Problems for bitcoin in China

November 5, 2013 Leave a comment

Problems for bitcoin in China

Staff Reporter

2013-11-05

The sudden closure of an online trading platform of the virtual currency bitcoin in China brought to the fore the problems surrounding the new currency in the country, where such transactions are surging, the Guangzhou-based Southern Weekly newspaper reported. Chinese users of GBL, a bitcoin trading platform that claims it is based in Hong Kong, were shocked when they found on Oct 26 that access to the service’s website was no longer available. Read more of this post

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New township projects in China may cause bubble to burst

November 5, 2013 Leave a comment

New township projects in China may cause bubble to burst

Staff Reporter

2013-11-05

Under the auspices of urbanization, many municipal governments in China have jumped onto the bandwagon of “new township” projects in recent years, fueling realty speculation and adding to concerns regarding the country’s property bubble, according to the news portal NetEase. Authorities in Guangzhou in southern China’s Guangdong province broke ground on construction of its New Knowledge City on Oct. 29. The project in Luogang district will encompass 75 billion yuan (US$12.3 million) of investment, and will spearhead the implementation of a further 10 new township projects in the city. Read more of this post

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Stock Splits Rekindle a Polarizing Debate; eight of the 11 S&P 500 companies that have split their stock this year have since outperformed their peers, rekindling the debate about the value for shareholders

November 5, 2013 Leave a comment

November 5, 2013, 12:27 AM ET

Stock Splits Rekindle a Polarizing Debate

MAXWELL MURPHY

Senior Editor

Stock splits have all but disappeared from the corporate playbook, but eight of the 11 S&P 500 companies that have split their stock this year have since outperformed their peers, rekindling the debate about the value for shareholders. Noble Energy Inc.NBL +1.25%, Flowserve Corp.FLS +1.16% and Gilead SciencesInc.GILD -2.30%, for example, all have at least doubled their number of shares outstanding this year, and had beaten the benchmark index by 20 to 63 percentage points as of the end of October. Read more of this post

Filed under Investing Process, Macro Trends

China premier warns against loose money policies

November 5, 2013 Leave a comment

China premier warns against loose money policies

12:46am EST

BEIJING (Reuters) – China needs to sustain economic growth of 7.2 percent to ensure a stable job market, Premier Li Keqiang said as he warned the government against further expanding already loose money policies. In one of the few occasions when a top official has enunciated the minimum level of growth needed for employment, Li said calculations show China’s economy must grow 7.2 percent annually to create 10 million jobs a year. Read more of this post

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Legend Capital eyes wearable device market with tech investment

November 5, 2013 Leave a comment

Legend Capital eyes wearable device market with tech investment

Staff Reporter

2013-11-05

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An ad for the GolfSense sensor and app developed by Zepp Labs. (Internet Photo)

Many investors are now eyeing wearable devices as the next potential field in consumer electronics, with companies looking to invest in related start-up firms, reports the Chinese Entrepreneur magazine. The concept of wearable devices emerged last year, with the introduction of Google Glass — an eyeglass-shaped mobile computing device, the magazine said. Da Mi, vice president of Legend Capital, a subsidiary of Chinese investment holdings company Legend Holdings, said the most applicable hardware remains the smartphone at this time, but the future lays in sensor hardware. Earlier this year, Legend Capital decided to invest in Zepp Labs — which combines 3D motion technology and sports — and entered its board, after seeing the latter’s hot sales in North America. Read more of this post

Filed under TMT Trends

Teachers are earning millions of dollars selling their lesson plans on the “iTunes of education”

November 5, 2013 Leave a comment

Teachers are earning millions of dollars selling their lesson plans on the “iTunes of education”

BY ERIN GRIFFITH 
ON NOVEMBER 4, 2013

TeacherspayTeachers has never raised a cent of outside venture capital. That’s fine — the 28-person company, launched from a New York apartment in 2006, has been profitably helping teachers sell their lesson plans to each other for some time now. This week, the company crossed the threshold of $60 million in teacher-to-teacher sales. That’s up from just $5 million a year ago. It’s just another positive milestone on the company’s quest to become the iTunes for digitally delivered educational content, according to founder Paul Edelman. Read more of this post

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The Airbnb Economy in New York: Lucrative but Often Illegal; A number of New Yorkers make a substantial portion of their income by renting out apartments on a short-term basis through the Airbnb website

November 5, 2013 Leave a comment

November 4, 2013

The Airbnb Economy in New York: Lucrative but Often Illegal

By ELIZABETH A. HARRIS

Tama Robertson is an artist who sells paintings and makes jewelry, but this being New York City, she also works in real estate. She has worked as an associate broker and invested in some properties of her own, but in recent years, she has supplemented her income with something a bit more contentious: She rents out a room in her own apartment to travelers she finds on the website Airbnb. By sharing her kitchen and her keys with strangers, she estimates that she brings in up to $10,000 a year. Read more of this post

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After a Decade, SAC Capital Blinks; The Justice Department’s deal with SAC Capital caps an investigation that turned a mighty hedge fund into a symbol of financial wrongdoing

November 5, 2013 Leave a comment

NOVEMBER 4, 2013, 8:54 PM

After a Decade, SAC Capital Blinks

By BEN PROTESS and PETER LATTMAN

SAC Capital first sought to fend off a federal indictment. Then the hedge fund, run by the billionaire Steven A. Cohen, offered to pay about $700 million to settle. Finally, SAC suggested it plead guilty to only some of the criminal charges in the five-count indictment. But at every turn, the government refused. And so on Monday, SAC agreed to plead guilty to all five counts of insider trading violations and pay a record $1.2 billion penalty, becoming the first large Wall Street firm in a generation to confess to criminal conduct. The deal caps a decade-long investigation that has turned a mighty hedge fund into a symbol of financial wrongdoing. Read more of this post

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Bakerzin founder resigns; plans to offer “nice gourmet cakes at very, very affordable prices” to consumers, but will not be opening a retail shop due to high rents

November 5, 2013 Leave a comment

Bakerzin founder resigns

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By Rebecca Lynne Tan

The Straits Times

Sunday, Nov 03, 2013

Patisserie-cafe chain Bakerzin’s founder and chief executive Daniel Tay has resigned from his post, and has set up a new food supply company. The 43-year-old, who founded the home-grown business in 1998, has started Foodgnostic to offer baked goods and other food to restaurants and hotels which cannot make them from scratch because of the labour shortage. He also has plans to offer “nice gourmet cakes at very, very affordable prices” to consumers, but will not be opening a retail shop due to high rents. Read more of this post

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‘Everything Store’ nothing short of unbalanced, says Bezos wife

November 5, 2013 Leave a comment

November 5, 2013 12:14 am

‘Everything Store’ nothing short of unbalanced, says Bezos wife

By Barney Jopson in Los Angeles

Jeff Bezos’s wife has deployed one of her husband’s most celebrated innovations – the unfiltered product review on Amazon – to trash a high-profile new book about the online retailer and its founder. MacKenzie Bezos, who is a novelist, offered a withering critique and a one-star ratingfor The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon, a book by Brad Stone, a technology reporter at Bloomberg Businessweek. Read more of this post

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Rebooting your memory: After millions of years of remembering what matters, is technology changing the way memory works?

November 5, 2013 Leave a comment

Rebooting your memory

November 3, 2013

Drew Turney

After millions of years of remembering what matters, is technology changing the way memory works? As we offload more of the storage of information onto technology, might we be losing the art of remembering for ourselves? As early as 2002 writer Cory Doctorow, speaking about whether his blog were to disappear, said: ”Huge swathes of acquired knowledge would simply vanish … my blog frees me up from having to remember the minutiae of my life”. We all know the feeling, as we recruit machinery to stand in for our memories more and more the busier life gets. But is doing so changing us? When we can reach into the networks and airwaves to pluck out information with impunity, is the technosphere our new collective memory? Read more of this post

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Mechanical Hearts Beat Death for Transplant List Patients

November 5, 2013 Leave a comment

Mechanical Hearts Beat Death for Transplant List Patients

Scott Morgan wrote off the pain on his left side as an old sports injury, never imagining it was a sign his heart was failing. When he finally went to the hospital last year, he was shocked to learn he needed a transplant. With fewer than 2,500 donated hearts that become available each year in the U.S. for transplant, Morgan’s doctors offered him another option. He got a mechanical pump placed inside his chest to keep him alive. Read more of this post

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Simple Tech Fix Could Allow Millions to Hear

November 5, 2013 Leave a comment

Simple Tech Fix Could Allow Millions to Hear

A few weeks ago, I had an amazing experience, one that most people take for granted but that for more and more of us in the baby-boom demographic is becoming impossible. I sat in a large auditorium and listened to — and heard — a speaker on a podium. In fact, I listened to many speakers over the course of a two-day weekend, and I heard every word. Read more of this post

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Roche to Pay Polyphor Up to $548 Million for ‘Superbug’ Antibiotic

November 5, 2013 Leave a comment

Roche to Pay Up to $548 Million for ‘Superbug’ Antibiotic

Roche Holding AG (ROG) agreed to pay as much as 500 million Swiss francs ($548 million) for the rights to an experimental antibiotic to target a drug-resistant “superbug” that is a leading cause of fatal bacterial infections in hospitals. Polyphor Ltd., the Allschwil, Switzerland-based developer of the antibiotic, will receive 35 million francs up front, and is eligible for further payments of as much as 465 million francs if the product meets development, regulatory and commercial goals, Roche said in an e-mailed statement today. Roche also will pay royalties on sales, the Basel, Switzerland-based company said. Read more of this post

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Funding Dries Up for Medical Startups; Companies Are Squeezed by Venture-Capital Drought

November 5, 2013 Leave a comment

Funding Dries Up for Medical Startups

Companies Are Squeezed by Venture-Capital Drought

JOSEPH WALKER 

Nov. 4, 2013 7:58 p.m. ET

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The medical-device industry, struggling to adapt to a thriftier health-care system, is getting squeezed by a venture-capital drought. Investment in the medical-device and equipment industry is on pace to fall to $2.14 billion this year, down more than 40% from 2007 and the sharpest drop among the top five industry recipients of venture funding, according to an analysis of data compiled by PricewaterhouseCoopers and the National Venture Capital Association. Venture money received by the biotechnology sector declined 28% over the same period, while software startups recorded a 75% increase. Read more of this post

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Diabetes’ Cold Sweat Seen Ended With Artificial Pancreas

November 5, 2013 Leave a comment

Diabetes’ Cold Sweat Seen Ended With Artificial Pancreas

Thomas Brobson remembers the first morning he awoke after being equipped with an artificial pancreas. After years of fitful nights, he slept soundly and opened his eyes feeling great. No waking up at 3 a.m. in a cold sweat with extreme low blood sugar. And no having to counteract those effects by getting something to eat in the middle of the night. Read more of this post

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Biotech stock boom risks becoming bubble

November 5, 2013 Leave a comment

November 4, 2013 9:55 am

Biotech stock boom risks becoming bubble

By Arash Massoudi and Michael Mackenzie in New York

In this year’s record-breaking bull run for US stocks, one industry in particular has been a standout performer. Biotechnology is on course for its best year since the dotcom boom. With stock market bargains fast diminishing, investors are betting that a number of “dream stocks” will deliver breakthrough medical treatments. But the question now is whether that prospect of future medical advances justifies a further run in shares – or whether the sector has simply become overheated. Read more of this post

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Why Creativity Thrives In The Dark; dim lighting creates a “visual message” capable of nudging our minds into an exploratory mode

November 5, 2013 Leave a comment

Why Creativity Thrives In The Dark

IMAGINATIVE MINDS HAVE LONG APPRECIATED THE POWER OF DIM LIGHTING. NEW RESEARCH CONFIRMS THAT WHEN THE LIGHTS SWITCH OFF, SOMETHING IN THE BRAIN SWITCHES ON.

Great artists and original thinkers often seem instinctually drawn to the darker hours. The writer Toni Morrison once told The Paris Review that watching the night turn to day, with a cup of coffee in hand, made her feel like a “conduit” of creativity. “It’s not being in the light,” she said, “it’s being there before it arrives.” Whether they join Morrison before dawn or get going after dusk, many of history’s most imaginative minds have been inspired by dim lighting. Read more of this post

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Billions of Earth-Like Planets Exist, Scientists Say

November 5, 2013 Leave a comment

Billions of Earth-Like Planets Exist, Scientists Say

About 4.4 billion planets are similar to Earth in size and temperature, suggesting they may be able to host life, according to a survey of the galaxy using telescopes operating in space and on the ground. The number is an estimate based on information taken from 42,000 stars similar to the Earth’s sun and their surrounding planets by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Kepler Space Telescope, as well as telescopes in Hawaii. Ideal planet climate — not too hot or too cold — was determined by how far they were away from their stars, according to the report today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Read more of this post

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CEO Interviews on CNBC

November 5, 2013 Leave a comment

CEO Interviews on CNBC

Y. Han (Andy) Kim Nanyang Technological University (NTU)

Felix Meschke University of Kansas – Finance Area
October 9, 2013

Abstract: 
We investigate whether media attention systematically affects stock prices through the trading of individual investors by exploiting the substantial discrepancy between perceived and actual information content of 6,937 CEO interviews on CNBC. The average cumulative abnormal stock return over the [-2, 0] trading day window is 1.62%, yet prices exhibit strong reversion of 1.08% over the following ten trading days. The magnitude of price response is positively correlated with the viewership as well as the language tone of the CEO. We find that individual investors are net buyers on the interview days, and that they keep on buying if the interview was both carried out by attractive anchorwoman and was watched by more male viewers. The price reversal is attributable to abnormal short-selling volume on interview day. Moreover, we find that the price run-up before the interviews is largely driven by individual investors that are excited even at the pre-announcement of the interview. We also find evidence of asymmetric attention cascade coming from CNBC interview upon the tone of media coverage of the firm, tilted towards the negative. Read more of this post

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China Buys Its Way Into Silicon Valley; Tencent’s Push for Stake in Snapchat Is Latest Effort to Gain Foothold in U.S.

November 5, 2013 Leave a comment

China Buys Its Way Into Silicon Valley

Tencent’s Push for Stake in Snapchat Is Latest Effort to Gain Foothold in U.S.

EVELYN M. RUSLI and PAUL MOZUR 

Updated Nov. 4, 2013 7:31 p.m. ET

China’s homegrown Internet giants are buying their way into Silicon Valley. The Chinese firms, which have little consumer business outside their home market, are unloading small fortunes on startups as they strive to understand and eventually gain a foothold in the elusive U.S. market. This week, Tencent Holdings Ltd.0700.HK -1.37% , a social networking and gaming company, is vying to lead a fundraising round of $200 million in buzzy American messaging app Snapchat Inc., according to people briefed on the matter. Tencent’s investment will likely value the two-year-old company, which has no revenue, at $4 billion. Read more of this post

Filed under TMT Trends

Zoomlion circus exposes China bond puzzle

November 5, 2013 Leave a comment

November 4, 2013 8:40 am

Zoomlion circus exposes China bond puzzle

By Paul J Davies in Hong Kong

Who will be winners and losers as Beijing reforms state-owned firms? The tale of Chinese journalist Chen Yongzhou of the New Express Daily andZoomlion, a maker of diggers and concrete mixers, must seem completely bizarre to anyone outside of China. But it holds important lessons for investors, especially those holding bonds. The tabloid reporter was arrested last month then confessed on live TV to taking bribes to help an unidentified party defame the accounts of a large publicly listed, government-backed company. It sounds like a thriller, but it has become a lengthy saga involving accusations and denials of fraud and corruption flying in all directions, protests over press censorship from the newspaper and then an embarrassing retraction. Read more of this post

Filed under Investing Process, Macro Trends

The Chinese are anxious over the future; The deep-seated concern about the next stages of growth

November 5, 2013 Leave a comment

The Chinese are anxious over the future

By Fred Hiatt, Monday, November 4, 9:05 AM

BEIJING

Traveling here last week after America’s partial government shutdown and near-default, I expected to encounter a surge of confidence in China’s inevitable, eventual emergence as the world’s greatest power. That is not what I found. Some people here do take pleasure in the travails of democracy in the world’s greatest hectorer on the subject. Some shed crocodile tears about America’s decline and President Obama’s failure to attend a recent summit in Asia. Read more of this post

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New warning on overcapacity in China; Banks told not to lend to projects in five sectors

November 5, 2013 Leave a comment

New warning on overcapacity

Updated: 2013-11-05 00:17

By Zheng Yangpeng (China Daily) Read more of this post

Filed under Macro Trends

Less sin, more Shrek in Macau as China takes aim in corruption fight

November 5, 2013 Leave a comment

Less sin, more Shrek in Macau as China takes aim in corruption fight

Monday, November 4, 2013 – 09:10

Reuters

MACAU – The media scrum surrounding the politically connected chairman of a Chinese financial services company was interested in one particular unpaid loan. The amount – US$1.3 million (S$1.62 million) – was nothing extraordinary. But the story behind it was. Xie Xiaoqing, chairman of Rongzhong Group, was sued in January for failing to repay the money to Sands China Ltd, US billionaire Sheldon Adelson’s Macau gambling unit. Read more of this post

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How China became the biggest boy in the playground

November 5, 2013 Leave a comment

How China became the biggest boy in the playground

Tuesday, November 5, 2013 – 05:00

Peh Shing Huei

The Straits Times

After five emperors, two regime changes and millions of lives lost in a century, China has completed almost two-thirds of its great revival. To be precise, the job is 62 per cent done. Chinese economist Yang Yiyong has it down pat. “If you can grade beauty in a pageant and measure emotional intelligence, I don’t see why you can’t count a nation’s revival,” he said, grinning. Read more of this post

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Home ownership an unobtainable dream in China

November 5, 2013 Leave a comment

Home ownership an unobtainable dream in China

CNN
November 5, 2013, 12:20 am TWN

CNN–Cui Shufeng is a retired government worker in Beijing. She is one of the lucky homeowners who bought her place long before the housing sector galloped out of reach for the average Chinese salary worker. “It is ridiculously high,” she says pointing to apartments in her neighborhood. “These homes near the school here are CNY 70,000 (US$11,400) per square meter. It’s not even worth CNY 7000 (US$ 1140) per square meter because it’s not even good quality.” Read more of this post

Filed under Macro Trends

China’s Tesla Risks Overcharging

November 5, 2013 Leave a comment

China’s Tesla Risks Overcharging

ABHEEK BHATTACHARYA

Updated Nov. 3, 2013 11:06 p.m. ET

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Tesla Motors TSLA +8.03% isn’t the only stock exciting investors about the future of electric cars. Chinese electric-car maker BYD 1211.HK -0.39% —backed by a major investment from Warren Buffett —has seen its Hong Kong-listed shares soar 153% in the past year, even as Chinese auto stocks are up 66%. This charge could be set to power down. Read more of this post

Filed under Macro Trends

China plans to prove the sceptics wrong; It is unclear whether a system that is geared to growth can also provide clean air and water

November 5, 2013 Leave a comment

November 4, 2013 7:00 pm

China plans to prove the sceptics wrong

By Gideon Rachman

It is unclear whether a system that is geared to growth can also provide clean air and water

Foreign commentators and local bloggers regularly predict that China is heading for an economic and political crisis. But the country’s leaders are in strikingly confident mood. They believe that China can keep growing at more than 7 per cent a year for at least another decade. That would mean the country’s economy – already the second-largest in the world – would double in size. And, depending on the assumptions you make about US growth and exchange rates, it would probably mean that China becomes the world’s largest economy by 2020. Read more of this post

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China’s manufacturers feel the squeeze as costs rise

November 5, 2013 Leave a comment

November 4, 2013 8:15 am

China’s manufacturers feel the squeeze as costs rise

By Demetri Sevastopulo in Guangzhou

Perched in front of hundreds of vibrantly coloured backpacks, each bearing the name of a famous football nation, a middle-aged woman from Fujian province worries about the squeeze on her wafer-thin margins. Just before lunch on the opening day of the third phase of the Canton Fair – a huge trade show held in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou, the capital of Guangdong province – Ms Lin has secured no orders. Read more of this post

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