Asia Investment Banking Fees Fall to Lowest Since 2008

Asia Investment Banking Fees Fall to Lowest Since 2008

Slump Bucks Global Trend of Rising Revenues for Investment Banks

ENDA CURRAN

Dec. 19, 2013 10:01 a.m. ET

HONG KONG—Investment banking in Asia has suffered its worst year since 2008, even as economic growth in the region continues to outstrip much of the developed world. Read more of this post

“All the IPOs are up, it doesn’t matter whether it’s a donkey or a dog”; China Grave Builder Leads Surge in IPO Stocks on Fed Support

China Grave Builder Leads Surge in IPO Stocks on Fed Support

Fu Shou Yuan International Group Ltd., a Chinese developer of graveyards, soared on its Hong Kong trading debut as optimism the Federal Reserve will keep interest rates near record lows stoked demand for new equity. Read more of this post

China’s Guangdong Starts World’s Second-Biggest Carbon Exchange

China’s Guangdong Starts World’s Second-Biggest Carbon Exchange

China’s southern province of Guangdong began trading permits on the world’s second-biggest emissions-trading system at the highest price in the nation.

Seven trades covering 120,029 metric tons of carbon emissions were completed at 60 yuan ($9.90) to 61 yuan a ton on the first day at the China Emissions Exchange, it said yesterday in an e-mailed statement. Read more of this post

China Unicom Tops Slump as Alibaba Entrance Stokes Competition

Unicom Tops Slump as Alibaba Entrance Stokes Competition

Chinese stocks traded in New York fell the most in a week, led by telecommunications operators, after Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. said it’s seeking to offer phone services. Read more of this post

Chinese Interest Rates Are Spiking Again, And Jim Chanos Thinks We’re Witnessing A ‘Bit Of A Banking Crisis’

Chinese Interest Rates Are Spiking Again, And Jim Chanos Thinks We’re Witnessing A ‘Bit Of A Banking Crisis’

MAMTA BADKAR

DEC. 20, 2013, 1:02 AM 1,291 2

While the Fed’s decision to taper back its monthly asset purchase program to $75 billion has received a lot of attention, many have overlooked the news out of China. The seven-day repurchase rate was up to a six-month high of 7.6% in Shanghai on Friday. It closed at 7.06% on Thursday. The People’s Bank of China [PBoC] injected money through short-term liquidity operations on Thursday. Read more of this post

How Do You Say Tesla in Chinese? Nobody Knows; One possibility is 拓速乐,with its positive connotations of “expanded speed and happiness.”

Dec 19, 2013

How Do You Say Tesla in Chinese? Nobody Knows

Electric car maker Tesla Motors Inc.TSLA -4.91%’s new Chinese-language website has been creating buzz online—but not because of the merchandise. The recently launched site has the same look and feel as the company’sAmerican site, apart perhaps from the preponderance of red cars. The color is auspicious in China. Read more of this post

How I Got Hooked on E-Cigs Hints at $2.3 Trillion Market

How I Got Hooked on E-Cigs Hints at $2.3 Trillion Market

The smokiest journalist hangout in Berlin had gone smoke-free. So had I, sort of.

I stood hunched on the sidewalk, out in the cold, blowing puffs of propylene glycol, the billowy stuff in theatrical special-effect smoke that is also a key ingredient in electronic cigarettes. Read more of this post

Japan Inc. Hoards Record Cash as Abe Targets Wage Gains

Japan Inc. Hoards Record Cash as Abe Targets Wage Gains

Japanese companies’ cash holdings rose to a record last quarter, highlighting Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s struggle to spur the investment and wage increases needed to end a 15-year deflationary malaise. Read more of this post

Infosys Loses Eighth Top Executive Since Founder Murthy Returns

Infosys Loses Eighth Top Executive Since Founder Murthy Returns

V. Balakrishnan resigned from the board of Infosys Ltd. (INFO), the eighth top official to leave the Indian software maker since founder N.R. Narayana Murthy returned to run the company in June. Read more of this post

Bad bank loans behind much of India’s corporate woes; Banks must take steps to address shoddy lending practices

December 19, 2013 8:29 am

Bad bank loans behind much of India’s corporate woes

By Henny Sender

Banks must take steps to address shoddy lending practices

In recent months, indebted Indian conglomerate Jaiprakash Associates sold a cement plant in Gujarat to the UltraTech subsidiary of one of the Birla group companies. Highly levered GMR Infrastructure has sold its power plant in Singapore, a stake in an African mining venture and an expressway subsidiary with more sales to come. The deep pockets of Blackstone’s real estate arm in India are being put to work as that firm is in the process of buying and bidding for projects from cash-strapped developers such as DLF and Unitech. Read more of this post

Koreans Crowd Tokyo as Won Gains 42% Vs Yen: Currencies

Koreans Crowd Tokyo as Won Gains 42% Vs Yen: Currencies

Less than three months after a visit to Tokyo, South Korean housewife Chang Sun Ja is already planning her next Japanese trip to take advantage of the won’s surge to a five-year high against the yen. Read more of this post

Thai Billionaire’s Singapore Revamp Wins Over Market

Thai Billionaire’s Singapore Revamp Wins Over Market

Charoen Sirivadhanabhakdi, Thailand’s richest man, is getting support in the bond market for his plan to reorganize Fraser & Neave Ltd., a maker of beverages, books and luxury condos. Read more of this post

Switzerland Seen in No Rush to Abandon Currency Ceiling

Switzerland Seen in No Rush to Abandon Currency Ceiling

Switzerland’s central bank will maintain its cap on the franc for at least another year as a weak euro-region economy keeps policy makers on alert, according to a Bloomberg News survey. Read more of this post

How to Keep Banks From Rigging Gold Prices

How to Keep Banks From Rigging Gold Prices

Authorities around the world are gradually piecing together a shocking picture of how banks have manipulated benchmarks that influence the price of everything from mortgage loans to foreign currencies. Read more of this post

London’s ‘Nappy Valley’ Home Price Gains Outdo Luxury

London’s ‘Nappy Valley’ Home Price Gains Outdo Luxury

Home prices in southwest London areas known as “nappy valley” for their appeal to families have climbed almost twice as fast as those in the city’s prime central neighborhoods this year as local buyers were priced out of the luxury market. Read more of this post

How Secret Currency Traders’ Club Devised Biggest Market’s Rates

How Secret Currency Traders’ Club Devised Biggest Market’s Rates

It’s 20 minutes before 4 p.m. in London and currency traders’ screens are blinking red and green. Some dealers have as many as 50 chat rooms crowded onto four monitors arrayed in front of them like shields. Messages from salespeople and clients appear, get pushed up by new ones and vanish from view. Orders are barked through squawk boxes. Read more of this post

EU Loses AAA Rating at S&P as States’ Creditworthiness Falls

EU Loses AAA Rating at S&P as States’ Creditworthiness Falls (3)

By Bloomberg News December 20, 2013

The European Union lost its top credit rating from Standard & Poor’s, which cited the deteriorating creditworthiness of the bloc’s 28 member nations. S&P cut its long-term rating on the EU to AA+, with a stable outlook, from AAA and maintained its short-term rating at A-1+. The downgrade came after S&P last month lowered its AAA rating on the Netherlands. Read more of this post

Caterpillar Global Sales Down 12%, Crushes Recovery Hopes With Negative Sales Around The World

Caterpillar Global Sales Down 12%, Crushes Recovery Hopes With Negative Sales Around The World

Tyler Durden on 12/19/2013 09:35 -0500

Among other things, the month of November was memorable because for the first time, Caterpillar – that bellwether of the old industrial economy in which “stuff” was actually made, dug out of the ground, erected, or otherwise processed instead of merely hosted ad impressions – posted declining retail sales in every region around the globe. This was the first time of uniform declining retail sales since February 2010. To say that this data conflicts massively with all the rumors, fairytales and lies about a global recovery, is an understatement which is why it has not been mentioned anywhere, in hopes the subsequent month would demonstrate some improvement and perhaps an upward inflection point. That did not happen. Moments ago CAT released its November dealer retail sales: for the second time in a row CAT posted negative retail sales across the world, with total retail sales down a whopping 12%, the lowest since February 2013, and then, going back all the way to 2010. But at least the Fed is tapering because it is convinced the global economy is finally recovering…

Boomers as Retail Clerks Shows Why Greenspan Saw Low Growth Era

Boomers as Retail Clerks Shows Why Greenspan Saw Low Growth Era

During his final policy-making meeting as chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, Alan Greenspan glimpsed a force potent enough to trump the law of supply and demand in the world’s largest economy. Read more of this post

Bernanke’s Recession-Fighting Weapon Developed by 1900s Banker

Bernanke’s Recession-Fighting Weapon Developed by 1900s Banker

The first weapon Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke deployed against the worst recession since World War II owes a singular debt to Paul M. Warburg, a banker in the 1900s who understood money markets more than any contributor to the Federal Reserve Act. Read more of this post

Banking union is a sham that solves nothing

December 19, 2013 4:59 pm

European banking union is a sham that solves nothing

By Sony Kapoor

The idea is a distraction from more pressing issues, writes Sony Kapoor

The drumbeat of banking union has drowned out more important and urgent conversations on tackling the severe crisis in Europe. Given the earnestness with which EU leaders talk about the importance of “making progress on banking union”, citizens could be forgiven for thinking it is God’s gift to mankind – or at least that it might stem the eurozone crisis. Read more of this post

Barrick Omen for Gold Miners With $44 Billion Debt: Commodities

Barrick Omen for Gold Miners With $44 Billion Debt: Commodities

Investors in gold mining stocks that have lost about half their market value this year are preparing for even more pain.

The metal is on course for its first annual drop in 13 years and forecast to extend losses in 2014. That’s pushing producers toward stock sales to pay down debt borrowed under more optimistic conditions. The 13 miners on the BI Global Senior Gold Valuation Peers Index increased their borrowings 47 percent in the past two years to $44 billion. It all adds up to more pressure on share prices. Read more of this post

Antarctica may have a new type of ice – diamonds

Antarctica may have a new type of ice – diamonds

11:03am EST

By Environment Correspondent Alister Doyle

OSLO (Reuters) – A type of rock that often bears diamonds has been found in Antarctica for the first time in a hint of mineral riches in the vast, icy continent that is off limits to mining, scientists said on Tuesday.

A 1991 environmental accord banned mining for at least 50 years under the Antarctic Treaty that preserves the continent for scientific research and wildlife, from penguins to seals.

Writing in the journal Nature Communications, an Australian-led team reported East Antarctic deposits of kimberlite, a rare type of rock named after the South African town of Kimberley famed for a late 19th century diamond rush.

“These rocks represent the first reported occurrence of genuine kimberlite in Antarctica,” they wrote of the finds around Mount Meredith in the Prince Charles Mountains.

No diamonds were found during the geological work that is allowed on the continent. Kimberlite, a volcanic rock from deep below the Earth’s surface, has now been discovered on all continents.

Geologists doubted the find could be commercial, largely due to Antarctica’s remoteness, cold and winter darkness. Teal Riley of the British Antarctic Survey said less than 10 percent of deposits of similar kimberlite were economically viable.

“It’s a big leap from here to mining,” he told Reuters. Minerals including platinum, gold, copper, iron and coal have previously been found in Antarctica.

EXTENDED BAN

The Antarctic Treaty is binding only on its 50 signatories but has the backing of major powers, including the United States and China. Many expect the ban on mining to be extended in 2041.

“There is likely to be little opposition to an extension of this prohibition, despite the potential discovery of a new type of Antarctic ‘ice’,” Nature Communications said in a statement.

Another expert said it was unclear.

“We do not know what the Treaty Parties’ views will be on mining after 2041 or what technologies might exist that could make extraction of Antarctic minerals economically viable,” said Kevin Hughes, of the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research.

Riley said there was a fine line between geological mapping and prospecting with an eye to mining. Nations including Russia, Ukraine and China have been more active in surveying Antarctica in recent years.

The kimberlite deposit is also confirmation of how continents drift. The region of East Antarctica was once part of a continent known as Gondwana connected to what is now Africa and India, which also have kimberlite. BS

Two lions in winter: Lee Kuan Yew and Fidel Castro both took office as prime ministers in 1959. The fortunes of S’pore and Cuba then are vastly different now. By Peter A Coclanis

PUBLISHED DECEMBER 14, 2013

Two lions in winter

Lee Kuan Yew and Fidel Castro both took office as prime ministers in 1959. The fortunes of S’pore and Cuba then are vastly different now. By Peter A Coclanis

LEE KUAN YEW: Can legitimately feel great satisfaction with his life’s work. – ST FILE PHOTO

TODAY few people would think of associating, much less equating, Cuba with Singapore. After all, the Republic is one of the wealthiest and most developed countries in the world and Cuba is, well, Cuba – a developing country and one of the few remaining communist states on Earth. The two island nations would seem to have little in common these days and there are few notable connections or ties between them. Read more of this post

Reimagining India: Two of McKinsey’s India directors examine the success of companies seeking to expand internationally and recommend how to turn domestic strength into a global presence

Reimagining India: A conversation with Alok Kshirsagar and Gautam Kumra

Two of McKinsey’s India directors examine the success of companies seeking to expand internationally and recommend how to turn domestic strength into a global presence.

December 2013

India has no shortage of world-class domestic companies. In this video interview, McKinsey directors Alok Kshirsagar and Gautam Kumra discuss how successful many have been at expanding internationally, laying out a four-point approach that Indian companies can adopt to improve their odds of winning on the global stage. What follows is an edited transcript of their remarks. Read more of this post

Hello Kitty Embraced by Western Pop Stars Seeking Japan Sales

Hello Kitty Embraced by Western Pop Stars Seeking Japan Sales

By Brian Bremner and Mariko Yasu December 12, 2013

In late November, Lady Gaga showed up at the Tokyo TV studio of the Music Station program in a tricked out, cutie-pie outfit featuring a big cartoonish wig, pink bow, and anime-inspired eyes painted on her eyelids. As part of a marketing blitz for her new album Artpop, the star also did a photo shoot to promote a Lady Gaga-inspired Hello Kitty doll with long blond hair and a seashell bra.

Read more of this post

Jafco Sees Surge in IPO Gains on Japan’s Listing Boom

Jafco Sees Surge in IPO Gains on Japan’s Listing Boom

Japan’s world-beating stock rally is sending Jafco Co., the country’s biggest venture-capital firm, to the best gains on initial public offerings since the technology bubble at the turn of the century. Companies taken public from April to September gave Jafco an average return of 24 times its investment when they started trading, the biggest since 2000, according to Hiroaki Matsuda, a corporate officer at the firm. Start-ups it backs that will list shares in the second half of the fiscal year, from October through March, are likely to quadruple to about 16 from four in the first, he said. Read more of this post

Japan’s Top Voice: High, Polite and on the Phone; The annual All-Japan Phone-Answering Competition for office workers is a closely watched contest that some say reiterates the stereotype of women in clerical positions

December 14, 2013

Japan’s Top Voice: High, Polite and on the Phone

By HIROKO TABUCHI

SENDAI, Japan — The contestants roll their shoulders and lick their lips. The audience holds its breath. At the center of attention on stage at an expansive convention hall: a single telephone. Read more of this post