Goldman Sachs to GLG Open Asia Hedge Funds as Big Is Chic

Goldman Sachs to GLG Open Asia Hedge Funds as Big Is Chic

Global banks and assets managers are opening hedge funds in Asia for the first time since the 2008 financial crisis, putting pressure on smaller firms that are already struggling to hold onto investors. Goldman Sachs Group Inc., UBS AG and GLG Partners Inc. are gathering investor money for debut hedge funds dedicated to the region. Highbridge Capital Management LLC and Pine River Capital Management LP are restarting or expanding their Asian offerings. Read more of this post

Asia’s Exports Recover, but Can They Still Drive Growth?

November 26, 2013, 12:07 AM

Asia’s Exports Recover, but Can They Still Drive Growth?

NATASHA BRERETON-FUKUI

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A string of recent export data shows Asia is finally benefiting from a pickup in demand from the U.S. and Europe. But it’s unclear whether the region can rely on exports to power growth as it has in the past. Exports from East Asia recovered quickly in the immediate aftermath of the global financial crisis, expanding 30.0% in 2010 and 15.6% in 2011. But that growth slowed to just 2.3% last year. Read more of this post

Wearable technology: Nike’s FuelBand activity tracker is one of the company’s hottest sellers ever.

Nike FuelBand: Did the Brand Score a Goal?

Nov 25, 2013

Nike’s FuelBand activity tracker is one of the company’s hottest sellers ever. Not only did the product sell out online pre-orders in one day twice, but at one point the eBay price was double the suggested retail price. Last year, Nike’s profits leaped 18%, largely bcause of FuelBand — a big turnaround from the 1% year-earlier decline.

Nike introduced the new FuelBand SE this month for $149. Like competitors Fitbit Force and Jawbone, the FuelBand tracks activities such as steps taken, stairs climbed and calories burned. Many users strive to hit fitness goals, notably the 10,000 steps a day recommended by the American Heart Association. Friendly competitions arise among family and friends as these products connect to computers and smartphones to display progress graphically.

So what were some of the marketing elements leading to the success of the FuelBand? To find out, Knowledge@Wharton asked three Wharton marketing professors: Peter Fader, Barbara E. Kahn and David Bell. The three are team-teaching a free online course through Coursera titled, “An Introduction to Marketing,” and their comments here tie into the course modules.

An edited transcript of the conversation appears below.

Kahn on branding:

Knowledge@Wharton: What is product-focused marketing, and how does that relate to the early strategy for the Nike FuelBand?

Barbara E. Kahn: If you think of a market as between a seller and a buyer, on one extreme there is a seller’s market, and on the other extreme there is a buyer’s market. In a seller’s market, if you want the product, you have to go to [the sellers]. That gives them a lot of power in that exchange. Under those circumstances, people tend to do what is called product-focused marketing…. Since you are going to come to [the seller] if you want the product, I [as the seller] work on developing a good product. I work on reducing cost. And I am very much concerned with selling my product. Read more of this post

Wal-Mart Returns to Sam Walton Roots Naming New CEO

Wal-Mart Returns to Sam Walton Roots Naming New CEO

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT) is betting on career insider Doug McMillon, who learned the business from founder Sam Walton, to revive a company struggling with slowing growth at home and in the international regions he oversaw. The world’s largest retailer yesterday named McMillon, 47, chief executive officer, replacing Mike Duke, 63, who retires Feb. 1. An Arkansas native, McMillon has held senior-level executive positions in the U.S. and overseas after starting as a worker in a Wal-Mart warehouse almost 30 years ago. Read more of this post

Moncler Owners to Raise as Much as $1.1 Billion in Skiwear IPO After Cucinelli and Ferragamo Tripled Since Listing in 2012 and 2011 Respectively

Moncler Owners to Raise as Much as $1.1 Billion in Skiwear IPO

Moncler, the Italian maker of $1,220 quilted polyester jackets, will sell shares in a second attempt at an initial public offering next month, raising as much as 783 million euros ($1.1 billion) for the company’s owners. The IPO will raise 585 million euros to 681 million euros and a so-called greenshoe option for underwriters may increase the size of the offering by 15 percent, according to terms of the deal. The stock will be priced between 8.75 euros and 10.20 euros, Moncler said in a statement late yesterday. Read more of this post

I’m a Teen, Watch Me Shop; It’s Goodbye to Big Brand Names, Hello to Cheap ‘Fast Fashion’

I’m a Teen, Watch Me Shop

It’s Goodbye to Big Brand Names, Hello to Cheap ‘Fast Fashion’

SARA GERMANO

Updated Nov. 26, 2013 8:03 p.m. ET

OVERLAND PARK, Kan.—Upon entering the massive Forever 21 store here at the Oak Park Mall, Goldia Kiteck and three of her close friends scattered like spilled marbles. The high-school seniors were on separate missions and pursued them through corridors filled with clingy leggings, racks of chunky necklaces and tank tops with kittens across the front. Read more of this post

Saputo Punished in Bidding War for Australian Dairy Warrnambool Cheese

Saputo Punished in Bidding War for Australian Dairy

Saputo Inc. (SAP)’s sweetened bid for an Australian cheesemaker threatens to erode any cost savings from the takeover, making Canada’s biggest milk processor the third-worst performer among global rivals this year. Saputo yesterday raised its offer for Warrnambool Cheese & Butter Factory Co. by 2.2 percent to A$515 million ($472 million) on condition it gains a controlling stake. That topped competing bids from Bega Cheese Ltd. (BGA) and Murray Goulburn Cooperative Co. The Montreal-based company’s total return has fallen 2.2 percent this year, including share and dividend payouts, trailing a 27-percent gain for the world’s 38 largest food manufacturers, including Nestle SA and Unilever NV. Read more of this post

Slippery U.S. Oil Demand

Slippery U.S. Oil Demand

LIAM DENNING

Updated Nov. 26, 2013 7:18 p.m. ET

It seems America is falling back in love with oil—or at least that is what weekly numbers from the U.S. Energy Department show. But oil demand is a slippery concept. The DOE’s latest data show the U.S. burned an average 20.27 million barrels a day in the four weeks ended Nov. 15. That is up 7.4% year over year, a figure more redolent of China than America. It is the fastest pace of growth in oil demand since May 2010, when the numbers were flattered by 2009’s economic malaise. Gasoline demand, meanwhile, was up 3.9%, and growth in October was apparently running at levels higher still, and not seen since late 2006. Read more of this post

Fracking Bonanza Eludes Wastewater Recycling Investors

Fracking Bonanza Eludes Wastewater Recycling Investors

After two years searching for a blockbuster investment in oilfield water management, fund manager Judson Hill is still holding on to his money. Hill’s NGP Energy Capital Management saw potential in what looked like a hot growth area in energy: treating and recycling the 21 billion barrels of wastewater flowing annually from U.S. oil and natural gas wells — particularly from shale. Read more of this post

Broom-Waving Delhi Voters Sick of Corruption Roil India’s Elite

Broom-Waving Delhi Voters Sick of Corruption Roil India’s Elite

By Indian standards, Arvind Kejriwal is an unusual politician: he doesn’t use a police escort, he won’t field candidates who face murder charges and he publishes the names of those who contribute to his party’s funds. Kejriwal’s campaign against corruption is resonating with voters in New Delhi, shaking up the dominance of the country’s two main political groups and threatening to end the Congress party’s 15-year rule of the city. Some opinion polls show his year-old Aam Aadmi Party may win a third of the seats in a Dec. 4 election, enough to make him the capital’s kingmaker. Read more of this post

Record Gold Fee Spurs Gitanjali’s Diamond Push: Corporate India

Record Gold Fee Spurs Gitanjali’s Diamond Push: Corporate India

Gitanjali Gems Ltd. (GITG), India’s largest jewelry retailer by revenue, is focusing on diamonds as near-record premiums for gold push up costs for a metal that accounts for about 30 percent of its sales. Import curbs in the world’s biggest gold user may force jewelers such as Gitanjali and Rajesh Exports Ltd. (RJEX) to pay a record $200 per ounce over the London price from next month to obtain supplies, according to the All India Gems & Jewellery Trade Federation. The premium is currently $120-$130 an ounce. Read more of this post

Hedge Funds See Repeat of Yen Slide That Paid Soros: Currencies

Hedge Funds See Repeat of Yen Slide That Paid Soros: Currencies

Hedge funds are betting on another run of yen weakness, a trade that made money earlier this year for billionaire George Soros, putting them in opposition to economists who see Japan’s currency little changed into 2014. Futures traders pushed net shorts, or wagers the yen will fall versus the dollar, to the highest since July 2007, according to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. That contrasts with the median estimate of more than 50 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg, which puts the currency at 102 per dollar at the end of the first quarter of 2014, from 101.47 today. Read more of this post

Hyundai Seeks to Improve Status With Redesigned Genesis Luxury Sedan

Hyundai Seeks to Improve Status With Redesigned Genesis Luxury Sedan

IN-SOO NAM

Updated Nov. 26, 2013 9:24 p.m. ET

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SEOUL—More than five years after entering the U.S. premium-car market, Hyundai MotorCo. 005380.SE +0.39% is betting that the latest version of its Genesis sedan will help elevate the company’s global status and erase its reputation for offering a cheaper luxury alternative. With the redesigned Genesis, which sports an edgier and bolder look, including LED signal and fog lamps, the South Korean auto maker is targeting more affluent customers and seeking to improve profit as demand slows for its lower-end models. Read more of this post

Visa woes in Korea frustrate foreign business owners

Visa woes in Korea frustrate foreign business owners

Wednesday, Nov 27, 2013

John Power

The Korea Herald/Asia News Network

Running a successful small business is never easy. But as a foreigner navigating the complex web of immigration law, that challenge can seem all the more daunting. Some foreign businesspeople complain of unclear visa rules and requirements and seemingly arbitrary decision-making. A decision by the local immigration office last month signaled the end of the 3-year-old clothing business of one French citizen. Read more of this post

Vietnam State Companies Still Dominate in Constitution

Vietnam State Companies Still Dominate in Constitution

Vietnam’s leaders are set to tighten their grip on the economy, affirming the central role of the ruling Communist Party and the dominance of state companies in a revised constitution to be approved this week. After indicating in January they could use the charter revamp to edge toward a more market-oriented system and lift growth from its slowest rate in 13 years last year, leaders have opted to retain state-owned enterprises as the economy’s anchor. State firms have contributed to Southeast Asia’s highest bad debt ratio. Read more of this post

Escalating Thailand protests seek to unseat Yingluck Shinawatra; Thai political protests spread outside Bangkok

November 26, 2013 11:11 am

Escalating Thailand protests seek to unseat Yingluck Shinawatra

By Michael Peel in Bangkok

Thai opposition protesters have stepped up their campaign to paralyse and oust the government, defying an arrest warrant issued against the leader of demonstrations that have reignited a bitter power struggle in southeast Asia’s second-largest economy. As Yingluck Shinawatra, prime minister, battled a parliamentary no-confidence motion on Tuesday, anti-government activists built on this week’s occupation of the finance ministry by blockading the interior ministry and forcing the transport, agriculture and tourism departments to close. Read more of this post

For half of Taiwan, overtime just a fact of life

For half of Taiwan, overtime just a fact of life

Wednesday, Nov 27, 2013

John Liu

The China Post/Asia News Network

TAIPEI – The Council of Labor Affairs (CLA) said yesterday that 51.2 per cent of the nation’s workforce had the experience of working overtime in 2013, and 28 per cent of those cases were unlawful. Both percentages have increased over the past two years, the CLA said. According to the regulations, working for 12 hours or more per day is considered unlawful. Read more of this post

SingPost said it is the first postal service provider in the world to offer remittance services to Myanmar.

SingPost launches remittance services to Myanmar

POSTED: 27 Nov 2013 11:50
Singapore Post (SingPost) has launched remittance services to Myanmar at all its post offices. In its statement on Wednesday, SingPost said it is the first postal service provider in the world to offer remittance services to Myanmar. SINGAPORE: Singapore Post (SingPost) has launched remittance services to Myanmar at all its post offices. In its statement on Wednesday, SingPost said it is the first postal service provider in the world to offer remittance services to Myanmar. SingPost is partnering four commercial banks in Myanmar in the effort. They are Asia Green Development Bank, Cooperative Bank, Kanbawza Bank and Tun Foundation Bank. SingPost said apart from remitting money to their families in Myanmar, senders can also remit their salaries home as savings, which will accrue interest paid out by the banks in Myanmar. The statement said there are some 150,000 to 200,000 Myanmar nationals in Singapore.

Treasury correlation puts Malaysia at higher taper risk

Treasury correlation puts Malaysia at higher taper risk

4:38am EST

By Jongwoo Cheon

SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Record-high correlations between U.S. Treasury yields and the Malaysian and Thai currencies and high levels of foreign investment in their bond markets mean they could be hit hard when the U.S. Federal Reserve tapers quantitative easing. This focus on Malaysia and Thailand is in clear contrast from the May to September sell-off in Asian markets, when fear of the Fed tapering its stimulus drive hit the Indian rupee and Indonesian rupiah hardest because of their wide current account deficits. Read more of this post

The proposed assessment rate hike for properties in Kuala Lumpur by the KL City Hall might have a negative impact on REITs with the highest exposure to KL-based properties

Updated: Wednesday November 27, 2013 MYT 7:15:30 AM

Rate hike may hurt REITs

BY EUGENE MAHALINGAM

PETALING JAYA: The proposed assessment rate hike for properties in Kuala Lumpur by the Kuala Lumpur City Hall might have a negative impact on real estate investment trusts (REITs) with the highest exposure to KL-based properties, according to analysts. “We do expect some impact (from the assessment hike) on the earnings of REIT players with properties in KL,” said an analyst from a local bank-backed brokerage. Read more of this post

S&P Cuts Outlook on Malaysian Banks on Household Debt Concerns

S&P Cuts Outlook on Malaysian Banks on Household Debt Concerns

Standard & Poor’s cut its credit outlook for four Malaysian lenders on concern that rising home prices and household debt are contributing to economic imbalances in the country. The credit ratings company revised its outlook to negative from stable for CIMB Group Holdings Bhd. (CIMB), AmBank (M) Bhd., RHB Bank Bhd. and sister company RHB Investment Bank Bhd. It also lowered its long-term Asean regional scale rating on CIMB to axBBB+ from axA-, S&P said in an e-mailed statement today. Read more of this post

Volatile Loan Securities Are Luring Fund Managers Again

Volatile Loan Securities Are Luring Fund Managers Again

Collateralized Loan Obligations Offer High Returns—And Risk

MATT WIRZ

Updated Nov. 26, 2013 7:30 p.m. ET

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Investment funds aimed at individual investors are barreling into collateralized loan obligations, a complex and volatile type of security that was shaken by the financial crisis. Lured by annual returns of as high as 20%, some mutual-fund managers are buying CLOs through investment funds that purchase stakes in loans to companies with low credit ratings. Another type of loan investment fund, business-development companies, also have begun buying CLOs, according to securities filings. Read more of this post

Surfing central banks in a benign ‘QE trap’

Surfing central banks in a benign ‘QE trap’

1:55am EST

By Mike Dolan

LONDON (Reuters) – The message is sinking in – economies of the rich world face super-easy money far into the future and central banks are now convinced it’s the least of all policy evils. Despite rumblings of dissent about the financial bubbles and iniquities associated with zero interest rates and money printing, 2013 is ending with a remarkable certainty among global investors that cheap money is around for the long haul. Read more of this post

Norway Debates $800 Billion Wealth Fund’s Investment Options

Norway Debates $800 Billion Wealth Fund’s Investment Options

Norway’s central bank Governor Oeystein Olsen said it would be natural for the nation’s $800 billion sovereign wealth fund to expand the asset classes it invests in as the new government considers how best to deal with the fund’s growth. Olsen signaled support for a 2010 recommendation, which was rejected the following year, for the fund to invest in infrastructure and private equity as the new administration of Prime Minister Erna Solberg reviews its investment mandate. Read more of this post

Private equity keeps $789bn of powder dry

November 26, 2013 7:06 pm

Private equity keeps $789bn of powder dry

By Anne-Sylvaine Chassany, Private Equity Correspondent

Private equity groups are holding more cash for acquisitions than they had at the height of the leveraged buyout boom, in spite of a fall in the volume of deals being done – raising concerns about overcapacity in the industry. Data compiled by Preqin, the research group, show that the value of unspent commitments to private equity funds, known as “dry powder”, has surged to $789bn this year – an increase of 12 per cent since December 2012, after four years of decline. Read more of this post

Middle East: Cracking up; The ferocious battle between Sunni and Shia is shattering the imperial borders drawn up a century ago

November 26, 2013 7:29 pm

Middle East: Cracking up

By David Gardner

The ferocious battle between Sunni and Shia is shattering the imperial borders drawn up a century ago

When Arabs started pouring on to the streets to challenge dynastic despots almost three years ago, a wave of euphoria swept over their world as its citizens dared to dream they were finally on their way into the 21st century. Now, it looks as if they have been pitched back almost a century, to the period after the first world war when the Arab territories of the Ottoman Empire were dismembered. Then, it was the imperial machinations of Britain and France that carved up their lands and future. Now, a raging civil war in Syria that is spilling over into neighbouring countries threatens to bulldoze post-Ottoman borders. Read more of this post

Canada’s Pensions Now Buyout Kings Taking On U.S. Firms

Canada’s Pensions Now Buyout Kings Taking On U.S. Firms

Mark Wiseman, the chief executive officer of Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, walked into the high-end New York department store Bergdorf Goodman in the mid-1990s looking for a suit. He left empty-handed. “I couldn’t afford anything there — I probably still can’t,” said Wiseman, sitting in the C$192.8 billion ($183 billion) fund’s headquarters in Toronto last month. “Is that where I shop? No, thanks. But there are a lot of people who do.” Read more of this post

Bitcoin Is Moving Just Like South Sea Stock Before The Bubble Popped [CHARTS]

Bitcoin Is Moving Just Like South Sea Stock Before The Bubble Popped [CHARTS]

MEBANE FABERMEBANE FABER RESEARCH NOV. 26, 2013, 6:48 PM 9,708 22

This is just for fun, I have no idea if or when the bitcoin train will ever get derailed.  You could compare this to any speculation that has gone parabolic, I just like ones that are over 200 years old. Chart 1 is actual bitcoin and South Sea Stock values plotted with SS peak lined up with current BC data. Chart 2 takes the last 8 months and lines them up with similar starting points. Granted I’m violating my #1 rule of charting but these are more fun to look at on a non log basis… Chart 3 is the most important, and it shows what happens after a bubble pops.  Namely, a 90% loss for those who bought at the top.  Now, I know many of you believe bitcoin will go to $1,000,000, but as a speculation (and to be clear this IS a speculation) you have to be at least be prepared for this to happen.  Do you have an exit plan?  Will you stick with it?  Or will you be like so many before you that ride a speculation all the way down? At least think about it. (Last note – one very common characteristic of bubbles is no talk of downside.  And that is all I am hearing with bitcoin today, rarely do you hear of anyone talking about the possibility of it going back to 100 or less.) I will will you with a little Kurt Vonnegut, from Galapagos, circa 1985: The thing was, though: When James Wait got there, a worldwide financial crisis, a sudden revision of human opinions as to the value of money and stocks and bonds and mortgages and so on, bits of paper, had ruined the tourist business not only in Ecuador, but practically everywhere…Ecuador, after all, like the Galapagos Islands, was mostly lava and ash, and so could not begin to feed its nine million people. It was bankrupt, and so could no longer buy food from countries with plenty of topsoil, so the seaport of Guayaquil was idle, and the people were beginning to starve to death…Neighboring Peru and Columbia were bankrupt, too…Mexico and Chile and Brazil and Argentina were likewise bankrupt – and Indonesia and the Philippines and Pakistan and India and Thailand and and Italy and Ireland and Belgium and Turkey. Whole nations were suddenly in the same situation as the San Mateo, unable to buy with their paper money and coins, or their written promises to pay later, even the barest essentials. ..They were suddenly saying to people with nothing but paper representations of wealth, “Wake up, you idiots! Whatever made you think paper was so valuable?” The financial crisis, was simply the latest in a series of murderous twentieth century catastrophes which had originated entirely in human brains. From the violence people were doing to themselves and each other, and to all other living things, for that matter, a visitor from another planet might have assumed that the environment had gone haywire, and that people were in such a frenzy because Nature was about to kill them all. But the planet a million years ago was as moist and nourishing as it is today – and unique, in that respect, in the entire Milky Way. All that had changed was people’s opinion of the place.”

chart1-7 chart2-6 3-81

Among American workers, poll finds unprecedented anxiety about jobs, economy

Among American workers, poll finds unprecedented anxiety about jobs, economy

By Jim Tankersley and Scott Clement, Tuesday, November 26, 8:03 AM

CHESTER, Pa. — The alarm rang on John Stewart’s phone at 1:10 a.m. Up at 1:30, he caught one bus north into Philadelphia a little after 2 and another bus, south toward the airport, half an hour after that. He made it into work around 3:25 for a shift that started at 4, for a job that pays $5.25 an hour, which he cannot afford to lose. Read more of this post

Struggling pawnbroker resorts to melting down retail gold jewellery stocks to stay within bank borrowing agreements as profits slump

Albemarle & Bond smelts its own gold jewellery to stave off bankruptcy

Struggling pawnbroker resorts to melting down retail jewellery stocks to stay within bank borrowing agreements as profits slump

By John Ficenec

2:19PM GMT 27 Nov 2013

The beleaguered pawn broker Albemarle & Bond is smelting down its own gold jewellery to stave off bankruptcy. The company said on Wednesday it was carrying out a programme of exceptional smelting of retail jewellery stocks in order to stay within constrained banking facilities. The company said it now expects to make a trading loss in the first five months of the year, and that the pledge book of pawned items had declined by 12pc on the same stage last year. Read more of this post