Holy cows and the politics of beef

January 28, 2014 3:34 pm

Holy cows and the politics of beef

By Victor Mallet in Ahmedabad

In much of India – and especially in Gujarat, where cow slaughter is forbidden – cows are not eaten

It is surprising how quickly you get used to them: after a few months in India, I barely notice the urban cows, whether they are standing meditatively in the middle of a highway inches from speeding vehicles, slumped on the pavement outside a department store or nuzzling their way into a discarded plastic bag in search of food. Read more of this post

A Company Without Job Titles Will Still Have Hierarchies

A Company Without Job Titles Will Still Have Hierarchies

by Harrison Monarth  |   1:00 PM January 28, 2014

Radically flat. That’s the management goal that Tony Hseih, founder of e-commerce giant Zappos, aims to achieve by the end of 2014. To get there, Hsieh plans to toss out the traditional corporate hierarchy by eliminating titles among his 1,500 employees that can lead to bottlenecks in decision-making. The end result: a holacracy centered around self-organizing teams who actively push the entire business forward. Read more of this post

Qualcomm may face record US$1bil antitrust fines in China

Updated: Wednesday January 29, 2014 MYT 11:35:36 AM

Qualcomm may faces record US$1bil antitrust fines in China

BEIJING: Qualcomm Inc, the world’s biggest cellphone chip maker, may be hit with a record fine exceeding $1 billion in a Chinese antitrust probe, raising the specter of harsh penalties for foreign firms facing an increasingly aggressive regulator. Read more of this post

E-Commerce Booming in Indonesia, Survey Finds

E-Commerce Booming in Indonesia, Survey Finds

By Farid Firdaus

 on 10:43 am January 29, 2014.
Up to 76 percent of Internet users in Indonesia shopped online over the past year and spent Rp 5.5 million ($450) annually on average, a survey has revealed. Read more of this post

Online electricals retailer AO.com aims for £1bn valuation at listing

January 28, 2014 8:50 pm

AO.com aims for £1bn valuation at listing

By Andrea Felsted, Kate Burgess and Duncan Robinson

AO.com, the online electricals retailer, is aiming for a £1bn valuation when it floats on the London Stock Exchange later this year – more than treble the market capitalisation it was hoping to achieve just four months ago. Read more of this post

Answers to a Puzzling Deal at Alibaba Remain in the Shadows

JANUARY 28, 2014, 5:51 PM  Comment

Answers to a Puzzling Deal at Alibaba Remain in the Shadows

By STEVEN M. DAVIDOFF

The Chinese Internet giant Alibaba is looking to join the ranks of Google andMicrosoft

with an initial public offering that could give it a value of more than $100 billion. But the company’s recent acquisition of the Hong Kong-listed company Citic 21CN shows just how much we still don’t know about Alibaba and its business. Read more of this post

Hynix warns of smartphone slowdown

January 28, 2014 1:21 pm

Hynix warns of smartphone slowdown

By Simon Mundy in Seoul

SK Hynix, the world’s second-largest producer of memory chips by sales, warned on Tuesday that it would be hit this year by slowing growth in smartphones, even as it announced record sales and earnings in 2013. Read more of this post

Apple’s China moment still frustratingly out of reach

Apple’s China moment still frustratingly out of reach

6:23pm EST

By Paul Carsten and Edwin Chan

BEIJING/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Apple Inc may have to wait a little longer for its watershed moment in China.

A disappointing March-quarter revenue forecast, coupled with surprisingly weak holiday iPhone sales, suggest pundits may have over-estimated initial demand from China Mobile’s 700 million-plus subscribers, a key factor that has pushed its shares 18 percent higher in the fourth quarter. Read more of this post

IKEA’s Focus Remains on its Superstores; Visits to Website Increase by Nearly 20% but When it Comes to Furniture, Shoppers Still Want to ‘Touch the Fabric’

IKEA’s Focus Remains on its Superstores

Visits to Website Increase by Nearly 20% but When it Comes to Furniture, Shoppers Still Want to ‘Touch the Fabric’

JENS HANSEGARD and NICLAS ROLANDER

Updated Jan. 28, 2014 7:53 a.m. ET

In fiscal 2014, IKEA plans to spend €2.5 billion ($3.4 billion) on stores, factories and shopping centers. Here, a store in Malmo, Sweden. Getty Images

STOCKHOLM—IKEA expects its famous blue-and-yellow superstores to remain the lifeblood of an ambitious growth plan, even as visits to ikea.com increased nearly 20% in fiscal year 2013 while visits to physical stores modestly declined. Read more of this post

China’s Households “Massively” Exposed To Housing Bubble “That Has To Burst”

China’s Households “Massively” Exposed To Housing Bubble “That Has To Burst”

Tyler Durden on 01/28/2014 14:51 -0500

The topic of China’s real estate bubble, its ghost cities, and its emerging middle class – who now have enough money to invest and have piled into houses not stocks – and have been dubbed “fang nu” or housing slaves (a reference to the lifetime of work needed to pay off their debts); is not a new one here but, as Bloomberg reports, the latest report from economist Gan Li shows China’s households are massively exposed to an oversupplied property market. Read more of this post

China is biggest risk to emerging markets

January 28, 2014 8:21 am

China is biggest risk to emerging markets

By Henny Sender

Tight credit and slowing growth create ripple effect across EMs

Suddenly the prospects for emerging markets have dimmed further.

On Wall Street, wary traders speculate on which countries and securities will be under the greatest selling pressure, doubtless to get ahead of the anticipated wave of selling. Read more of this post

Why Harvey Norman has run out of steam

Why Harvey Norman has run out of steam

January 24, 2014

Nathan Bell

Hold your stones. What I’m about to write may sound like value investing heresy. I’m about to recommend you sell Harvey Norman – largely because it has a strong balance sheet and an owner manager.

We typically love these characteristics. They help companies maintain a long-term perspective, providing shelter to ride out short-term storms. But when a storm turns out to be a tsunami, then shelter may not do you much good; it would be better if you were a little less comfortable and were forced to seek higher ground. Read more of this post

Dee Hsu’s husband, Mike Hsu, and father-in-law charged with insider trading in Top Pot bakery case

Dee Hsu’s husband, Mike Hsu, and father-in-law charged with insider trading in Top Pot bakery case

Wednesday, January 29, 2014 – 14:16

The China Post/Asia News Network

TAIPEI – The Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office concluded its investigation over the case of Top Pot Bakery, which involved alleged deceptive advertising and insider trading, and indicted four people including businessman Mike Hsu, the husband of talk show host Dee Hsu, on Tuesday. Read more of this post

Overheard In A Gold Vault In Singapore: “We Need Additional Capacity”, China’s Appetite Is “Insatiable”

Overheard In A Gold Vault In Singapore: “We Need Additional Capacity”, China’s Appetite Is “Insatiable”

Tyler Durden on 01/28/2014 15:21 -0500

Yesterday we covered the supply side of the gold market from the perspective of global mints, which were kind enough to advise that they “can’t meet the demand, even if we work overtime.” Today, courtesy of Bloomberg, we take a closer look at the demand aspect of the physical gold market, which as most know by now can be described with just one word: China. Read more of this post

Turkey tightens: implications of its aggressive rate rise

January 29, 2014 9:54 am

Turkey tightens: implications of its aggressive rate rise

By Daniel Dombey in Istanbul

In a moment of drama at midnight on Tuesday, Turkey’s central bank performed a volte face, increasing interest rates across the board where it had previously been reluctant to raise them. It more than doubled one key rate.

It was a striking move, given the political and financial backdrop: prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has long made clear his opposition to high interest rates, while investors had become worried about Turkey and other emerging markets. Read more of this post

The rich stay rich while the poor struggle; Thanks to globalisation the centres of major cities now appear similar

January 28, 2014 4:59 pm

The world’s rich stay rich while the poor struggle to prosper

By John Kay

Thanks to globalisation the centres of major cities now appear similar

Dear Bill Gates,

We have never met, but your annual letter (coinciding with your Davos speech) seemed to be addressed directly to me. Your aim is to critique books with titles such as “how rich countries got rich and why poor countries stay poor”, and I did write a book with almost exactly that subtitle. You go on to say “thankfully these are not bestsellers because the basic premise is false”. I am afraid you are right to say my book is not a bestseller, but wrong to say its premise is false. Read more of this post

The challenges of a post-crisis world; Nations must nurture recovery and promote reform. Co-operation and communication should be the order of the day

January 28, 2014 7:19 pm

The challenges of a post-crisis world

By Martin Wolf

Nations must nurture recovery and promote reform. Co-operation and communication should be the order of the day

The consensus view of the world economy has become more optimistic, for good reason. The high-income economies seem at last to be taking off; this is particularly true for the US and UK. But significant challenges lie ahead, notably for the eurozone. For emerging countries, stronger growth in high-income countries brings benefits, but also costs. If euphoria is among the dangers to stability, 2014 should not see too much of it. Read more of this post

SEC Fights Turf War Over Asset Managers

SEC Fights Turf War Over Asset Managers

ANDREW ACKERMAN and RYAN TRACY

Updated Jan. 28, 2014 8:04 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON—Senior U.S. officials are clashing over whether the asset-management industry poses risks to the financial system, setting up a fight over whether the industry should face tougher oversight. Read more of this post

Next-shoring: A CEO’s guide; Proximity to demand and innovative supply ecosystems will trump labor costs as technology transforms operations in the years ahead

McKinsey Quarterly

Next-shoring: A CEO’s guide

Proximity to demand and innovative supply ecosystems will trump labor costs as technology transforms operations in the years ahead.

January 2014 | byKaty George, Sree Ramaswamy, and Lou Rassey

When offshoring entered the popular lexicon, in the 1990s, it became shorthand for efforts to arbitrage labor costs by using lower-wage workers in developing nations. But savvy manufacturing leaders saw it as more: a decisive change in globalization, made possible by a wave of liberalization in countries such as China and India, a steady improvement in the capabilities of emerging-market suppliers and workers, a growing ability to transfer proven management processes to new locales, and increasingly favorable transportation and communications economics. Read more of this post

Marc Faber Warns “Insiders Are Selling Like Crazy… Short US Stocks, Buy Treasuries & Gold”

Marc Faber Warns “Insiders Are Selling Like Crazy… Short US Stocks, Buy Treasuries & Gold”

Tyler Durden on 01/28/2014 18:43 -0500

Beginning by disavowing Mario Gabelli of any belief that rising stock prices help ‘most’ people (“Fed data suggests half the US population has seen a 40% drop in wealth since 2007“), Marc Faber discusses his increasingly imminent fears of the markets in this recent Barron’s interview. Read more of this post

Fed Can’t Avoid Emerging-Markets Blame

Fed Can’t Avoid Emerging-Markets Blame

SPENCER JAKAB

Jan. 28, 2014 5:13 p.m. ET

Ben Bernanke just can’t catch a break.

Three years ago he was forced to defend the Federal Reserve from accusations its bond buying somehow had triggered the Arab Spring, which was just getting under way at the time. Now, with the era of aggressive monetary policy waning, a slump in emerging markets is seen as a dangerous side effect of stimulus being withdrawn. Read more of this post

Charts of the day: Creative destruction in the S&P500 index

Wednesday, January 29, 2014

Charts of the day: Creative destruction in the S&P500 index

Mark J. Perry | January 26, 2014, 10:10 pm

A 2012 article by Richard Foster (“Creative Destruction Whips through Corporate America“) provides a great example of “creative destruction” in the US economy and stock market – the accelerating turnover in the S&P500 Index based on almost 100 years of data. Here are some key findings: Read more of this post