global fashion citizens, mixing garments from brands across the world that are now accessible from their smartphones. Read more of this post

Moncler Looks Beyond Ski Slopes to Repeat Cucinelli IPO Success

Moncler Looks Beyond Ski Slopes to Repeat Cucinelli IPO Success

Moncler’s $1,220 quilted polyester jackets have been a hit with wealthy skiers for decades. Whether the luxury clothier can prove as popular with investors this week may depend on attracting more non-Alpine customers. Moncler, which today starts investor presentations for an initial public offering in Milan, gets about three-quarters of sales from winter apparel, a reliance that makes it a riskier investment proposition than peers like Brunello Cucinelli SpA (BC), according to Rahul Sharma, managing director of Neev Capital, a London-based consulting company. Read more of this post

Thai Senate Rejects Amnesty Bill That Sparked Bangkok Protests

Thai Senate Rejects Amnesty Bill That Sparked Bangkok Protests

Thailand’s Senate rejected a bill that would have provided an amnesty for political offenses stretching back to the nation’s 2006 coup, easing concern that street protests in Bangkok may escalate into violence. Senators voted 141-0 against the draft after more than 10 hours of debate, Surachai Liengboonlertchai, vice president of the Senate, told reporters in Bangkok late yesterday. The bill will be sent back to parliament’s lower house, which can re-submit the bill after 180 days, Surachai said. Read more of this post

The Future of Energy: Predicting what the energy landscape will look like in 20 years

The Future of Energy

Predicting what the energy landscape will look like in 20 years

Updated Nov. 11, 2013 4:19 p.m. ET

Consider how the energy landscape has changed in the past 20 years. In 1993, the price of oil was a bit over $18 a barrel; it’s around $100 a barrel now. In 1993, the life of a cellphone battery was hardly a concern because there were only 34 million cellphone subscribers world-wide, compared with more than 6.8 billion today. The battery for electric cars mattered even less: It would be another three years before the General Motors EV1 went into production and a year after that before the first Prius went on sale in Japan. Wind farms were a novelty, and solar energy barely registered in the statistics. Read more of this post

How to Cure South Korea’s English Fever?

November 12, 2013, 9:52 AM

How to Cure South Korea’s English Fever?

By Jasper Kim 

How much should a country pay to master the English language? Based on the economics and outcomes of English tuition in South Korea today, the country is throwing excessive amounts at the task with meager results. According to Swiss-based language learning company EF Education First, the average South Korean gets nearly 20,000 hours of English education from kindergarten through university. Much of that tuition comes at private institutes known as hagwon that Korean kids flock to stay ahead in the nation’s hyper-competitive educational race. There are currently over 17,000 hagwon that teach English in South Korea. That’s roughly one hagwon for every 647 students. Read more of this post

Behind the Scenes of Tokyo’s Political Soap Opera

Behind the Scenes of Tokyo’s Political Soap Opera

Shinzo Abe faces plenty of roadblocks in his quest to revive Japan’s sluggish economy. His mentor wasn’t supposed to be one of them. Former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi is easily the most popular Japanese politician of the last 20 years. Not since Yasuhiro Nakasone in the mid-1980s had a Japanese leader made such a splash domestically and globally. Not coincidentally, both were keen reformers — as Abe, too, claims to be. Read more of this post

Jakarta Mulls Gridlock in 2014

Jakarta Mulls Gridlock in 2014

By Hotman Siregar & Deti Mega Purnamasari on 9:08 am November 12, 2013.

With hordes of cheap, new cars and motorcycles continuing to hit the city’s streets, and the two rail-based public transit networks not expected to be ready until at least 2016, experts have warned that Jakarta faces imminent gridlock next year. Azas Tigor Nainggolan, chairman of the city-funded Jakarta Transportation Council, said on Monday that he was concerned about the lack of effort to curb the number of private vehicles from clogging the city’s streets, particularly in the chronically congested downtown area, and the slow pace of improvement in public transportation. Read more of this post

Hyundai Motor Chief Technology Officer Quits Over Quality Issues

Hyundai Motor Chief Technology Officer Quits Over Quality Issues

Hyundai Motor Co. (005380)’s chief technology officer resigned after a series of recalls dented the South Korean automaker’s reputation for quality. Kwon Moon Sik, who was president of the research and development division, quit yesterday along with two other executives over a chain of quality issues, the Seoul-based company said in an e-mailed statement today. It didn’t say who will replace Kwon. Read more of this post

The Singapore brokerage unit of AMMB Holdings Bhd (AmBank Group), AmFraser, is believed to have exposure of close to S$150mil of financing for trades related to the recent fallout from a penny stock crash

Updated: Tuesday November 12, 2013 MYT 8:17:53 AM

Some snowball effect expected

BY GURMEET KAUR AND YVONNE TAN

PETALING JAYA: The Singapore brokerage unit of AMMB Holdings Bhd (AmBank Group), AmFraser Securities Pte Ltd, is believed to have exposure of close to S$150mil (RM384.61mil) of financing for trades related to the recent fallout from a penny stock crash involving Singapore Exchange Ltd (SGX)-listed Blumont Group Ltd, LionGold Corp Ltd and Asiasons Capital Ltd, sources said. Read more of this post

A simmering battle between Singapore conglomerate Fraser & Neave and its bondholders related to the company’s plans to spin off its property division has drawn the attention of the city state’s central bank

MAS Casts Eyes on F&N’s Spat With Bondholders

By Kit Yin Boey on 4:53 pm November 11, 2013.
Singapore. A simmering battle between Singapore conglomerate Fraser & Neave and its bondholders related to the company’s plans to spin off its property division has drawn the attention of the city state’s central bank. The Monetary Authority of Singapore has approached bankers and investors to gather information on a consent solicitation that F&N launched last week. Read more of this post

Capital-hungry Myanmar firms cautiously drawn to Singapore listings

Capital-hungry Myanmar firms cautiously drawn to Singapore listings

4:11pm EST

By Eveline Danubrata and Jared Ferrie

SINGAPORE/YANGON (Reuters) – At Yangon International airport, large blue and white signs in the arrival and departure halls promote Singapore’s stock exchange as the go-to destination for Myanmar businesses seeking capital. The advertisements underscore Singapore’s nascent role as a magnet for Myanmar companies eager to grow as their country emerges from decades of isolation but frustrated by its crippled banking system and barely existing financial markets. Read more of this post

Regulators must hold UK asset managers to higher standards

November 11, 2013 6:20 pm

Regulators must hold UK asset managers to higher standards

By Patrick Jenkins

Pay and churn should be the focus of UK regulatory reform

By the end of this month, the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority will come up with its latest proposals to reform the asset management industry. A consultation paper will focus on customer charging structures, raising further questions over the sector’s murky interactions with the research and sales staff of investment banks. Read more of this post

One Answer to the Index Fund: Build a Better Index

NOVEMBER 11, 2013, 11:10 AM

One Answer to the Index Fund: Build a Better Index

By JEFF SOMMER

PAUL A. SAMUELSON made a startling and significant case for index funds in 1974. In a deliberately provocative essay, Mr. Samuelson, who had already won the Nobel in economic science and written the most influential economics textbook in history, said most professional investment managers should “drop dead.” At the very least, he said, they should “go out of business.” Read more of this post

Investors need to starve the hedge fund beast; The industry model mainly benefits intermediaries

November 11, 2013 7:38 pm

Investors need to starve the hedge fund beast

By Jonathan Ford

The industry model mainly benefits intermediaries, writes Jonathan Ford

Asked in the late 1970s how he saw the outlook for the specialist investment vehicles that he is credited with inventing, Alfred Winslow Jones was no optimist. “Thehedge fund doesn’t have a terrific future,” he said gloomily. Hedge funds’ investment styles were too easily copied, and the inefficiencies on which they thrived too swiftly eroded. They would never, Jones thought, become a big part of the investment scene. Read more of this post