Vietnam set to approve bigger foreign stakes in listed companies

Updated: Tuesday December 31, 2013 MYT 1:17:09 PM

Vietnam set to approve bigger foreign stakes in listed companies

HANOI: Vietnam’s prime minister is expected within days to approve an amended law allowing foreigners to own up to 60% of shares in some listed firms, the latest incremental move towards easing tight state controls on the economy. Read more of this post

Singapore Leads Pack as Cities Prepare for an Influx of Fliers; Singapore is unusually forward-looking in its expansion, but passenger demand is forcing airports from Beijing to Seoul to grow

December 30, 2013

Singapore Leads Pack as Cities Prepare for an Influx of Fliers

By BETTINA WASSENER

SINGAPORE — Travelers passing through the gigantic Changi International Airport here rarely have to wait long for bags or boarding. Unlike many other airports in this fast-growing region, Singapore’s airport can handle far more than the 53 million travelers that embarked and departed there this year. Read more of this post

Little India riot: The dog that did not bark

Little India riot: The dog that did not bark

In the aftermath of the Little India riot, the focus and dominant narrative, unsurprisingly, have been on law and order issues.

BY EUGENE KB TAN –

4 HOURS 31 MIN AGO

In the aftermath of the Little India riot, the focus and dominant narrative, unsurprisingly, have been on law and order issues. The Government’s narrative is that the riot was a “one-off” spontaneous mayhem; the proximate cause being the inebriated state of some foreign workers reacting angrily and violently to a fatal accident involving one of their own. Read more of this post

Malaysia to Cut Entertainment Spending as Budget Curbs Widen

Malaysia to Cut Entertainment Spending as Budget Curbs Widen

Malaysia will reduce the entertainment budgets of ministers and freeze applications to renovate government offices as Prime Minister Najib Razak widens efforts to cut public spending. Read more of this post

Three big macro questions for 2014; China’s excess credit growth remains the most worrying trend

Three big macro questions for 2014

December 30, 2013 2:10 pmby Gavyn Davies

As we enter 2014, the five-year bull market in developed market equities remains in full swing. Recently, I argued that equities now look overvalued, but not egregiously so, and that the future of the bull market could depend on when the level of global GDP started to bump up against supply side constraints, forcing a genuine tightening in global monetary conditions. Read more of this post

Winners of 2013: Boring Investors; Buying and Holding U.S. Stocks Paid Off Big This Year

Winners of 2013: Boring Investors

Buying and Holding U.S. Stocks Paid Off Big This Year

TOMI KILGORE and TOM LAURICELLA

Dec. 30, 2013 8:17 p.m. ET

In the best year for U.S. stocks since 1995, the smart way to play the markets has been to follow the dumb money. So-called dumb-money strategies, which involve buying and holding a plain-vanilla portfolio of U.S. stocks, did much better than the more complex approaches employed by hedge funds and other professional investors. Read more of this post

Unusual Emerging-Market Bet Pays Off: Two of the best-performing emerging-market bond funds made an especially unconventional bet: buying Argentine municipal debt

Bold Bets On Bonds Pay Off

NEELABH CHATURVEDI

Dec. 30, 2013 9:15 p.m. ET

For most emerging-markets investors, 2013 was a year to forget. The beginning of the end of the U.S. Federal Reserve’s giant stimulus program sucked money out of risky assets. The J.P. Morgan Emerging Market Bond Index has lost more than 5%, its worst performance in half a decade. Read more of this post

The Ride-Sharing, Handbag-Borrowing Productivity Revival

The Ride-Sharing, Handbag-Borrowing Productivity Revival

Rayshauna Gray makes frequent trips around New England from her home in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The 27-year-old doesn’t own a car and says she can’t imagine ever wanting to. Read more of this post

The Bifurcated Housing Bubble; From “Why Didn’t I Buy?” To “This Is Crazy”

The Bifurcated Housing Bubble; From “Why Didn’t I Buy?” To “This Is Crazy”

Tyler Durden on 12/30/2013 18:31 -0500

Never was ‘location, location, location’ more important than in the current housing ‘recovery’. From the Bay Area to Pittsburgh and from Denver to Oklahoma, the divergence in price movements is incredible. As the WSJ reports, while headlines gloat of several cities enjoying full-scale rebounds,these cities are largely exceptions with prices in many part of the US still well below the peak. In some 1,500 cities, values are still at least 25% lower than their previous highs. For the ‘bubble’ zip-sodes, “what you’ve got is something other than a sensible market-deciding price. You’ve got it goosed by the terms of finance, which are extraordinary,” warns one realist realtor, “prices shouldn’t be up this high, this quickly. It’s a big, flapping yellow flag saying we’re back in territory that we should not be in.” Read more of this post

Poppin over to Moscow: A starchy English education is a booming export industry

Poppin over to Moscow: A starchy English education is a booming export industry

Nov 18th 2013 | From The World In 2014 print edition

In 2014 Hollywood will celebrate the 50th birthday of “Mary Poppins”, an adaptation of a children’s book about a magic nanny. The film was released on August 27th 1964 and starred Julie Andrews, a reassuringly well-spoken English actress, as the eponymous governess. Arriving in London by flying umbrella, Mary Poppins proceeds to reform the dysfunctional banking family that employs her. The film’s producer, The Walt Disney Company, enjoyed an even happier ending: “Mary Poppins” has made $640m (adjusted for inflation) at the box office.  Read more of this post

In Cambodia, pressure mounts on a longtime leader

In Cambodia, pressure mounts on a longtime leader

Tuesday, December 31, 2013 – 16:37

Reuters

PHNOM PENH – Cambodian garment factory workers Then Any and Vong Pov aren’t showing up for work anymore. They make pairs of jeans sold in American stores at prices per pair higher than their $80 monthly income and struggle to make ends meet. Read more of this post

Gold With Silver Heading for Worst Decline in Three Decades

Gold With Silver Heading for Worst Decline in Three Decades

Gold headed for the biggest slump in three decades and the first annual loss since 2000 as an improving economy cut demand for wealth protection. Silver was set for the worst annual performance since 1981. Read more of this post

Credit Score, by Multiple Choice; Where credit scores are rare, banks are using a psychometric test developed at Harvard to help lend to small-business owners

December 30, 2013

Credit Score, by Multiple Choice

By SARAH WHEATON

No credit? No problem — just take a test.

That’s the message being delivered to more than 70,000 small-business owners in developing countries where credit ratings are rare and many potential entrepreneurs keep their money in cash rather than bank accounts. Read more of this post

A world economy on the brink of fracture; What will happen in 2014? The Chinese economy will slow; the price of oil will sink; Germany will slide into recession; the EU will remain intact and the internet will begin to Balkanise

A world economy on the brink of fracture

What will happen in 2014? The Chinese economy will slow; the price of oil will sink; Germany will slide into recession; the EU will remain intact and the internet will begin to Balkanise

By Jeremy Warner

6:58PM GMT 30 Dec 2013

Up against a gathering credit crunch, the Chinese economy will slow to almost stall-speed; the price of Brent crude will sink below $80 a barrel; Germany will slide back into recession; the European Union will remain intact and the internet will begin to Balkanise, leading to a boom in encryption technology but problems for the big global online brands. Read more of this post

A tougher year for emerging markets; 2014 could be when the richer world strikes back

December 30, 2013 6:20 pm

A tougher year for emerging markets

2014 could be when the richer world strikes back

Since the financial crisis, the global economy has travelled at two speeds. Developing countries have steamed ahead, powered by China’s voracious appetite for raw materials. Meanwhile, the west has limped along, as households and states cut back spending to address towering debts. Read more of this post

“What The Bubble…” Chart Of The Day: Half Of Loans Issued In 2013 Were “Covenant Lite”

“What The Bubble…” Chart Of The Day: Half Of Loans Issued In 2013 Were “Covenant Lite”

Tyler Durden on 12/30/2013 15:54 -0500

If you ask anyone at The Fed (apart from Jeremy Stein) if there is a bubble in the credit markets, the answer is definitive “no” since bubbles are always obvious. Well, hopefully, the following chart will make it “obvious” that the Fed’s policy has driven a ‘reach for yield’ so excessive as to explode the growth of so-called cov-lite loans. This ‘riskiest of risky’ loan issuance, while already at record high levels, has now massively exceeded the previous bubble in terms of percent issued as the demand for anything with yield ‘enables’ the worst of the worst companies to refinance their zombie-like existence. Read more of this post

Russian Tycoon Is Free, but His Money Is Still Tied Up

December 30, 2013

Russian Tycoon Is Free, but His Money Is Still Tied Up

By ANDREW E. KRAMER

MOSCOW — Before he went to prison 10 years ago, Mikhail B. Khodorkovsky was Russia’s richest man, worth maybe $15 billion. Set free this month, he could only guess at his vastly depleted, but still formidable, wealth. Read more of this post

Asia picks its words of the year, and they are a bunch of sad characters

Asia picks its words of the year, and they are a bunch of sad characters

By Herman Wong @hermanywong

December 29, 2013

Asia has chosen some somber words to sum up its year. China Realtime Report rounded up the character of the year (kanji of the year in Japan) from five Asian nations, which were based on polls or selected by a committee. Unlike Oxford Dictionaries’ choice for word of the year, these characters capture a sense of people’s anxiety and, in one case, of collective achievement.

房 fang: house or home (China)

Even as real estate inflation in China is cooling down, the cost of buying a home in first-tier cities is still sky-high, smaller cities face rumors of collapsing prices, and the rent is too damn high.

假 jia: fake (Taiwan)

A year of political and food safety scandals has left the Taiwanese unsure of what to believe.

霾  mai: haze (Singapore)

Pollution in this city-state hit historic levels this year.

涨  zhang: inflation (Malaysia)

A recent poll showed that 67% of Malaysians were worried about rising inflation, which could increase to 4% in 2014 from slightly more than 2% this year.

輪 wa: circle (Japan)

This character was chosen to represent how the Japanese people worked together to win the right to host the 2020 Summer Olympic Games, and how they endured the natural calamities that have struck the country.

Loan Sharks Smell Blood in China Waters; Credit China Is Part of a New Breed of Shadow Lenders

Loan Sharks Smell Blood in China Waters

Credit China Is Part of a New Breed of Shadow Lenders

JASON CHOW

Dec. 29, 2013 8:39 p.m. ET

Sitting in an empty Papa John’s PZZA -1.07% pizza restaurant, real-estate developer Yang Boqun said he would somehow catch up on loan payments for 150 million yuan ($24.7 million) he borrowed to finish a five-story shopping mall in the eastern Chinese city of Jinhua. Read more of this post

Walmart in drive to expand Sam’s Club chain in China

December 29, 2013 5:30 am

Walmart in drive to expand Sam’s Club chain in China

By Tom Mitchell in Beijing

The Sam’s Club on the outskirts of China’s capital is not, technically speaking, a drive-through operation. But almost all of the customers at the Walmart-operated discount warehouse drive there to shop and are prepared to pay as much as Rmb175 ($30) for a bag of imported Massachusetts cranberries. Walmart’s international expansion of its Sam’s Club chain, which in China targets increasingly affluent customers in the country’s largest cities, is a key part of the US retailer’s strategy to offset stagnant sales in its home market. Read more of this post

The national drive to develop sea transportation has made China’s northern-most sea port of Dandong a new hub in the booming northeastern region

China’s northern-most port rises

Xinhua | Agencies
Published on December 28, 2013 11:13

The national drive to develop sea transportation has made China’s northern-most sea port of Dandong a new hub in the booming northeastern region.
The port, located in Dandong, Liaoning Province at the northern extremity of China’s coastline, is expected to reach a total cargo turnover of 120 million tonnes this year, exceeding the benchmark of 100 million tonnes for the first time. The volume in 2012 was 96 million tonnes. Read more of this post

Opportunity beckons amidst China’s smog problem

Updated: Monday December 30, 2013 MYT 11:07:14 AM

Opportunity beckons amidst China’s smog problem

SHANGHAI: As China’s smog levels crept past record highs in early December, the phone lines at pollution-busting kit maker Broad Group lit up with Chinese customers worried about hazardous pollution levels that have gripped China this year. Read more of this post

Firms help spur a running craze in China

Firms help spur a running craze in China

Staff Reporter

2013-12-30

More and more people in China are taking up running, with its popularity fueled by private running groups and promotions hosted by various companies including sporting goods giant Nike and China’s largest residential real estate developer Vanke, reports Guangzhou’s 21st Century Business Herald. Read more of this post

China’s art market has cooled down significantly this year due to slower economic growth, rampant counterfeits and speculations

Replicas strangling China’s art market

Staff Reporter

2013-12-29

China’s art market has cooled down significantly this year due to slower economic growth, rampant counterfeits and speculations, reports the Chinese language Economic Information Daily. Read more of this post

China says poor performing SOEs to be ‘severely dealt with’

China says poor performing SOEs to be ‘severely dealt with’

5:36am EST

SHANGHAI (Reuters) – China will evaluate the performance of its state-owned enterprises in 2014 and “severely deal with” companies that perform poorly, are continuously loss-making or do not meet safety standards, state news agency Xinhua said on Sunday. Read more of this post

China says Communist Party leaders must not smoke in public, help colleagues quit

China says Communist Party leaders must not smoke in public, help colleagues quit

1:08am EST

BEIJING (Reuters) – Communist Party officials must not smoke in public places or buy cigarettes using public funds, and should encourage their colleagues to quit smoking, a top Chinese government body said in a circular on Sunday evening. Read more of this post

China Cash-for-Votes Scandal Shows Xi’s Graft Challenge

China Cash-for-Votes Scandal Shows Xi’s Graft Challenge

A cash-for-votes scandal in China’s southern city of Hengyang that snared more than 500 lawmakers underscores the challenges facing Xi Jinping as he enters his second year in charge of the world’s second-biggest economy. Read more of this post

Utilities Feeling Rooftop Solar Heat Start Fighting Back

Utilities Feeling Rooftop Solar Heat Start Fighting Back

If you wonder why America’s utilities are rattled by the explosive growth in rooftop solar — and are pushing back — William Walker has a story for you. A flip-flop wearing Walker stands in his driveway pointing to a ubiquitous neighborhood feature – solar panels on the roofs of five of six houses nearby. He lives in Ewa Beach, a development on the sultry leeward coast of the Hawaiian island of Oahu built on land cleared of sugar cane fields. Read more of this post

US carmakers grapple with CNG vehicle demand

December 29, 2013 3:33 pm

US carmakers grapple with CNG vehicle demand

By Robert Wright in New York

US carmakers are struggling to reconcile customers’ growing interest in running vehicles on newly abundant natural gas with the logistical challenges of supplying the technology for the still-niche market, according to senior automotive executives. Read more of this post

Speculators ‘Throwing Money’ at Natural Gas on Icy Blast: Energy

Speculators ‘Throwing Money’ at Natural Gas on Icy Blast: Energy

Hedge funds got more bullish on natural gas as a blast of cold air swept across the U.S., pushing prices to the highest level in more than two years. Money managers increased net-long positions, or bets on rising prices, by 33 percent in the week ended Dec. 17, U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission data show. Bullish wagers advanced for a fourth week and to a six-month high. Read more of this post