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Channel: Clusterstock
- Says It All: Asian Billionaires Nearly Doubled Last Year
More billionaire-porn from Forbes' rich list -- The number of Asian billionaires spiked to 234 people from just 130 the year before. Asia manufactures billionaires like no other region:
Money Control:
The combined wealth of Asian billionaires has also more than doubled to USD 729 billion compared with USD 357 billion a year ago. This rate of increase far outpaces that of European tycoons who saw their collective fortune rise by 50% while their US counterparts enjoyed only an 18% increase.
China and India doubled their billionaires in just one year:
Of the Asian economies, China continues to lead the pack by more than doubling its number of billionaires to 64 from 28 last year. India follows behind, increasing its billionaires to 49 from 24 previously. Third is Hong Kong with 25 billionaires, followed by 22 from Japan, 18 from Taiwan, 11 each from Australia and South Korea, nine from Malaysia, seven from Indonesia, five from Kazakhstan, four from Singapore, three each from New Zealand and Thailand, two from the Philippines, and one from Pakistan.
Moreover, Asia accounted for 62 of the world's 97 first-time billionaires. Asian billionaires now account for 23% of the Forbes rich list, up from 16% in 2008. The richest man in Asia is Mukesh Ambani, shown above. Join the conversation about this story » See Also:
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- Carlos Slim: You Fools Are Missing Out Big Time, Latin America Is Just About To Break The Development Barrier
Carlos Slim, a veritable Latin America tycoon, has beaten out America's own tycoon Warren Buffett, plus Bill Gates, to become the world's richest man.
Perhaps it is a sign of the times, whereby the wealthiest start to emerge from emerging economic regions, but some might have expected the richest man to emerge from Asia given all the hype around that region, right?
Rather, Latin America has built the wealthiest human fortune and its owner seems little surprised:
Forbes:
Slim is bullish on his region, hypothesizing that the great influx in wealth will elevate Latin America, pulling more people out of poverty.
Slim's bold prediction for the decade: "Latin America is close to breaking the underdevelopment barrier, of around $12,000 of income per capita. It seems to me that this should happen in the next 10 years."
He continues: "The developing countries in Latin America have available both internal and external financial resources, better terms of trade on their exports of primary goods and competitive advantages thanks to the availability and production of commodities, tourism and a modern industrial sector."
Few expect Latin America to outpace Asian GDP growth in the coming decades, but there will still be more than enough growth to make smart investors in the region remarkably wealthy. Join the conversation about this story » See Also:
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- The Ultimate Bellwether, FedEx, Is Not Sold On This Recovery (FDX)
Everyone knows that FedEx (FDX) is -- or at least is seen as -- the ultimate economic bellwether.
So anything the company says about the economy is a big deal.
FT:
The nascent US recovery could falter because businesses are still reluctant to invest in new equipment and technology, the head of global delivery and logistics company FedEx has warned.
“Business investment went up somewhat in the fourth quarter but is far below what it ought to be in a cyclical recovery like this,” Fred Smith, chairman and chief executive of FedEx, told the Financial Times.
FedEx earnings come out next week. Hopefully we'll learn more then. Join the conversation about this story » See Also:
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- Report: Lehman Brothers Used "Accounting Gimmick" To Hide The Size Of Its Balance Sheet
Lehman Brothers was cooking the books far more than we ever imagined, if the allegations of bankruptcy court examiner Anton Valukus can be trusted.
At the height of the financial crisis in 2008, Lehman used what Valukas describes as an "accounting gimmick" to make it appear as if it had off-loaded risky assets and reduced its balance sheet.
The gimmick was known inside of Lehman as a "Repo 105." In an ordinary repo transaction, Lehman would raise cash by selling assets with a promise to buy them back later. It's a common form of short-term financing. And because it was really a financing rather than a sale, the assets remained on Lehman's balance sheet.
But in a Repo 105, Lehman would treat the transaction as a genuine sale and take the risky assets off its books. Apparently, accounting rules permitted this because the assets valued at 105% or more of the cash recieved. Lehman never disclosed it was doing these transactions.
This was no small thing. In the first and second quarters of 2008, Lehman Brothers used the Repo 105 deals to reduce its balance sheet by $50 billion. That had a large and material effect on its leverage ratio, bringing it down from 13.9 to 12.1.
Here's perhaps the most damning quote from the report (via Michael Corkley at the WSJ):
“Lehman’s own accounting personnel described Repo 105 transactions as an “accounting gimmick” and a “lazy way of managing the balance sheet as opposed to legitimately meeting balance sheet targets at quarter end.” Lehman used Repo 105 “to reduce balance sheet at the quarter end.” In 2008, Lehman knew that net leverage numbers were critical to the rating agencies and to counterparty confidence. Its ability to deleverage by selling assets was severely limited by the illiquidity and depressed prices of the assets it had accumulated.”
Tyler Durden at Zero Hedge has a great discussion of the report, which runs over 2,000 pages.
It's useful to remember the context in which this book-cooking took place. At the time, Lehman was involved in a very public battle with David Einhorn. Einhorn had given a detailed analysis of Lehman at the Ira Sohn conference in May of 2008 that hammered Lehman for its "accounting ingenuity." (You can download a pdf of his presentation here. Months before that Einhorn made a less-damning presenation that argued that Lehman needed to delever and raise capital. As time went on his view of Lehman's health got more negative.)
As it turns out, Einhorn was underestimating how badly Lehman was manipulating its balance sheet. Join the conversation about this story » See Also:
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- New Mind-Reading Technology Is Great News For Insider Traders
Now inside traders don't have to worry about a paper trail: there's new mind-reading technology that might allow them to transfer thoughts without any proof whatsoever.
According to the AFP, a scan of brain activity can effectively read a person's mind, researchers said Thursday.
The new technology is in its very first stages.
In science-terms, researchers discovered that "traces of episodic memories are found in the brain, and are identifiable, even over many re-activations."
Basically, what researchers are now able to do is, for example, correctly predict which one (out of three) movies participants are thinking about, after the researchers first sat them down in front of the three movies and recorded their brain activity.
Still, if they wanted, we bet insider traders could made this technology work this in their favor pretty easily.
Here's how:
Step 1. Set source up to have his brain activity recorded
Step 2. Show source images of an assortment of stocks going both up and down
Step 3. Ask source to recall which is actually going to happen
Voila! Stress-free insider trading. It might even be legal.
Read more about the new mind reading technology on the AFP. Join the conversation about this story » See Also:
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- Engineers Warn UK May Run Out Of Power By 2020
- Merrill Lynch: Confessed Child Molester Is No Longer At The Company
- Is There A Deal In The Works For Gamestop?
When the rumor began circulating earlier this week that Gamestop might be an acquisition target, we initially were skeptical.
The stock rose 5.85% today. Volume on the options markets exploded. Even with Gamestop due to report earnings next week, this extraordinary activity seems to indicate that someone thinks there might be a deal in the works.
Now there’s a bit more evidence of a possible deal. We spoke to Gamestop’s M&A lawyers at Bryan Cave LLP today, and they were very busy. The secretaries of two different attorneys who have worked on Gamestop M&A deals in the past told us the attorney we were calling was on a conference call. The phones of five others went directly to voicemail.
One secretary put us on hold when we mentioned we were calling about “the Gamestop acquisition,” and it seemed from our conversation with her that she was familiar with a deal in progress.
So the entire Gamestop M&A deal team at Bryan Cave seems to have been on a conference call at the same time.
Of course, they could be working on a completely unrelated deal.
Eventually, a partner at Bryan Cave called us back. We asked him for a comment on the Gamestop acquisition.
“I cannot really comment on that,” he said.
Not a lot to go on, we know. But if you read between the lines, it is at least suggestive.
Join the conversation about this story » See Also:
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- The Hedge Fund Managers That Are Making A Killing On Citigroup Right Now (C)
Citigroup has had quite a run the last few days, from $3.50 on Friday to about $4.18.
So hedge fund managers, who made big bet on financials last quarter, are reaping the benefits right now.
Citi is making these guys even richer than they already are:
- Paulson upped his stake in Citigroup last quarter. Citigroup is now 8.47% of Paulson's total holdings.
- Eric Mindich's Eton Park had 4.5% of their fund invested in Citigroup.
- Soros had 3.5% of his fund invested in Citigroup.
- Citigroup was Dan Loeb's Third Point's second largest holding last quarter. Dan Loeb had 8.9% of his fund invested.
- David Tepper's Appaloosa was 19.2% invested in Citigroup.
(Stats based on the fund's 4th quarter 2009 13F reports.)
Look at this upward movement:
See the other big bets hedge funds are making right now. Join the conversation about this story » See Also:
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- The Sentiment Indicator That's Warning Of A Market Sell-Off
(This guest post originally appeared at the author's blog)
The warning flags continue to pop up all over the place and investors continue to run head first into stocks. None of the recent warning flags are as alarming as today’s huge spike in individual investor sentiment. Small investor bullishness surged to 45.3% versus last week as the market continues to melt higher. This has served as a fairly reliable contrarian indicator in the past as small investors tend to pile into stocks near the end of rallies.
Individual investor sentiment has reached levels that have historically been followed by very poor equity returns. A few of the notable periods when investor sentiment was this high include:
- A 50% reading prior to a 3 month 10% sell-off in Q2 2008
- A 45% reading prior to the 2008 market crash
- A 47% reading prior to the 20% sell-off to the March 2009 lows
- A 49% reading prior to the January 2010 sell-off
No indicator is perfect and this one has certainly been excessively bullish at points during the 2009 rally, but it confirms the growing bullish trend that we saw in yesterday’s Investors Intelligence poll where financial advisers increased bullishness to 44.9%. With institutional investors stacking up on the bullish side of the trade and now individual investors stacking up on the same side you just have to wonder – who is left to buy stocks? Better yet, who are they going to sell to?
Read more market commentary at The Pragmatic Capitalist > Join the conversation about this story » See Also:
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Channel: Yahoo! Finance: Top Stories
Channel: MSN Money Investing Ideas
- Is China actually bankrupt?
The nation has erected a complex system for magically making its debts disappear, but a look up China's sleeve shows that its IOUs may equal its GDP. More
- Still down? It may be time to take a loss
With a yearlong rally, it's time to admit some investments are losers, sell them and move along. Hanging on just to 'get even' can cost you dearly. More
- Amazon vs. Apple: Battle of the books
With its new iPad, Apple is taking aim at Amazon's core business and its Kindle book reader. Can the 'e-tail' pioneer keep up as books, music and movies go all-download? More
- Gates no longer world's richest man
Mexico's Carlos Slim Helú takes the No. 1 spot on Forbes' annual list of billionaires as the number of 10-figure titans swells to more than a thousand. More
- Buffett may be your best investment
A $10,000 stake in Berkshire Hathaway in 1964 would have grown to $80 million during the Oracle of Omaha's tenure. Indexes and mutual funds are far behind. More
- How to trade cold, hard cash
Traders are drawn to the foreign exchange market for its volatility and the opportunity to capitalize on rising and falling markets. Risk management techniques are essential. More
- Is your retirement fund leaking?
Frequent trading by fund managers can inflate costs that aren't reflected in the numbers most investors watch. That's money from your retirement kitty. More
- Why every nation cooks its books
As we see with Greece, lying can be a recipe for disaster. But for politicians, the advantages of deception far outweigh any rewards for honesty. (And are we ready for the bitter truth?) More
- 10 stocks to watch this week
Upscale apparel and shoe retailer Nordstrom appears on a MSN Money list of recommended stocks. Here are StockScouter's best investment ideas. More
- Foreign versions of our coming crisis
Greece and the United Kingdom are suffering a dire funding problem that is headed for US shores. More
Channel: Barron's This Week Magazine
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