Friday 20 December 2013

Friday 20th

Only in China could a bank that defaulted for $1 billion in
June IPO in December and raise $3 billion
Everbright Bank slides in HK debut amid China cash crunch fears
{http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/12/20/us-everbright-listing-idUSBRE9BJ03P20131220}

Xinhua’s Top Ten Popular Words of 2013
{http://www.thechinastory.org/dossier/xinhuas-top-ten-popular-words-of-2013/}

China’s Stocks Extend Slump in Longest Losing Streak Since 1994
{http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-12-20/china-stock-index-futures-rise-after-pboc-adds-funds-to-lenders.html}

Abandon commodities!
{http://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2013/12/abandon-commodities/}

Irrationality, trend-following, and cats
{http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2013/01/investing}

Who Owns Congress?
{http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2013/12/who-owns-congress-2/#more-112948}

How strong is gold’s “Wall of Worry?”
{http://www.marketwatch.com/story/how-strong-is-golds-wall-of-worry-2013-12-18}

Thursday 19 December 2013

Thursday 19th December

good market revision
{http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=N8o-QIn12ak}

Wolf repeat in the Irish
Why Abenomics is bound to disappoint Japan
{http://www.irishtimes.com/business/economy/why-abenomics-is-bound-to-disappoint-japan-1.1631136?page=2}

Morning MoneyBeat Asia: Fed’s Sweet Taper May Give Asia a Toothache
{http://blogs.wsj.com/moneybeat/2013/12/18/morning-moneybeat-asia-feds-sweet-taper-may-give-asia-a-toothache/}

A Professional Preps for the End of QE
{http://www.forbes.com/sites/joshuabrown/2013/05/12/a-professional-preps-for-the-end-of-qe/}
You may think of this as the end of QE but many of us, those with multi-decade time horizons and big dreams for the future, will instead be thinking of this as the beginning of something else. Just as T.S. Eliot would along with all the other bright-eyed opportunists throughout history. “The end is where we start from.”
The bottom line is that the current zero interest rate policy (ZIRP) and the various quantitative easings will be dismantled and undone as slowly and deliberately as they were put on. We’ll not be thrown down face-first atop a wooden table, ravished and thrusted upon by coarse soldiers as a sentry guards the door. No, after all this time I believe that our corset shall be untied gingerly and with care, our hips caressed and our neck dappled with an archipelago of gentle kisses. Bernanke is nothing if not a patient lover, subtle almost to a fault.

Friday 13 December 2013

Friday 13th December


What Sir Isaac Newton can teach us about London’s ludicrous property price bubble
(and Tower Resources)
{http://moneyweek.com/merryns-blog/what-sir-isaac-newton-can-teach-us-about-londons-ludicrous-property-price-bubble/}
TRP LN



It shows what happened to poor Isaac Newton in the South Sea bubble. He bought in early and sold out when things look ridiculously expensive . Then, as prices rose and rose and rose he lost confidence in his judgement and bought back in. That was fine for a very short period. Then came the crash. Prices fell back way below the level at which he had bought. Then the level at which he had first sold. And then the level at which he had first bought.
Newton went on to repurchase a good deal more South Sea Company shares at more than three times the price of his original stake, and then proceeded to lose £20,000 (which, in 1720, amounted to almost all his life savings). This prompted him to add, allegedly, that
“I can calculate the movement of stars, but not the madness of men.”

Thursday 12 December 2013

Thursday 12th

Chinese shop owners in Argentina arm themselves with guns amid violent looting
{http://www.scmp.com/news/china-insider/article/1378897/chinese-shop-owners-argentina-arm-themselves-guns-amid-violent}
since more than 80 per cent of the country's supermarkets are estimated to be owned by the Chinese, the community has suffered considerable financial loss in the looting.

Everything you need to know about the Volcker Rule
{http://www.theguardian.com/business/2013/dec/11/volcker-rule-explained-banking-regulation}

MORGAN STANLEY: Stop Talking About Tapering — Here's What You Should Be Talking About Instea
{http://www.businessinsider.com/morgan-stanley-stop-talking-about-tapering-2013-12}

Friday 6 December 2013

Friday the 6th

What Exactly Is Economic Growth?

A LIST OF REASONS WHY OUR BRAINS LOVE LISTS
{http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/elements/2013/12/a-list-of-reasons-that-our-brains-love-lists.html}

1. Our brains love lists
2. The headline catches our eye in a stream of content
3. It positions its subject within a preëxisting category and classification syste
4. It spatially organizes the information and it promises a story that’s finite whose length has been quantified upfront.
5. They create an easy reading experience, in which the mental heavy lifting of conceptualization, categorization, and analysis is completed well in advance of actual consumption.
6. They often hit our attentional sweet spot
7. Alleviate the so-called “paradox of choice”—the phenomenon that the more information and options we have, the worse we feel.
8. we process it more efficiently, and we retain it with little effort. Faced with a detailed discussion of policies toward China or five insane buildings under construction in Shanghai, we tend to choose the latter bite-sized option.

Even when we know we will not be entirely satisfied by it, That’s just fine, as long as we realize that our fast-food information diet is necessarily limited in content and nuance, and thus unlikely to contain the nutritional value of the more in-depth analysis of traditional articles that rely on paragraphs, not bullet points."

Thursday 28 November 2013

29th November


Pawnbroker Albemarle & Bond resorts to melting own gold
{http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-25132104}

Wednesday 27 November 2013

27th Nov

A SIMPLE EXPLANATION OF HOW MONEY MOVES AROUND THE BANKING SYSTEM
{http://gendal.wordpress.com/2013/11/24/a-simple-explanation-of-how-money-moves-around-the-banking-system/}

Want to get rich? Read fiction
{http://www.marketwatch.com/story/want-to-get-rich-read-fiction-2013-11-22?pagenumber=1}

Ãœber-warehouses for the ultra-rich
{http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21590353-ever-more-wealth-being-parked-fancy-storage-facilities-some-customers-they-are}

China-Japan rearmament is Keynesian stimulus, if it doesn't go horribly wrong
{http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance/ambroseevans-pritchard/100026105/china-japan-rearmament-is-keynesian-stimulus-if-it-doesnt-go-horribly-wrong/}

All That Glitters, lots on gold..
{http://www.vanityfair.com/business/2013/11/gold-secretive-trading-business}

Security expert builds fully operational GUN from items that can all be purchased in the airport terminal AFTER you go through security
{http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2513362/Man-builds-homemade-gun-items-purchased-airport-terminal-AFTER-security.html}


Fed Seeing Productivity Slowing as Breaking With Economic Trend
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke and his colleagues are suffering through their own form of cognitive dissonance

Tuesday 26 November 2013

Tuesday 26th

A China Triangle: Bitcoin, Baidu And Beijing (a currency to avoid Iranian trade sanctions?)
{http://www.forbes.com/sites/gordonchang/2013/11/24/a-china-triangle-bitcoin-baidu-and-beijing/}

China Developers Deny CCTV Report on Unpaid Land Taxes
{http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-25/china-developers-owe-3-8-trillion-yuan-in-land-taxes-cctv-says.html}

Information asymmetry, crypto currency edition, FT Alphaville decided to take the plunge this weekend and buy some dreaded Bitcoins
{http://ftalphaville.ft.com/2013/11/25/1702992/information-asymmetry-crypto-currency-edition/}

In Bitcoin’s Orbit: Rival Virtual Currencies Vie for Acceptance
{http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/11/24/in-bitcoins-orbit-rival-virtual-currencies-vie-for-acceptance/}

Thursday 14 November 2013

Thursday

2 reads

Recollecting the false messiah of peak oil
{http://ftalphaville.ft.com/2013/11/13/1693722/recollecting-the-false-messiah-of-peak-oil/}
"After we finished our bearish screed, the fund manager stood up, snickered and shot us a look of haughty derision. He then walked over to his bookshelf, took out a book and slid the book across the desk. The book was Matt Simmons’ Twilight in the Desert.
Then, while still maintaining that air of superiority, he told us that this (pointing to Mr. Simmons’ book) was the reason why we would never see oil below $100 a barrel again."

Books that Changed My Life
{http://www.farnamstreetblog.com/2013/11/books-that-changed-my-life/}

Wednesday 13 November 2013

Wednesday


10 Laws of Stock Market Bubbles
{http://www.thestreet.com/story/12104017/1/kass-10-laws-of-stock-market-bubbles.html}

Buy emerging mkts                                          
{http://www.indexuniverse.com/sections/etf-strategist-corner/20434-swedroe-questioning-emerging-markets.html}                
                                                             

the hundred best novels? as of 1898
{http://timescolumns.typepad.com/stothard/2013/10/not-the-hundred-best-novels.html}

Winklevosses: Bitcoin worth at least 100 times more
{http://www.cnbc.com/id/101190181}

Investing


Wednesday 30 October 2013

Wednesday 30th

The Chinese Are In Love With Bitcoin And It's Driving The Digital Currency's Prices Into The Stratosphere
{http://www.businessinsider.com.au/china-and-bitcoin-2013-10}

There's no need to apologise for the sorry state of Britain. But I'm sorry
{http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/oct/27/apologise-sorry-state-britain-harvard-david-mitchell?CMP=twt_gu}

David Cameron threatens injunction against the Guardian to stop further Snowden leak publications
{http://boingboing.net/2013/10/29/david-cameron-threatens-injunc.html}


Friday 25 October 2013

Friday 18 October 2013

Friday 18th Oct

Trust funds for social tenants? The true cost of central London council housing
{http://www.conservativehome.com/localgovernment/2013/10/trust-funds-for-social-tenants-the-true-cost-of-central-london-council-housing-2.html}

The Nobel committee is muddled on the nature of economics
' It is like awarding the physics prize jointly to Ptolemy for his theory that the Earth is the centre of the universe, and to Copernicus for showing it is not.'
{http://www.johnkay.com/2013/10/16/the-nobel-committee-is-muddled-on-the-nature-of-economics}

What does China want with Britain's nuclear industry?
{http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/oct/17/china-britain-nuclear-industry}

European energy fact of the day
{http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2013/10/european-energy-fact-of-the-day.html}

Thursday 10 October 2013

Thursday

Dilbert Creator Scott Adams Presents His 10 Favorite Strips
{http://www.businessinsider.com/scott-adams-favorite-dilbert-comics-2013-10}


Royal Mail shares will be priced at 330p
{http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-24470086}

Azerbaijan releases election results… before the polls even open
{http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/azerbaijan-releases-election-results-before-the-polls-even-open-8869732.html}

NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming)


Wednesday 9 October 2013

Wednesday 9th October

How Resource Scarcity Constrains China{http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-10-07/how-resource-scarcity-constrains-china}

Default Deniers
{http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/10/08/default-deniers/?_r=1}


Understanding the Game Being Played in Washington
{http://blogs.hbr.org/2013/10/understanding-the-game-being-played-in-washington/}

muse
Rust and Ruin: The Downfall of Antarctic Whaling
{http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/history-of-the-grytviken-whaling-station-near-antarctica-a-926711.html}

The High Seas
How a high school-educated drug smuggler built a fleet of submarines—in the middle of the jungle—to ferry cocaine to the United States.
{http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/foreigners/2013/10/mauner_mahecha_s_drug_submarines_inside_a_high_tech_south_american_narco.single.html}


From the Sony Walkman to the humble zip: The past century’s top 100 inventions that changed our lives (yet most of us take for granted)
{http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2449468/Sony-Walkman-zip-Past-centurys-100-inventions.html}


Liongold, Blumont, Asiasons fall out

The Real Story Behind Blumont, Asiasons And LionGol
{http://www.fool.sg/2013/10/09/the-real-story-behind-blumont-asiasons-and-liongold/}
Blumont, Asiasons, LionGold Plunge in Singapore
{http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304171804579120192108848258.html}
UPDATE 2-Blumont queries SGX's lifting of trading halt, reveals new chairman
{http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/08/blumont-asiasons-shareprice-idUSL4N0HY0F420131008}
What’s Happened to Blumont, Asiasons and LionGold Corp?
{http://www.fool.sg/2013/10/04/whats-happened-to-blumont-asiasons-and-liongold-corp/}

'Foolish' Bottom Line
Stock market prices can fluctuate irrationally and often wildly. That means to say that prices can keep rising even when the underlying businesses have poor fundamentals. If that’s the case, then don’t be surprised when the bottom falls out one day.
On the other hand, prices can collapse despite strong fundamentals. That’s when investors need to exercise discipline and not give into fear. A purchase during times of irrational distress can even set the stage for spectacular returns in the future.
Ultimately, investors have to recognise that business fundamentals are the main drivers of long-term shareholder returns. In the long run, it’s the businesses that matters.

Friday 4 October 2013

Friday

Shanghai Free Trade Zone As Damp Squib
{http://www.chinalawblog.com/2013/10/shanghai-free-trade-zone-as-damp-squib.html}

Multitude of beer
http://popchartlab.com/collections/prints/products/the-magnificent-multitude-of-beer


update
list of words that should be banned from ever appearing in print or on the lips of chefs, judges and presenters on TV.
http://fortonfood.wordpress.com/2013/10/01/verbiage/

Nina Katchadourian whiles away long plane journeys by locking herself in the lavatory and pretending to be a 15th century Dutch painting.
http://www.sadanduseless.com/2012/04/lavatory-self-portraits/

Thursday 3 October 2013

Wednesday 2 October 2013

Thursday 26 September 2013

Thursday 19 September 2013

Thursday 19th

Americans Are 110 Times More Likely to Die from Contaminated Food Than Terrorism
{http://www.alternet.org/media/americans-are-110-times-more-likely-die-contaminated-food-terrorism}

How to Raise Money
{http://www.paulgraham.com/fr.html}

Why didn’t the Fed taper? Because Congress is horrible.
{http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/09/18/why-didnt-the-fed-taper-because-congress-is-horrible/}

Give Back? Yes, It's Time For The 99% To Give Back To The 1%
{http://www.forbes.com/sites/harrybinswanger/2013/09/17/give-back-yes-its-time-for-the-99-to-give-back-to-the-1/}

The case of the disappearing teaspoons: longitudinal cohort study of the displacement of teaspoons in an Australian research institute
{http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1322240/}

End in Sight: Truck Successfully Raised


A wrecked Truck was successfully lifted to an upright position on Tuesday, revealing a severely damaged right hand side. Salvage workers and residents are celebrating the technological feat.
At 4 a.m. on Tuesday morning, a foghorn wailed as engineers completed the complicated parbuckling operation raising the truck.

"We completed the parbuckling operation a few minutes ago the way we thought it would happen and the way we hoped it would happen," said Jim, a project manager. "A perfect operation, I must say," he said, claiming there had been no apparent environmental spill detected.
Speaking to reporters, Bob, who took part in the operation, spoke of "great satisfaction" over the outcome. He said the maneuver to turn the truck upright had been perfectly calculated.

The parbuckling operation was the most dramatic and vulnerable of the salvage effort, because no one knew how badly damaged the right hand side of the truck would be. "The condition it's in is really shocking," said Harold. "It is disturbing because you are looking at a tragedy."

A 19-Hour Operation
In the end, it took 19 hours to lift the 20-meter-long , 4.8-meter-wide truck into an upright position. Ten to 12 hours had been initially planned, but drizzle led to delay in the operation's start by two hours. Then problems had to be resolved with the system of huge jacks and cables set on artificial platforms used to lift up the 12.5 ton truck.
"We raised the truck very slowly," said Bob.

'She's Strong Enough to Be Towed'
"We have to do a really detailed inspection of the damage," salvage master Roger told reporters. But "she was strong enough to come up like this, she's strong enough to be towed."

Friday 13 September 2013

Friday 13th

Ethically speaking, we should all be eating roadkill.
{http://modernfarmer.com/2013/09/eating-roadkill/}

The Folks Who Sell Your Corn Flakes are Acting Like Goldman Sachs—and That Should Worry You
{http://www.newrepublic.com/article/114577/commodities-trading-hedge-funds-spook-wall-st-banks}

Arkansas Town Hosts World Championship Squirrel Cook Off
{http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324094704579063820643875500.html?mod=WSJ_hp_EditorsPicks}

Monday 9 September 2013

Friday 16 August 2013

Monday 22 July 2013