Greenberg: Buffett Tells Investors to Get Real About EBITDA

Greenberg: Buffett Tells Investors to Get Real About EBITDA

By: Herb Greenberg | 03/02/14 – 12:47 PM EST

SAN DIEGO (TheStreet) — The best part about Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A) (BRK.B) CEO Warren Buffett’s annual investor letters is that they always provide some kind of reality check. Read more of this post

Chinese “1%” Threaten Lawsuit Against Canada For Shutting Visa-For-Cash Scheme

Chinese “1%” Threaten Lawsuit Against Canada For Shutting Visa-For-Cash Scheme

Tyler Durden on 03/05/2014 12:34 -0500

When Canadian authorities scrapped their ‘investor visa’ scheme a month ago, we warned that the nation was removing a critical pillar of support for its real-estate bubble market. However, with an estimated 45,000 Chinese millionaires still in the queue, the wealthy hoping to get their cash out of China are not happy. As The South China Morning Post reports, a group of wealthy mainlanders has criticized the Canadian government for scrapping its investor visa scheme and are threatening legal action if the decision is not overturned – arguing “we had set aside a lot of money to meet the investment requirements and over the years passed up on many opportunities… A refund of our application fees will not make up for all the preparation put in.” Read more of this post

Japan to regulate Bitcoin trades, impose taxes

March 5, 2014 2:00 am JST

Japan to regulate Bitcoin trades, impose taxes

TOKYO — The Japanese government will set rules for trading bitcoins, defining the virtual tender not as a currency but as a commodity akin to gold. Read more of this post

Morningstar: Our Ultimate Stock-Pickers’ Top 10 Buys and Sells

Our Ultimate Stock-Pickers’ Top 10 Buys and Sells

By The Morningstar Ultimate Stock-Pickers Team | 03-04-14 | 06:00 AM | Email Article

By Greggory Warren, CFA | Senior Stock Analyst

After posting a steady gain of more than 10% during the fourth quarter, the S&P 500 TR Index (which finished up the year up just over 31%) has been slightly more volatile since the start of 2014. Concerns about growth and currency stability in emerging and developing markets led the index to decline more than 3% in January, only to rebound more than 4% in February, allowing the S&P 500 to close out the month at another record high. Given the near-term uncertainty created by the situation in the Ukraine, as well as the gradual realization that the Fed is serious about further reducing what has been a major stimulus for higher stock prices in the past few years as it pulls back on its bond-buying program as the U.S. economy improves, we expect to see more volatility as the year progresses. Read more of this post

Buffett’s Berkshire Beatdown

Buffett’s Berkshire Beatdown

Posted MAR 4 2014 by WESLEY R. GRAY, PH.D. in TURNKEY BRAINWAVE, UNCATEGORIZED

Wesley R. Gray, PhD, has been sharing knowledge via his blogs since 2007. Dr. Gray and his team have created over a thousand posts and have thousands of readers from all around the globe. We continue to pursue our mission to democratize quant and help you unlock alpha. Wes is currently the Executive Managing Member of Empiritrage.  Read more of this post

Watching the watchdog: Serious questions have been raised about insider trading by employees at the US Securities and Exchange Commission

Watching the watchdog: Insider trading allegations against US Securities and Exchange Commission employees

March 5, 2014 – 5:33PM

Bianca Hartge-Hazelman

Serious questions have been raised about insider trading by employees at the US Securities and Exchange Commission with academic research pointing to a long history of profitable deals ahead of off limit trading periods. Read more of this post

Distorted economy dooms China to an “airpocalypse”

Distorted economy dooms China to an “airpocalypse”

Patricia Adams, Special to Financial Post | March 4, 2014 | Last Updated:Mar 5 8:44 AM ET

With China’s economy operating under perverse incentives, China’s leaders, now assembled in Beijing, will be powerless to clean up its environment Read more of this post

The promise that each generation will be better off than the last is a fundamental tenet of modern society. But will future generations, particularly in advanced economies, realize such expectations?

KENNETH ROGOFF

MAR 4, 2014

Malthus, Marx, and Modern Growth

CAMBRIDGE – The promise that each generation will be better off than the last is a fundamental tenet of modern society. By and large, most advanced economies have fulfilled this promise, with living standards rising over recent generations, despite setbacks from wars and financial crises. Read more of this post

Gov’t to levy tax on ‘jeonse’ deposit of multiple home owners

Gov’t to levy tax on ‘jeonse’ deposit of multiple home owners

Lee Geun-woo, Shin Hyun-gyu

2014.03.05 17:43:46

Home proprietors who own two or more houses will be paying tax on lump-sum housing rent deposit ‘jeonse’ income from 2016. The government will impose income tax equivalent to banks’ interest rate on the combined jeonse deposit in excess of 300 million won ($280,157), in addition to taxation on monthly rental income.  Read more of this post

NAVER unseats SK Hynix as fourth-largest listed company in Korea

NAVER unseats SK Hynix as fourth-largest listed company

2014.03.05 17:13:11

NAVER overtook SK Hynix to become South Korea’s fourth biggest company in terms of market capital.
Shares of NAVER closed at 852,000 won, off the intra-day’s high of 857,000 won, Wednesday on the country’s main bourse KOSPI, up 3.65 percent from the previous close.  Read more of this post

Regulator invites foreign companies to pension market

2014-03-04 16:47

Regulator invites foreign companies to pension market

By Na Jeong-ju, Park Ji-won

Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) Governor Choi Soo-hyun said Tuesday that the country’s aging population will provide new business opportunities for foreign financial firms operating here. Read more of this post

Li Ka-shing plays waiting game in China’s property market

Li Ka-shing plays waiting game in China’s property market

Staff Reporter

2014-03-05

Li Ka-shing attends a press conference announcing Hutchison Whampoa’s annual financial report in Hong Kong, Feb. 28. (Photo/Xinhua) Read more of this post

Companies pile in to build EV charging posts in China

Companies pile in to build EV charging posts in China

Staff Reporter

2014-03-05

Large electric-car charging pile constructors, operators and equipment suppliers are tapping into opportunities offered by numerous local governments in China, unveiling plans to construct electric car charging facilities in their localities, although small companies are still hesitant to venture into the sector, Shanghai’s China Business News reports. Read more of this post

Private firms in China hungry for bigger role; “We hope the government will remove all glass ceilings that block equal participation and fair play in the market to energize the private sector”

BEIJING, March 5 (Xinhua) — Money, technology and talent are seldom in short supply for Liu Yonghao, head of China’s largest animal feed producer. However, “the king of animal feed” is constantly hungry for imported original materials. Read more of this post

Hanssem will open its sixth flagship store in Mokdong, western Seoul, Thursday, to brace for the arrival of IKEA and solidify its leadership in the domestic market

2014-03-05 19:33

Hanssem store to vie with IKEA

Hanssem’s new flagship store in Mokdong, western Seoul

By Park Ji-won
Hanssem will open its sixth flagship store in Mokdong, western Seoul, Thursday, to brace for the arrival of IKEA and solidify its leadership in the domestic market. Read more of this post

Forget GDP – We Need Numbers That Matter for the Questions We Have

Forget GDP — We Need Numbers That Matter for the Questions We Have

by Zachary Karabell  |   12:00 PM March 4, 2014

No single number has become more central to society in the past 50 years than GDP — Gross Domestic Product. Throughout the world, it has become a proxy for success and for failure. It is a profoundly important indicator. It is also a profoundly flawed one. Read more of this post

Here’s SingPost’s grand plan to rule ecommerce in Asia

Here’s SingPost’s grand plan to rule ecommerce in Asia

March 5, 2014

by Terence Lee

As snail mail fades in relevance, the US Postal Service is sinking along with it. But SingPost (SPOS.SI), the Singapore equivalent which is privately-run rather than government-driven, has avoided the same fate. Read more of this post

Bill Gross’ Conditional Love for Risk

TUESDAY, MARCH 4, 2014

Bill Gross’ Conditional Love for Risk

By WILLIAM H. GROSS  | MORE ARTICLES BY AUTHOR

If central banks can keep their “cred,” risk assets can outperform cash in 2014, writes the Pimco executive.

Turning and turning in the widening gyre 
The falcon cannot hear the falconer; 
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

— William Butler Yeats, 1919

Almost permanently affixed on the whiteboard of Pimco’s Investment Committee boardroom is a series of concentric circles, resembling the rings of a giant redwood, although in this case exhibiting an expanding continuum of asset classes with the safest in the center and the riskiest on the outer circles. Read more of this post

Bitcoin’s digital tip jar: Microtransactions reborn; The digital currency’s low transaction costs may revive a long-frustrated online content model — the paywall

Bitcoin’s digital tip jar: Microtransactions reborn

March 5, 2014: 5:00 AM ET

The digital currency’s low transaction costs may revive a long-frustrated online content model — the paywall.

By David Z. Morris

FORTUNE — Since the mid 1990s, vendors have dreamed of being able to sell music, news, games, and other digital goods online for tiny amounts that would in theory add up to big revenue. But structural barriers including fees from payments processors have stymied the model for nearly two decades, leaving publishers to rely on meager advertising, underperforming subscription models, and expensive centralized stores from Amazon, Apple, and Google. Read more of this post

Organic Food Set to Become a Big Market In Indonesia, Food Expert Says

Organic Food Set to Become a Big Market In Indonesia, Food Expert Says

By Vanesha Manuturi on 10:23 pm March 4, 2014.
Jakarta. The founder of the World Gourmet Summit has said he believes organic produce will be the next big trend in Indonesia’s food and beverage business. Read more of this post

Redouble efforts to transform SMEs in Singapore, says Tharman

Redouble efforts to transform SMEs in Singapore, says Tharman

POSTED: 05 Mar 2014 21:29
Efforts to transform small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Singapore have to be redoubled in the next decade, said Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance Tharman Shanmugaratnam in Parliament on Wednesday. Read more of this post

Emerging, but No Longer a Mother Lode of Profits; A number of multinational corporations have recently blamed turmoil in emerging markets for dents in their bottom lines

Emerging, but No Longer a Mother Lode of Profits

By LANDON THOMAS Jr.MARCH 4, 2014

When it comes to investing in emerging markets, few companies have been as gung-ho as Diageo, the British maker of the Guinness, Johnnie Walker and Smirnoff brands. But now that troubles are cropping up in many such countries around the world, Diageo has turned from cheerleader to excuse-monger. Read more of this post

Fraud Within Companies Is A Risk That Can Never Be Eliminated, Just Managed

Fraud Within Companies Is A Risk That Can Never Be Eliminated, Just Managed

THE ECONOMIST STRATEGY  MAR. 5, 2014, 2:50 AM

Business has always been plagued by fraud: witness the South Sea Company in the 1710s (which enveloped the British economy in a giant bubble) or Charles Ponzi’s Securities Exchange Company in 1920 (which gave the world the Ponzi scheme) or the Enron and WorldCom scandals in the early 2000s. Read more of this post

India’s gold industry to strike in protest over crackdown

March 4, 2014 10:40 am

India’s gold industry to strike in protest over crackdown

By Avantika Chilkoti in Mumbai

India’s gold industry is planning a one-day strike next week in protest over government efforts to control smuggling, as moves to curb imports fuel illicit trade in the world’s second-largest market for gold. Read more of this post

Migrants set up one in seven UK companies, study reveals

March 4, 2014 6:40 pm

Migrants set up one in seven UK companies, study reveals

By Jonathan Moules, Enterprise Correspondent

Migrant entrepreneurs have created one in every seven UK companies, according to the first comprehensive analysis of official data about founder origins. Read more of this post

Return on equity and Soviet tractor production

Return on equity and Soviet tractor production

March 4, 2014 3:07 pmby Andrew Smithers

The financial information published by companies has become increasingly bogus in recent years, because of the huge incentive for modern management to produce highly volatile profits. This has been helped by the increased flexibility allowed with the change from “mark to cost” to “mark to market”. Read more of this post

High-end hoodies unmask reality of Asean’s ‘promise’; Doing business in the region means bridging the gap between rhetoric and reality

March 4, 2014 5:00 pm

High-end hoodies unmask reality of Asean’s ‘promise’

By Jeremy Grant

Doing business in the region means bridging the gap between rhetoric and reality

If you are a garment manufacturer and want to sell your upmarket hooded sweatshirt in Indonesia, you are probably on to a good thing. Read more of this post