The results of a summer survey from Thomson Financial make worrying reading for investors. On the plus side, 36% of the mainly US-based investors questioned said they considered corporate responsibility criteria “very important” when making investment decisions. But only 8% of investor relations officers (whose job it is to communicate with shareholders) said investors considered …
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Category:3 The World of Money
September VC deals and data
According to the Emerging Markets Private Equity Association, 107 private equity funds focused on investing in the emerging markets of Asia, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East and Africa raised US$21.5 billion in capital commitments in the first half of 2007, compared to US$33.2 billion raised by 162 funds in all of 2006. Here’s their …
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US housing still on the way down
A useful summary of data points from John Mauldin illustrates that the US housing market is still receding. This matches the IFC chart showing that sub-prime mortgage problems are not expected to peak till the beginning of the year. (That chart is in the July Review here.) First the inventory of existing homes rose yet …
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The risk of a global coordinated slump
The Economist asks whether the golden age of stable growth enjoyed by America and others for 2 decades is coming to an end. Regular readers will know that my prognosis is not optimistic. While the risk of a global coordinated slump is low, it seems that economic imbalances have grown rapidly beyond historical norms in …
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Quality enforcement Chinese style
As previously reported, the head of China’s Food and Agriculture minister was executed for corruption and dereliction of duty earlier this year. That sets the tone for measures that will be taken in in China to maintain standards. But it is more extreme than one would like. So, with the spate of product quality issues …
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Energy, credit and big picture change
This statement from hedge fund manager Hamid Hakimzadeh bears serious reflection. The global financial system is critically predicated on future energy supplies meeting projected demand. The credit pyramid presumes that future expansion is adequate collateral for today’s debt. The emerging reality on energy undermines this assumption, which in turn erodes the valuation of wide variety …
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The non-bank banking crisis, and a solution for the future
Andrew Hunt has pointed out that many UK banks have been behaving as if they were non-banks. This is likely to have been the case in America and elsewhere too. Hunt points out that: the problems in the UK banking system have arisen because the banks have, in effect, been behaving as though they were …
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Fast and loose culture of top finance houses.
A recent article in the NYT describes how financial analysts are opting to learn on the job, rather than do MBA’s. While the article is largely anecdotal, what is apparent is that the culture of Wall Street encourages a cut-throat approach to business. While you can make more money than you need (maybe even more …
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Japanese housewives trading FX
Its not just the professionals that have benefited from the yen carry trade. Japanese housewives have been moonlighting as currency speculators too. Unfortunately, in the past couple of months the reality that there is no risk free investment has hit them hard, often wiping out savings in a few weeks because of leveraged/margin positions. This …
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Case studies in green portfolios
The September issue of Sustainable Business‘s Progressive Investor discusses three green portfolios describing the manager’s rationale and an analysts’ evaluation in each case. It is a useful starting point for building your own green portfolio. If you are not US based, it still offers insight in to the trade-offs you’re likely to have to make …
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