indeolie

Publishers Wake Up: Online Readers Are Paying You - In Attention

All those companies make a big chunk of their money from international syndication.

More Fodder for Inflation / Deflation Debate: Higher Gasoline Prices

>Socialist Europe, with its very stringent price and wage controls

Have you ever actually been to Europe or did you just hear about the place from talk radio?

Why Airline Mergers Don't Work: Scale Is Not a Blessing

The problem with Southwest as an example is that for the last fifteen years it really was a long-oil hedge fund with an (admittedly very well-run) airline operation on the side. This makes drawing conclusions on their past performance vs their competitors (who got into the fuel 'hedging' game at the worst possible moment) quite misleading.

If Housing Were Priced in Gold

Tomorrow, we'll look at the chart "if housing were priced in natgas".

FOMC Statement: Redactions, Comments and Quick Hits

>Commodity traders have been given a ‘green light’ to buy buy buy.

Yes we've certainly seen that today (& in the last few weeks) - oil hitting fresh 2 month lows, both in eur and usd.

Why the Sudden Run Up in Natural Gas Prices?

Apart from the fact that every investor knows the roll costs money. It's there on the screen, if you're surprised by this you shouldn't be in the commodities markets at all & stick to stocks. Comparisons with Ponzi schemes, Madoff, etc are rediculous.

China to Buy Up to $50 Billion in IMF SDRs

>My understanding is that the BRICs are pushing for
>their currencies to be weighted into this calculation,
>to reflect a fairer balance of world trade.
>How that would come about with Yuan/Renmimbi
>is a puzzle & ruble ... Yikes

I'm not sure how comfortable other governments/companies are with holding RUB given Russia's history in defaults on its bonds. But if China and India make their currencies convertible for capital accounts (they are not at the moment), this can certainly be done.

However, for its effects on the reweighting of reserve currency baskets, China would be the only one that really would cause a significant shift with its 4.4 trillion USD economy (similar to Japan). Indian GDP is a little over 1 trillion USD, half the size of the UK and in the same league as Mexico, Australia, Canada and Brazil. In practice, a currency seems to need a certain critical mass to become a widely held reserve currency - the world seems to prefer only a handful of currencies rather than a dozen.

China to Buy Up to $50 Billion in IMF SDRs

Current world forex reserves:
USD 64%
EUR 27%
GBP 4%
JPY 3%

GDP (in trillions & weighted between these 4):
US: USD 14.3 = 40%
Eurozone: EUR 9.2 = USD 13.2 = 37%
UK: GPB 1.4 = USD 2.3 = 6%
Japan: JPY 510 = USD 5.5 = 15%

This is all assuming no other currencies are interesting to hold as reserve, either due to a too small underlying economy (CHF, SEK), not freely tradable (INR, CNY) or too correlated with commodity prices (AUD, NOK, CAD). Since China's exposure is not too far away from the table above (Europe is its biggest trading partner and Japan also significant), the rational thing for them to try is sell USD buy EUR/JPY and rebalance their portfolio. GBP looks underweighted in this to but not by much.

The Opel Saga

Of course GM doesn't want to sell Opel. Despite losing some market share lately this is still their crown jewel, in particular their technology & small/midsize cars - they were forced to sell the unit because they needed cash. They now don't need cash immediately anymore (bailouts, sales recovery, investor risk appetite), so the deal is off.

The Germans are just hedging their position with the Russians - through their long-term gas contracts they have a claim on assets in Russia. Better have the Russians buy claims on German assets, they'll have something to lose when the next energy dispute erupts.

A Look at Four Foreign Beer Makers

How is InBev a 'domestic' beer maker though? Headquartered in Belgium, listed on EuroNEXT, most brands & sales outside the US...

Top 10 Video, Multimedia Websites: July 2009

The big question is, where's The Pirate Bay?

Microsoft: Whistling in the Dark

>Nokia may be a strong player in the smartphone game – it certainly used to be.

Nokia owned half the market for smartphones five years ago and it still does. Like RIM with its 20% share, it's not really the sexiest brand out there but it keeps chucking out dozens of smartphones that sell quite well. Apple, Windows Mobile (through Samsung/Sony/LG/HTC) and Android are largely competing for the remaining 30% of the market. Palm is toast - big fanfare about the release of WebOS but have you ever seen a user?

First in, First Out? U.S. Leading OECD Out of Recession

That seems more like a last in-first out of the recession for Europe.

Lack of EU Membership Isn’t Slowing Turkey’s ETF

>That has some wondering what it’s going to take to land Turkey a spot in the European Union.

A trade union with the EU is likely (and will be very bullish Turkish equities) but right now the chances of Turkey entering the EU as a full political member are about as big as Mexico adding 31 states to the US next year. In addition to being poor, overpopulated and corrupt, it's also run by an islamist party that does not accept basic (religious/cultural/et... freedoms and would look completely out of place amongst all other member governments. The counterweight to the islamists is a huge army that divides its time between shooting Kurdish villagers, running shady businesses and plotting coups d'etat. Continued economic development will undoubtedly stabilize politics in the long run and the EU will promote trade and investment to make Turkey a better place - but like the US/Mexico relationship, don't expect anything more.

Is 5% of Emerging Markets Too Little?

>US LCV = 10
>US SCV = 20
>Reits = 10
>Emerging = 20
>Commodity = 15
>Bonds = 15
>International Developed = 10

I assume your REITs and bonds are also 'globalized'? Even so, you're very heavily exposed to US markets.