Bamboo Innovator

BIS sees risk of 1998-style Asian crisis as Chinese dollar debt soars; The world’s banking watchdog warns that foreign loans to companies and banks in China has tripled over the last five years and may be large enough to set off financial tremors in the West

BIS sees risk of 1998-style Asian crisis as Chinese dollar debt soars

The world’s banking watchdog warns that foreign loans to companies and banks in China has tripled over the last five years and may be large enough to set off financial tremors in the West

By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard

9:30PM GMT 27 Oct 2013

Foreign loans to companies and banks in China have tripled over the last five years to almost $900bn and may now be large enough to set off financial tremors in the West, and above all Britain, the world’s banking watchdog has warned. “Dollar and foreign currency loans have been growing very rapidly,” said the Bank for International Settlements in a new report. “They have more than tripled in four years, rising from $270 billion to a conservatively estimated $880 billion in March 2013. Foreign currency credit may give rise to substantial financial stability risks associated with dollar funding,” it said. China’s reserve body SAFE said 81pc of foreign debt under its supervision is in dollars, 6pc in euros, and 6pc in yen. Read more of this post

Wikipedia China Becomes Front Line for Views on Language and Culture

October 27, 2013

Wikipedia China Becomes Front Line for Views on Language and Culture

By GRACE TSOI

HONG KONG — The Chinese-language version of Wikipedia has become more than an online encyclopedia: it is a battlefield for editors from China, Taiwan and Hong Kong in a region charged with political, ideological and cultural differences. Wikipedia editors, all volunteers, present opposing views on politics, history and traditional Chinese culture — in essence, different versions of China. Compounding the issue are language differences: Mandarin is the official language in mainland China and Taiwan, while the majority in Hong Kong speak Cantonese. But mainland China uses simplified characters, while Taiwan and Hong Kong use traditional script. Read more of this post

Army of Chinese fast food firms challenge McDonald’s, KFC and other foreigners in China

Updated: Monday October 28, 2013 MYT 8:22:21 AM

Army of Chinese fast food firms challenge McDonald’s, KFC and other foreigners in China

SHANGHAI: Bearing rice burgers and lotus roots, an army of Chinese fast food firms is cooking up a challenge to McDonald’s Corp and Yum Brands Inc, tempting cost-conscious diners with healthy, homegrown fare and causing a drag on growth for the U.S. chains in the country’s $174 billion fast food market. McDonald’s said last week it was thinking of slowing expansion in China as diners are tempted by local rivals. KFC-parent Yum warned this month economic weakness in China would drag on a recovery in sales dented by a food safety scare at the end of last year. Read more of this post

Forging an Art Market in China; In China’s growing art market, now the second largest in the world, outsize auction results often overshadow false sales data and forged art

Forging an Art Market in China

By David Barboza, Graham Bowley and Amanda CoxAdditional Reporting by Jo Craven McGintyBEIJING, October 28, 2013

点击查看本文中文版 | Read in Chinese »

When the hammer came down at an evening auction during China Guardian’s spring sale in May 2011, “Eagle Standing on a Pine Tree,” a 1946 ink painting by Qi Baishi, one of China’s 20th-century masters, had drawn a startling price: $65.4 million. No Chinese painting had ever fetched so much at auction, and, by the end of the year, the sale appeared to have global implications, helping China surpass the United States as the world’s biggest art and auction market. But two years after the auction, Qi Baishi’s masterpiece is still languishing in a warehouse in Beijing. The winning bidder has refused to pay for the piece since doubts were raised about its authenticity. Read more of this post

China Won’t Lose Its ‘Voice’ Despite New TV Restrictions

October 25, 2013, 10:22 AM

China Won’t Lose Its ‘Voice’ Despite New TV Restrictions

Fans of ”The Voice of China,” have no fear. The show is staying put.

Broadcaster Zhejiang Satellite TV has confirmed it will continue airing the hit show despite new regulations that take aim at broadcasts based on formats developed abroad, and said it is tweaking other shows to make sure they conform with the new restrictions. “The Voice of China” is based on a Dutch show, “The Voice of Holland,” that has done well in its international iterations, including as “The Voice” in the U.S. Read more of this post

Debt: A deceptive calm: Investors are wary that the tranquility in eurozone bond markets could breed complacency

October 27, 2013 7:55 pm

Debt: A deceptive calm

By Ralph Atkins in London

Investors are wary that the tranquility in eurozone bond markets could breed complacency

James Carville, an adviser to former US President Bill Clinton, wanted to be reincarnated as the bond market, complaining that it was more powerful than presidents or popes. “You can intimidate everybody,” he moaned. He should have moved to Rome. This year, Italy has had an inconclusive election, a government often on the brink of collapse and an economy struggling to leave a deep recession. But the bond markets have been noticeably quiescent. Rather than Rome’s borrowing costs rising as investors worried about the security of Italy’s public debt, the difference – or “spread” – between the yield on 10-year Italian and German government bonds has fallen to levels unseen since the eurozone crisis hit the country more than two years ago. Read more of this post

Beijing’s caution on reforms: China does not have the luxury of deferring all changes until conditions suit, says Eswar Prasad

October 27, 2013 6:57 pm

Beijing’s caution on reforms makes sense – for now

By Eswar Prasad

But China does not have the luxury of deferring all changes until conditions suit, says Eswar Prasad

Cataloguing China’s economic risks has become a popular parlour game. In the past decade, a steady drumbeat of warnings has predicted imminent collapse. Rising state and local government debt, a weak financial system and multiplying inefficiencies in the economy certainly pose big risks. The reforms needed to maintain growth and improve its quality have been painfully slow. Read more of this post

Forget China: Growth is ‘driven by knowledge – at the level of society, not the individual’

October 27, 2013 2:57 pm

Forget China and switch to Zimbabwe, Mexico or Egypt

By John Authers

Growth is ‘driven by knowledge – at the level of society, not the individual’

Where does growth come from? Why do some countries “emerge” and take on “developed” status, while others flounder before reaching that stage? Some once highly unlikely candidates have emerged as powerful economies. South Korea, for example, grew in two generations from a peasant economy devastated by war, to a fully paid-up member of the developed world. Others once far better placed have stumbled. Read more of this post

Regulators have growing concerns about the mortgage vehicles amid concerns that a rapid rise in interest rates could trigger a sell-off

October 27, 2013 6:07 pm

Fed probes banks’ exposure to mortgage vehicles

By Tracy Alloway, Arash Massoudi and Michael Mackenzie in New York

Regulators at the New York Fed have been probing banks’ exposure to a type of mortgage investment vehicle that has proliferated since the financial crisis amid concerns that a rapid rise in interest rates could trigger a sell-off. The private discussions, described by one person as a “deep dive” into the topic, underscore regulators’ growing concerns about the rapid expansion of mortgage real estate investment trusts. MReits finance their purchases of long-term mortgages with short-term borrowings, known as repo, secured from dealer banks. Read more of this post

Wave of private equity money flows into shipping

October 27, 2013 2:23 pm

Wave of private equity money flows into shipping

By Mark Odell and Ajay Makan

The shipping industry has endured its worst crisis in 25 years. But there are some signs it may be navigating its way out of choppy waters – not least a surge in the amount of“smart” money from private equity flowing into the sector. The record influx of funds so far this year is seen by many as a watershed after five years of weathering the storm that caused several ship operators and owners to collapse during the economic downturn. Read more of this post

Markets’ animal spirits need taming; QE froth is great for asset prices, less so for the real world

October 25, 2013 11:51 am

Markets’ animal spirits need taming before a hard fall

By Michael Mackenzie in New York

QE froth is great for asset prices, less so for the real world

History may not repeat itself but will it rhyme with a messy denouement for risky assets? In the final quarter of 1999, a surfeit of central bank liquidity thanks to concerns over Y2K pumped up the technology bubble before the bottom fell out of the market the following year. Fast forward to 2014 and there is no getting away from massive central bank stimulus propelling asset prices and allowing investors to downplay fundamental factors. Read more of this post

China Seen Losing Sheen for IBM to Nike as Hurdles Mount

China Seen Losing Sheen for IBM to Nike as Hurdles Mount

Companies from IBM to Starbucks are struggling with new obstacles in China as Communist Party officials tussle over the direction and depth of economic reforms. China’s state-controlled media last week accused Starbucks Corp. (SBUX) with charging too much for coffee and said Samsung Electronics Co.’s smartphones don’t work properly. International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) IBM’s China revenue slipped 22 percent in the third quarter, contributing to the first-ever sales decline in the company’s growth-markets division, as state-owned companies started delaying orders, including mainframes and servers. Read more of this post

Barron’s: Bargain-Hunting for Stocks and Other Investments Around the World

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 26, 2013

Bargain-Hunting for Stocks and Other Investments Around the World

By LAUREN R. RUBLIN | MORE ARTICLES BY AUTHOR

Our savvy Art of Successful Investing panelists find value in tech, energy, Europe, and Japan.

Be it ever so humbled, there’s no place like home. So said more than one investment patriot at this year’s ninth annual Art of Successful Investing conference, in reference to the allure of U.S. stocks. Sure, our politics are messy, our economy weak, and our market at all-time highs, but it still is possible to find U.S..-traded companies with good growth prospects, sound management, and cheap shares. Then again, there is also no place like Europe, Japan, or one of Asia’s new tourist meccas if it’s zaftig investment returns you’re after. All offer opportunities to reap outsize gains, especially in stocks that the crowd has dissed or ignored. The key, as always, is knowing where to look for value, and especially, how to spot it. Read more of this post

Energy Boom Puts Wells in America’s Backyards; Hydraulic Fracturing Largely Driving Transformation of the Nation’s Landscape. More than 15 million Americans now live within one mile of a fracking well. The shale boom is creating conflicts between those who are profiting from the wells and those who aren’t

Energy Boom Puts Wells in America’s Backyards

Hydraulic Fracturing Largely Driving Transformation of the Nation’s Landscape

More than 15 million Americans now live within one mile of a fracking well. The shale boom is creating conflicts between those who are profiting from the wells and those who aren’t. Photo: Benjamin Rasmussen for The Wall Street Journal

RUSSELL GOLD and TOM MCGINTY

Oct. 25, 2013 11:00 p.m. ET

Over the summer, something sprang up in the view from Dorsey Johnson’s back deck north of Denver, where she watches sunsets over Colorado’s front range. It was a noisy, towering rig, drilling a new oil well. “There was clanking. There were trucks going by,” she says. All she wanted was for the rig to go away. Across the U.S., new oil and gas wells have turned millions of people into the petroleum industry’s neighbors. For many, the oil and gas companies are welcome newcomers bearing checks. Others consider the new arrivals loud, smelly and disruptive. The drilling boom is firing up resentment in some communities when one person’s financial windfall means their neighbors abut a working well. Read more of this post