Bamboo Innovator

Foreign Investors Rush to Sell Japanese Stocks; Worries Grow That the Government Won’t Spur the Economy

Foreign Investors Rush to Sell Japanese Stocks
Worries Grow That the Government Won’t Spur the Economy
KOSAKU NARIOKA
March 20, 2014 8:12 a.m. ET
After pushing Japan’s stock market to its biggest gain in more than 40 years in 2013, the bulls are having second thoughts.
Foreign investors are selling Japanese stocks at the fastest pace in almost a decade, government data show, as worries grow that the country’s government won’t be able to follow through on its promises to spur the economy. Hedge funds and other speculative investors lifted the ratio of bets against Tokyo shares this week to the highest in five years, according to the Tokyo Stock Exchange.

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Students Occupy Taiwan’s Legislature to Protest China Pact

Students Occupy Taiwan’s Legislature to Protest China Pact
Trade Deal Is One of President Ma Ying-jeou’s Signature Achievements
JENNY HSU
Updated March 19, 2014 11:55 a.m. ET
TAIPEI—More than 1,000 students have occupied Taiwan’s legislature to protest the ruling party’s handling of a trade pact with China that has become a divisive political issue for the island.

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Shanghai Stock Exchange Raises Shareholding Cap for Foreign Investors; Foreigners Can Now Collectively Own 30% in a Single Firm

Shanghai Stock Exchange Raises Shareholding Cap for Foreign Investors
Foreigners Can Now Collectively Own 30% in a Single Firm
CHAO DENG
March 19, 2014 11:16 p.m. ET
SHANGHAI—The Shanghai Stock Exchange is easing restrictions on overseas investors, giving them more flexibility to invest in China’s tightly controlled capital markets.
With immediate effect, foreign investors can collectively own up to 30% in a single company, up from 20%, according to a statement on the exchange’s website on Wednesday. If foreign investors’ collective shareholding in a company exceeds 26%, the stock exchange will make a relevant announcement on the following trading day.
The cap on ownership in a company by an individual foreign investor remains at 10%.
The exchange also said that foreigners will be able to trade asset-backed securities.
Foreign investors currently buy Chinese stocks and bonds through the Qualified Foreign Institutional Investor and the Renminbi Qualified Foreign Institutional Investor programs. Both have expanded in recent years, giving foreigners greater quotas for investing on the mainland, although their ownership remains a fraction of China’s overall market.

The Music Just Ended: “Wealthy” Chinese Are Liquidating Offshore Luxury Homes In Scramble For Cash

The Music Just Ended: “Wealthy” Chinese Are Liquidating Offshore Luxury Homes In Scramble For Cash
Tyler Durden on 03/19/2014 21:11 -0400
One of the primary drivers of the real estate bubble in the past several years, particularly in the ultra-luxury segment, were megawealthy Chinese buyers, seeking to park their cash into the safety of offshore real estate where it was deemed inaccessible to mainland regulators and overseers, tracking just where the Chinese record credit bubble would end up. Some, such as us, called it “hot money laundering”, and together with foreclosure stuffing and institutional flipping (of rental units and otherwise), we said this was the third leg of the recent US housing bubble. However, while the impact of Chinese buying in the US has been tangible, it has paled in comparison with the epic Chinese buying frenzy in other offshore metropolitan centers like London and Hong Kong. This is understandable: after all as Chuck Prince famously said in 2007, just before the first US mega-bubble burst, “as long as the music is playing, you’ve got to get up and dance.” In China, the music just ended.

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Marketwired to stop selling to high-frequency traders

Marketwired to stop selling to high-frequency traders
3:46am IST
(Adds comments from legal experts and trading firm executive)
By Karen Freifeld
NEW YORK, March 19 (Reuters) – Marketwired, a company that publishes and distributes corporate earnings and other market-moving news releases, said on Wednesday it would no longer sell directly to high-frequency trading companies.

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Robert Samuelson: China has fallen into the “middle-income trap” – a significant event full of domestic and international implications

China’s next challenge
By Robert J. Samuelson, Thursday, March 20, 12:57 AM
China has fallen into the “middle-income trap” — a significant event full of domestic and international implications. Its economy is visibly slowing; lower-than-expected industrial production and exports are the latest evidence. Global stock markets have responded nervously. But in some ways, the slowdown isn’t China’s fault and was entirely predictable. The explanation is the middle-income trap.

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Indonesian elections 2014: Banned, but vote-buying still plagues election process

Indonesian elections 2014: Banned, but vote-buying still plagues election process
Wednesday, March 19, 2014 – 03:44
Zubaidah Nazeer
The Straits Times
JAKARTA – When lawyer Taufik Basari visited constituents in his Jakarta district to distribute leaflets telling them why he deserved their vote, many asked him why the envelope was missing.

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China corruption drive goes after ‘guzzling’ officials

China corruption drive goes after ‘guzzling’ officials
Wednesday, March 19, 2014 – 13:08
AFP
SHANGHAI – China’s officials may need to tighten their belts after authorities ordered official canteens to serve “smaller portions” in a crackdown on over-indulgence, the Xinhua state news agency reported.

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Fast Retailing’s Uniqlo to turn over half of Japan part-timers into regular staff

Fast Retailing’s Uniqlo to turn over half of Japan part-timers into regular staff
Wednesday, Mar 19, 2014
Reuters
TOKYO – Fast Retailing Co said on Wednesday it plans to turn just over half of its 30,000 part-timers at its Uniqlo casual clothing stores in Japan into regular staff over two to three years in a bid to secure stable employment.
Uniqlo has long suffered high turnover among part-time sales staff – a byproduct of a rigorous and lengthy training process that has helped it earn a reputation for first-rate store service.

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Spain Adopts the ‘Israel Model’ to Engineer a Biotech Resurgence

Spain Adopts the ‘Israel Model’ to Engineer a Biotech Resurgence
Mar 14, 2014
Spain is one of the world’s leading nations in biotechnology research, but it lags behind in technology transfer and the creation of new companies. Nevertheless, the importance of this sector in Spain’s economy is growing. On an annual basis, the sector as a whole sells more than 76 billion euros of products, according to Asebio, Spain’s biotech industry association. Overall, more than 3,025 companies are involved in biotech research and development in Spain. And although 97% of these firms are small and mid-size companies, they are leaders in job creation, increasing personnel rolls at an annual rate of more than 20%.

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‘Uncertainty Traps’: Why a Lack of Information Can Paralyze an Economy

‘Uncertainty Traps’: Why a Lack of Information Can Paralyze an Economy
Mar 14, 2014
Years later, the aftershocks of the Great Recession still resonate. Unemployment remains high, and economic growth is sluggish. The United States, despite some bright spots — like a recovering housing market and soaring stock prices — just hasn’t been able to snap back to normal

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Why New York AG wants curbs on high-frequency traders

March 19, 2014, 10:32 a.m. EDT
Why New York AG wants curbs on high-frequency traders
By Sital S. Patel
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — High-frequency trading was thrust back into the spotlight when New York’s Attorney General Eric Schneiderman announced he would be taking a deeper look at the “unfair advantages” they have over regulator investors.
The New York regulator said U.S. exchanges allow traders to obtain pricing information fractions of a second earlier, through technology, giving them an edge.

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Unease grows among U.S. doctors over Indian drug quality

Unease grows among U.S. doctors over Indian drug quality
Tue, Mar 18 2014
By Toni Clarke and Bill Berkrot
WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) – Some U.S. doctors are becoming concerned about the quality of generic drugs supplied by Indian manufacturers following a flurry of recalls and import bans by the Food and Drug Administration.

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BT: Olam ‘market talk’, what market talk?

BT: Olam ‘market talk’, what market talk?
March 19th, 2014 | Author: Editorial
Yesterday (18 Mar), Singapore’s business daily The Business Times (BT) published an article by financial journalist Andrea Soh [Link].
In it, Andrea claims that there were market rumours that could possibly account for the surge in Olam International’s (Olam) share price.

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Why Muslims Still Can’t Adopt in India

Mar 19, 2014
Why Muslims Still Can’t Adopt in India
SHANOOR SEERVAI
When India’s Supreme Court ruled in February that a Muslim woman was free to adopt despite being a Muslim, one reasonable response was “Why wasn’t she allowed to do so already?”

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