Emerging markets are badly served by ETFs

February 2, 2014 2:44 pm

Emerging markets are badly served by ETFs

By John Authers

Investment vehicles have helped to create another boom and bust cycle

Money is flowing out of the emerging markets. A debate is raging over whether this is the fault of the US Federal Reserve, which has effectively encouraged investors to bring their money back home. Read more of this post

Moocs in transition: Not so massive, open or even online

Moocs in transition: Not so massive, open or even online

February 2, 2014 11:32 pmby Richard Waters

Like any widely hyped online phenomenon, Moocs – massive open online courses – are facing a reality-test.

Hardly anyone who starts one of the online courses actually finishes it. But even if the formula is being rethought, the potential impact on education hasn’t diminished. Read more of this post

Entrepreneurship education needed in China; The country’s business schools should adopt western tactics and have start-up labs

January 31, 2014 1:33 pm

Entrepreneurship education needed in China

By Mike Bastin

The country’s business schools should adopt western tactics and have start-up labs

Many countries in the west have pinned their hopes on start-ups and family-run enterprises to help kick-start the economy. China is no exception. Read more of this post

Europe will feel the pain of emerging markets; The last thing the global economy needs is a resurgence of the European debt crisis

February 2, 2014 8:40 pm

Europe will feel the pain of emerging markets

By Wolfgang Münchau

The last thing the global economy needs is a resurgence of the European debt crisis

So much for “crisis over”. After the US subprime meltdown and the explosion of eurozone sovereign debt yields, we are now confronting a classic emerging marketcurrency crisis with possible repercussions in other parts of the global economy. Read more of this post

Fate of emerging markets is intertwined with US Fed’s actions

Updated: Monday February 3, 2014 MYT 8:05:37 AM

Fate of emerging markets is intertwined with US Fed’s actions

BY YAP LENG KUEN

LIKE it or not, the fate of the emerging markets is intertwined with the actions of theUS Federal Reserve (Fed), which has been a big-time player in providing liquidity via its bond purchases.

Now that the Fed is into its monthly bond withdrawals, the finger is being pointed at it for the emerging markets’ fall-off. Read more of this post

Will Long Working Hours Stymie ‘Womenomics’?

February 3, 2014, 11:00 AM

Will Long Working Hours Stymie ‘Womenomics’?

MITSURU OBE

As a 33-year-old working mother of two, Mizue Terasaki knows what it’s like to commute on a crowded train with a baby and a stroller. “It’s very hard,” she says.

“Why do I continue working?” she once asked in a monthly column she writes for the finance ministry’s public relations magazine. “I can get neither work nor child-rearing done to my satisfaction.” Read more of this post

Australia’s Big 4 banks are global unknowns

Australia’s Big 4 banks are global unknowns

February 3, 2014 – 1:21PM

Max Mason

Australia’s big four banks may rank among the most profitable in the developed world, but when it comes to brand value they trail their better known foreign peers. Read more of this post

Hidden truths: How Reputation.com helps sanitise its 1.6 million client’s online reputation

Hidden truths: How Reputation.com helps sanitise its 1.6 million client’s online reputation

February 1, 2014

Fake versions of yourself online? Anna Funder doesn’t mind the idea, but mass disinformation has its drawbacks.

Recently we took the children to the Spy Museum in Washington DC. All the expected natty James Bond devices were there: a camera in a shoe brush, a .22 calibre pistol in a cigarette, a cyanide pill in the arm of some 1970s spectacles. And more. Read more of this post

Ban banks from wealth management; Economist say banks should get out of wealth management and consumer protection should be improved

Ban banks from wealth management: economists

February 1, 2014

Clancy Yeates

Economists also see no role for banks in wealth management.

David Murray’s financial system inquiry should examine ways to beef up consumer protection and improve disclosure standards for retail investors, some of the country’s top economists say. Read more of this post

Private-Equity Firms’ Fees Get a Closer Look; Industry May Be Underpaying Taxes by Misrepresenting Payments

Private-Equity Firms’ Fees Get a Closer Look

Industry May Be Underpaying Taxes by Misrepresenting Payments

MARK MAREMONT

Feb. 2, 2014 4:48 p.m. ET

Gregg D. Polsky, a tax-law professor, has long been a thorn in the side of the private-equity industry. Now he is at it again.

In 2009, Mr. Polsky wrote an article criticizing a strategy that allowed many fund executives to save on taxes by converting ordinary fee income into capital gains taxed at substantially lower rates. The Internal Revenue Service later started examining the propriety of the practice, called a management-fee waiver, and recently said it plans to issue new guidance on it. Read more of this post

Free People, Anthropologie Stores Fuel Urban Outfitters’ Growth

Free People, Anthropologie Stores Fuel Urban Outfitters’ Growth

Company Boasts Savvy Management, Increasing Earnings and a Strong Balance Sheet

SANDRA WARD

Feb. 1, 2014 8:22 p.m. ET

Always an upstart and maverick in the retail industry, Urban Outfitters URBN -0.39% ‘ performance this past holiday season also made it stand out.

Its same-store sales rose a year-on-year 3% for the two months ended Dec. 31. That was a sharp contrast to many of its peers, which posted steep declines—especially those catering to fickle and fiscally challenged teens.

Yet, the gain was less than the 5% anticipated by Wall Street, and disappointed investors sold off the shares.

They focused on the 6% decline in same-store sales posted by the Philadelphia-based company’s flagship chain, Urban Outfitters, which accounts for about 45% of overall sales.

While the company cited a difficult retailing environment for the sales slide, it mainly blamed its own fashion misses, narrow product offerings, and lack of a clear popular fashion trend, which prompted heavier-than-usual discounting. Rompers, jumpsuits and sweatshirt dresses didn’t catch on among the college-age hipster crowd that Urban Outfitters targets. Read more of this post

The Great Chinese Internet Crash; The Internet suffered perhaps its largest crash of all time on Jan. 21, when most of China’s 500 million Web users were unable to get online for up to eight hours

The Great Chinese Internet Crash

Web freedom is the best answer to Beijing’s foreign media crackdown.

Updated Feb. 2, 2014 4:21 p.m. ET

The Internet suffered perhaps its largest crash of all time on Jan. 21, when most of China’s 500 million Web users were unable to get online for up to eight hours. Nine days later New York Times NYT -2.68% reporter Austin Ramzy was forced to leave China, the latest in a string of foreign journalists denied work visas by the Beijing government. What these stories have in common is worth understanding—especially in Washington. Read more of this post

Report Hints of Strength of Anti-Reform Sentiment in Myanmar

Report Hints of Strength of Anti-Reform Sentiment in Myanmar

SHIBANI MAHTANI AND MYO MYO

Feb. 2, 2014 8:13 a.m. ET

YANGON, Myanmar—A committee looking at potential changes to Myanmar’s Constitution says most people who weighed in don’t want to alter the clause that prevents opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi from assuming the presidency. Read more of this post