Issue: March 10, 2010 (Archive)

Saturday, September 11, 2010

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Testing times
George Orwell did well out of anticipating the future, although he had the advantage of fiction rather than fact. Squealer, a character from Animal Farm, advises his comrades: "Do not imagine, comrades, that leadership is a pleasure. On the contrary, it is a deep and heavy responsibility. The leader would be only too happy to let you make your decisions yourselves. But sometimes you might make the wrong decisions, comrades, and then where would you be?"

US firms feel the pinch of rising greenback
The US dollar, long a friend to US stocks with high exposure to international markets as the greenback remained weak, has turned into a headwind as the currency's fortunes have reversed, and companies with big overseas revenues are feeling it in the stock market.

Coal play
China's appetite for imported coal will provide a solid floor for global prices of the commodity this year, but its imports may miss last year's peak as price- sensitive buyers shy from rebounding prices.

Greek tragedy may be dress rehearsal for bigger crisis
In December I noted that if Greece was left to default on its bonds (without a bailout) this would lead to skyrocketing interest rates on Irish, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese debt followed by a nightmare domino-effect sovereign debt collapse/national bankruptcies across the entire eurozone.

Gathering momentum
Zhejiang province has hit the ground running this year. Hong Kong-Zhejiang Week in January saw the province's party secretary and the deputy governor visiting the SAR for high-level talks on financial cooperation.

With ETFs, where does fund managers' alpha add value?
The trick is to add research and analysis in low-information markets. For the inexperienced investor, this might seem counter-intuitive, but here's a proposition that Barings CEO David Brennan would certainly support: that inefficient markets offer greater opportunity for single-house managers than efficient markets.

Buoyant zinc masks outlook
Improving steel consumption will buoy zinc over coming months, but the chances are high for a dip later in 2010 as producers prematurely restart idled capacity.

Spirit of endurance
Benjamin Hung Pi-cheng says he's more the sprinter type. But that certainly doesn't discourage the director and chief executive officer of Standard Chartered Bank (Hong Kong) from being passionate about the city's annual marathon, half-marathon and 10-kilometer races at the end of this month.

Crisis now history
The bears insist that the financial crisis is still not over, but I and many others believe it has already passed into history.

Bonds bounce back to give stocks a beating
For all the concern about budget deficits and the rising supply of debt, government bonds are the place to be so far in 2010, with returns topping equities and commodities by the most in 11 months.

Silver lining
A clear consensus about which commodity will top the performance charts this year is proving hard to call because of doubts about global economic prospects.

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