Oil’s new age of plenty challenges old assumptions

Oil’s new age of plenty challenges old assumptions

Fri, Dec 27 16:36 PM GMT

By Kevin Allison

The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

The energy business may enter a tumultuous period in 2014, even if sanctions on Iranian oil exports remain in place. The combination of increased shale drilling, cheaper solar power and higher investments in energy efficiency has the potential to create a glut of oil from countries outside the OPEC producers’ cartel at current prices. A sharp drop in the oil price is possible, and more volatility in oil prices, energy investments and geopolitics is almost inevitable. Read more of this post

Bakken Crude Pegged as More Dangerous Imperils Shale Boom

Bakken Crude Pegged as More Dangerous Imperils Shale Boom

Safety rules will probably be tightened on crude oil shipments from North Dakota following a string of railway explosions, threatening to damp an energy boom that has boosted the region’s economy. Read more of this post

Banking on a Wing and a Prayer; In getting a bigger piece of China, OCBC Bank’s possible $5 billion bid for Wing Hang Bank might also come with something investors won’t like: falling Hong Kong property prices

Banking on a Wing and a Prayer

Buying Wing Hang Bank Would Give OCBC Things Investors Shouldn’t Want

AARON BACK

Jan. 6, 2014 7:57 a.m. ET

In getting a bigger piece of China, OCBC Bank‘s O39.SG -1.01% possible $5 billion bid forWing Hang Bank 0302.HK +1.30% might also come with something investors won’t like: falling Hong Kong property prices. Read more of this post

Hong Kong banking watchdog seeks bail-in powers

January 7, 2014 1:52 pm

Hong Kong banking watchdog seeks bail-in powers

By Paul J Davies in Hong Kong

Hong Kong’s banking regulator has demanded far-reaching powers to prop up or shut down failing banks, such as the ability to suspend normal creditor rights, as it plays catch-up with western regulators trying prevent a future Lehman Brothers. Read more of this post

Is China Losing Hong Kong? Two Decades Later, Hong Kong Eludes China’s Grasp

Two Decades Later, Hong Kong Eludes China’s Grasp: Adam Minter

Are China’s leaders destined to ask each other, “Who lost Hong Kong?”

It’s a question worth pondering after a holiday week that offered a stark reminder of just how restless — if not unhappy — a sizable percentage of the former colony’s residents are under Chinese rule, 17 years after the end of British sovereignty. Of course, nobody seriously entertains the idea of a political schism between Hong Kong and China. But schism or not, China’s continuing failure to appeal to, please and placate so many of the former colony’s residents despite historic, ethnic and economic ties, suggests a soft power failure that has implications well beyond Hong Kong’s harbor. In short, if China can’t convince Hong Kong’s residents that it has their best interests in mind, what hope does it have of persuading Taiwan and its neighbors? Read more of this post

A New Leader for India; It’s time for Rahul Gandhi to come up with an agenda

A New Leader for India

It’s time for Rahul Gandhi to come up with an agenda.

Updated Jan. 5, 2014 5:43 p.m. ET

Manmohan Singh on Friday confirmed long-running speculation that he will not seek a third term as India’s prime minister after elections due in May. The move shifts the focus to Rahul Gandhi, who will now lead the Congress Party into the polling—and potentially into defeat if he doesn’t start offering some serious ideas. Read more of this post

India Savings Deposit Scam Collapse Leaves Thousands Penniless

India Savings Deposit Scam Collapse Leaves Thousands Penniless

Sudipta Sen was on the run when police arrested him on April 23 at Hotel Snow Land, a resort with views of the Himalayas in Sonamarg, India, about 2,700 kilometers northwest of his Kolkata base. Read more of this post

Looming Rahul Rise Tests Gandhi Grip on India Before Vote

Looming Rahul Ascendancy Tests Gandhi Grip on India Before Vote

Nobody among India’s 1.2 billion people has been groomed to run Asia’s third-biggest economy more than Rahul Gandhi. Whether he wants to follow his father, grandmother and great-grandfather in doing so remains unclear. Read more of this post

Rising Bad Loans Pose a Threat for India

Rising Bad Loans Pose a Threat for India

Nonperforming Assets at Banks Climbed to 4.2% of Total Loans in September

NUPUR ACHARYA

Jan. 6, 2014 12:38 p.m. ET

MUMBAI—Bad loans in India have jumped to a record high, hurting profits and stocks of state-owned banks and threatening to curb lending in Asia’s third-largest economy. Read more of this post

Tata Steel Profit Margin Seen at Decade Low: Corporate India

Tata Steel Profit Margin Seen at Decade Low: Corporate India

Tata Steel Ltd. and Steel Authority of India Ltd., the nation’s biggest producers, are set to report their smallest profit margins in more than a decade as demand grows at the slowest pace since the global recession. Read more of this post

Uncommon success of  ‘Common Man’ party upends India politics

Last updated: January 5, 2014 7:03 pm

Uncommon success of  ‘Common Man’ party upends India politics

By Amy Kazmin in New Delhi

Just a few weeks ago, Adarsh Shastri was a highly paid Mumbai-based executive forApple, overseeing the tech company’s sales inIndia’s western region. Then Mr Shastri, son and grandson of Congress party stalwarts, quit his corporate job to throw in his lot with India’s year-old Aam Aadmi party, which has promised radical reforms of India’s corrupt and sluggish political system. Read more of this post

Will Narendra Modi Make It in 2014?

Will Narendra Modi Make It in 2014?

by Swapan Dasgupta | Jan 6, 2014

BJP workers and supporters during Narendra Modi’s Vikas Rally in New Delhi on September 29, 2013

The road to Delhi will severely test the Gujarat chief minister but, mentally at least, the ever-flexible Indian establishment is readying itself for a possible Modi-led government in Delhi next summer Read more of this post

Only 17% of Japan’s biggest firms plan to raise wages

Only 17% of Japan’s biggest firms plan to raise wages

KYODO

JAN 3, 2014

Only 17 percent of major companies will raise wages in the business year that starts April 1, even though 71 percent expect the economy to expand in 2014, according to a Kyodo News survey. Read more of this post

Gary Shilling: Stick With South Korea in 2014

Stick With South Korea in 2014

Consider what would happen if the totalitarian regime in North Korea collapsed and that vastly underdeveloped country of 25 million was absorbed by South Korea, with its 50 million highly motivated and industrious citizens. Read more of this post

Park Geun-hye warns South Korean companies on weaker yen

January 6, 2014 11:30 am

Park Geun-hye warns South Korean companies on weaker yen

By Song Jung-a in Seoul

Park Geun-hye, South Korea’s president, has stressed the need to rebalance Asia’s fourth-largest economy towards domestic consumption as a weaker yen in Japan threatens the country’s export competitiveness. Read more of this post

Vietnam Raises Foreign Bank Ownership Caps to Aid System

Vietnam Raises Foreign Bank Ownership Caps to Aid System

Vietnam will allow foreign investors to take bigger stakes in the nation’s lenders in a bid to bolster the ailing banking system. The limit for foreign so-called strategic investors will be increased to 20 percent from 15 percent, while the cap for total foreign holdings at any local bank remains at 30 percent, according to a statement posted on the government website late yesterday. The prime minister can lift the limits in special cases to help weak banks “restructure and ensure their safety,” according to the decree, which takes effect Feb. 20. Read more of this post

Taiwan Rejects Bitcoin ATMs

Jan 6, 2014

Taiwan Rejects Bitcoin ATMs

Taiwan is joining the ranks of governments wary to join in on the craze that is the virtual currency bitcoin. The island’s financial regulator said Monday that physical teller machines for the virtual currency “will not appear” here, after Las Vegas-based RoboCoin, which makes bitcoin ATMs, reportedly said it had chosen Taiwan and Hong Kong as its first spots to expand in Asia.

Read more of this post

Temasek May Sell Bonds to Individual Investors in Singapore

Temasek May Sell Bonds to Individual Investors in Singapore

Temasek Holdings Pte, Singapore’s state-owned investment firm, is looking at ways to offer bonds to individual investors in the city state. Issuing fixed-income products will provide an “alternative investment opportunity” for investors seeking stable returns with lower risks, Stephen Forshaw, a spokesman for the company, said in a statement on its website in a response to a letter published in Today newspaper on Jan. 4. Read more of this post

Some Singapore luxury home owners sell their places at a big loss

Some luxury home owners sell their places at a big loss

Monday, January 6, 2014 – 06:30

Cheryl Ong

The Straits Times

Some luxury home owners who bought during market highs are selling their places at losses of up to $1.2 million as prices of posh homes take a tumble. Experts say losses on that scale are sporadic, but that the wider luxury market is clearly softening in the wake of various government curbs. Read more of this post

OCBC / Wing Hang: difficult dollars; one reason OCBC would buy a lender ranked 12th in its home market is that more deposits provide a buffer against the rising cost of money

January 6, 2014 12:46 pm

OCBC / Wing Hang: difficult dollars

Deal marks high tide in the flood of Fed money to Asia

Farewell, cheap money – you will be missed. Few places have enjoyed the flood of easy dollars, courtesy of the Federal Reserve, as much as Singapore and Hong Kong. So OCBC, Singapore’s second-biggest lender, entering exclusivity talks to take over Hong Kong’s Wing Hang looks like a case of two banks, stranded by a receding tide, clinging together. Read more of this post

Malaysians Seen Curbing Spending as Living Costs Surge: Economy

Malaysians Seen Curbing Spending as Living Costs Surge: Economy

Jan. 7 (Bloomberg) — Millions of middle-class Malaysians are grappling with the biggest increase in state controlled electricity and gasoline costs since 2008, threatening consumer spending growth and reasserting the country’s reliance on exports this year. Read more of this post

World-Beating Debt Burden Is No ‘Serious Threat’ to Denmark

World-Beating 321% Debt Burden Is No ‘Serious Threat’ to Denmark

Danish central bank GovernorLars Rohde said most of the nation’s households would survive a jump in interest rates or a loss of income as Denmark tops world debt rankings. Read more of this post

Washington must not settle for secular stagnation; We must take this chance to renew our infrastructure

January 5, 2014 5:31 pm

Washington must not settle for secular stagnation

By Lawrence Summers

We must take this chance to renew our infrastructure

We may, as I argued last month in the Financial Times, be in a period of “secular stagnation” in which sluggish growth and output, and employment levels well below potential, might coincide for some time to come with problematically low real interest rates. Read more of this post

Wall Street Bitcoin Fans Try to Make Real Money From Virtual

Wall Street Bitcoin Fans Try to Make Real Money From Virtual

After developing a fascination with digital currencies, Jonathan Silverman left his job managing funds at Morgan Stanley in May to take a job trading the virtual stuff instead. Read more of this post

The Edamame Economy: The emergence of boutique hotels reflects a broader trend toward a more experientially rich commercial world

January 6, 2014

The Edamame Economy

By DAVID BROOKS

In the age of rail, luxury hotels mimicked European palaces. When rich people arrived at their destination, they wanted to be treated like nobility. Read more of this post

The Bubble Is Back: Real estate prices are once again outstripping the cost of renting

January 5, 2014

The Bubble Is Back

By PETER J. WALLISON

WASHINGTON — IN November, housing starts were up 23 percent, and there was cheering all around. But the crowd would quiet down if it realized that another housing bubble had begun to grow. Read more of this post

Swiss National Bank Warns of $10 Billion Loss on Huge Drop in Value of Gold Holdings; if the SNB can take a loss like this on gold, who knows how less experienced punters have fared

Swiss Bank Warns of $10 Billion Loss

Huge Drop in Gold Prices Would Weigh on Earnings

JOHN REVILL And LAURA CLARKE

Updated Jan. 6, 2014 9:15 a.m. ET

ZURICH—The Swiss National Bank SNBN.EB -0.19% Monday said a huge drop in the value of its gold holdings would push it to a $10 billion loss, suggesting more investors would feel the brunt of the biggest fall in the price of the precious metal in three decades. Read more of this post

Stock Losses Make Investors Sick as Hospital Admissions Jump

Stock Losses Make Investors Sick as Hospital Admissions Jump

Falling stocks get people worried sick, if hospital records are any guide. A one-day drop in equities of around 1.5 percent is followed by about a 0.26 percent increase in hospital admissions on average over the next two days, according to a March 2013 study by Joseph Engelberg and Christopher Parsons, associate professors of finance at the University of California at San Diego. The impact on psychological conditions such as anxiety or panic attacks is even stronger and more immediate, with admissions jumping twice that much in one day. Read more of this post

Spain’s Solar Pullback Threatens Pocketbooks

January 5, 2014

Spain’s Solar Pullback Threatens Pocketbooks

By SUZANNE DALEY

ÁGUILAS, Spain — Six years ago, Justo Cruz Rodríguez, who runs a small business here designing signs, was looking for a way to generate a steady, if modest, pension for himself and his father. Read more of this post

Someone Please Help New York Times With Econ 101; Isn’t it about time opinion writers stopped using economics to justify a moral issue? Our hearts go out to those who can’t earn a decent living, find a job, get laid off for no good reason or find themselves in harm’s way

Someone Please Help New York Times With Econ 101

“In March, every Republican in the House voted against a measure to raise the minimum wage. `When you raise the price of employment, guess what happens? You get less of it,’ said Speaker John Boehner in February, espousing a party-line theory that most economists agree has been discredited.” — New York Times editorial, Jan. 2, 2014. Read more of this post