allen hp

爱的面包

2012-02-13T20:41:00.000+08:00

Human Rights

2012-02-10T21:57:00.003+08:00

ECB's Draghi Says Greek Leaders Have Reached Deal

2012-02-09T23:02:00.001+08:00

Greek Politicians Reach Austerity Deal, Draghi Says

2012-02-09T23:00:00.000+08:00

Greek political leaders struck a deal on a package of austerity measures, clearing the way for a swap to cut the nation’s debt and win its second rescue in two years.

Greek Prime Minister Lucas Papademos called European Central Bank President Mario Draghi to tell him “an agreement has been reached,” Draghi said at a press conference today in Frankfurt. An announcement from Papademos’s office is expected shortly, a Greek government official who declined to be identified said today by telephone.

The accord came less than four hours before euro-region finance ministers hold an emergency meeting in Brussels to discuss the 130 billion-euro ($172 billion) lifeline and the swap that will impose a loss of about 70 percent for investors.

“Some key pieces are falling into place,” Holger Schmieding, chief economist at Berenberg Bank in London, said in an e-mailed note. “Barring any last minute hitch, Europe may soon have defused the Greek issue for a while.”

A Greek deal would reinforce the reduction of contagion risks as investors discriminate between “small countries with serious problems (Greece, Portugal) and much bigger countries with smaller problems (Italy, Spain),” Schmieding said.

Talks over austerity measure between Papademos, who is the interim prime minister, and the so-called troika -- the European Commission, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund -- had stalled over 300 million euros of pension cuts.

Creditors are meeting in Paris today over a deal in which they would accept an average coupon of as low as 3.6 percent on new 30-year bonds in the exchange. The aim of the transaction is to reduce the country’s debt burden to 120 percent of gross domestic product by 2020 from 160 percent last year.

A formal offer for the debt swap must be made by Feb. 13 to allow all procedures to be completed before the March 20 bond comes due. Parliament may be called to vote on the terms of the writedown on Feb. 12, state-runs Athens News Agency reported yesterday, without saying how it got the information.

source:bloomberg

You are my Baby

2012-02-09T13:30:00.001+08:00

Foursquare Founder

2012-02-09T08:29:00.002+08:00

Groupon fails to turn profit as revenue grows

2012-02-09T08:28:00.001+08:00

Daily deals site Groupon on Wednesday issued its first earnings report as a publicly traded company, saying it failed to turn a profit despite revenue nearly tripling from a year earlier.

Groupon fails to turn profit as revenue grows

Daily deals site Groupon on Wednesday issued its first earnings report as a publicly traded company, saying it failed to turn a profit despite revenue nearly tripling from a year earlier.

Groupon's stock price plunged more than 14 percent to $21 a share in after-hours trading that followed release of the earnings figures, which disappointed investors who had expected the young company to show a profit.

"Groupon had a strong fourth quarter and we finished 2011 having helped 250,000 local merchants across 47 countries grow their businesses while saving Groupon customers billions of dollars," said chief executive Andrew Mason.

"We will continue to invest in new services and tools that help our merchant partners be more successful and drive local commerce around the world," the Chicago-based company's co-founder added.

Groupon revenue climbed to $506.5 million, a 194 percent increase from the same quarter a year earlier.

The company had a net loss of $42.7 million as compared with a $378.6 million loss in the final three months of 2010. Groupon trimmed about $100 million from its loss figure in the prior quarter to end the year $350.85 million in the red.

Groupon said the profit miss resulted from an unexpectedly high overseas tax rate prompted by the opening of an international headquarters in Switzerland.

Investor chagrin was heightened by a forecast that Groupon revenue in the current quarter would rise only slightly in a possible sign that the daily deal craze may be ebbing.

Groupon shares were listed on the Nasdaq at $20 on November 4 in a blockbuster public offering that raised a whopping $700 million and triggered fears that investors may be foolishly overvaluing hot Internet startups.

Shares of the company soared as high as $31.14 on the first day of trading but they have lost ground since then.

Groupon, which rejected a $6 billion takeover offer from Google a year ago, has enjoyed phenomenal growth since its founding in 2008 but has been dogged by questions about its business model and accounting methods.

Groupon chief financial officer Jason Child predicted that the company would be profitable in all regions of operation "in the next year or two."

He said there were plans to roll the service out soon in more parts of Britain and the United States.

Groupon has more than a billion dollars in its coffers, due in large part to the success of the initial public offering, according to Child.

Mason opened an earnings call with analysts by saying Groupon had a "phenomenal year" and that "we are on the cusp of a sea change" in which technology will transform the way local commerce is conducted.

He touted the successes of a Christmas-themed promotion and said that more occasion-themed deals were in store. He added that an alliance with Expedia to offer travel deals under the banner of Groupon Getaways has been a hit.

"One thing that shocked us was the high percentage of purchases that came from mobile devices the weekend we launched Groupon Getaways," Mason said during the earnings call.

Groupon recently opened a Silicon Valley office and planned to "snap up" engineering talent as it invests in technology, according to the executives.

Mason closed his first quarterly earnings call with "This was a lot of fun; we look forward to many more of these."

India Forecasts Slowest Economic Growth Since ’09, Adding to Rate-Cut Case

2012-02-07T21:08:00.001+08:00

India’s government predicted the weakest economic expansion this year since 2009, adding pressure on the central bank to reduce interest rates.

Gross domestic product will probably rise 6.9 percent in the 12 months through March from a year earlier, the Central Statistical Office said in a statement in New Delhi today. The median of 15 estimates in a Bloomberg News survey was 7 percent. Asia’s third-largest economy expanded 8.4 percent in 2010-2011.

Growth has slowed after the Reserve Bank of India raised rates by a record amount from 2010 until October last year to fight price increases and as Europe’s debt crisis and policy gridlock deter investment. The central bank has signaled readiness to follow nations from Brazil to Indonesia in lowering borrowing costs if inflation eases further, saying the government can help by curbing the country’sbudget deficit.

“This number reaffirms the belief that growth drivers will remain subdued and suggests the RBI will cut rates in April,” said Radhika Rao, an economist at Forecast Pte in Singapore. “The reversal of RBI policy is on the way but will be guided by the fiscal deficit and the drop in inflation.”

The rupee, Asia’s worst performer last year with a 16 percent slide against the dollar, climbed 0.3 percent to 48.9875 per dollar as of 3:55 p.m. local time. The BSE India Sensitive Index closed down 0.5 percent. The yield on the 8.79 percent note due November 2021 was little changed at 8.19 percent.

Europe’s Impact

Asia-Pacific officials are striving to weather the impact of Europe’s debt turmoil on global growth. Expansion has eased in countries from China to South Korea, prompting central banks to cut rates or leave them unchanged. Australia today left borrowing costs on hold after two reductions last year.

Indian manufacturing may rise 3.9 percent in the current fiscal year, compared with 7.6 percent in 2010-2011, today’s report showed. Farm output may gain 2.5 percent and mining could fall 2.2 percent, according to the estimates.

India’s inflation in December remained the fastest in the so-called BRIC group that also includes Brazil, Russia and China.

The Reserve Bank on Jan. 24 cut the amount of deposits lenders need to set aside as reserves for the first time since 2009, seeking to ease a cash squeeze. It also said inflationary threats, including the budget deficit and the slide in the rupee, made it “premature” to start reducing rates.

Budget Deficit

At the same time, the monetary authority reinforced guidance that future rate actions “will be towards lowering them.” It kept the repurchase rate at 8.5 percent for a second month in January, following 375 basis points of increases in 13 moves from mid-March 2010.

The government is struggling to curb India’s budget deficit as a slowing economy hurts tax receipts and subsidies spur spending. The gap reached 92.3 percent of the fiscal-year target in the nine months through December. Standard Chartered Plc has predicted India will miss its goal of lowering the shortfall to 4.6 percent of gross domestic product by March.

The next budget will be presented on March 16, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal said in New Delhi today. The fiscal gap may reach 5.9 percent of GDP in 2011-2012 and reducing it requires spending cuts, said Suvodeep Rakshit, an economist at Kotak Securities Ltd. in Mumbai.

The South Asian nation is selling more debt after a slump of almost 25 percent in the stock market last year forced state- owned companies such as Oil & Natural Gas Corp. to delay share sales. The government has raised 11.4 billion rupees ($233 million) from asset sales compared with a target of 400 billion rupees by March 31.

‘Reforms’ Needed

“What India needs is a furthering of reforms to expand the capacity of the economy,” said Amol Agrawal, a Mumbai-based economist at STCI Primary Dealer Ltd. “Corruption charges and the reversal of policy initiatives have taken a toll.”

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s government is under pressure to revive a legislative agenda derailed by claims of graft and stalled moves to spur investment. The government in December suspended its decision to allow foreign retailers such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc. to open supermarkets following protests.

Singh is trying to preserve an economic turnaround that began in the 1990s, when as finance minister he helped engineer a shift toward free-market policies. Once the global economy stabilizes, India will return to 8.5 percent to 9 percent trend growth, he said in an interview in December.

“Concerns remain about the current political environment as both policy formulation and implementation have been hit,” said Anubhuti Sahay, a Mumbai-based economist at Standard Chartered. “There is an urgent need to revive the economy.”

Heartbreaker

2012-02-07T11:05:00.000+08:00

Hakka CNY clip ala LMFAO goes viral online

2012-02-05T20:38:00.000+08:00

A Sabah-made Chinese New Year video greeting in Hakka is the latest clip to have gone viral with close to 300,000 views within 10 days.

Photographer-cum-artistic dance assistant Skyler Liew, 30, who directed the music video, posted the 3.35-minute clip on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNWud5N2aRE&feature=youtu.be) on Chinese New Year midnight, without any expectation.

“I was surprised it became so popular. The music video was nothing serious as we did it for fun and for the sake of making people (Malaysians overseas) feel at home,” he said.

Using dancers from the Synergy Dance Studio here, owned by his brother Christopher, and shot using a Pentax DSLR camera, the video was filmed at various locations around the city a day before Chinese New Year.

Cool bunch: The Synergy Dance Studio group led by Chong (centre) during the filming of the video clip.

The music video featured nine people including a 13-year-old boy, donning white singlets, blue jeans, black boots and sunglasses, dancing to a parody of the American electro pop duo LMFAOs song and video, Sexy and I Know It.

The tune was sung in Hakka by the main singer in the clip Helmsly Chong Jin Fu, 21.

Skyler got the idea for the clip after hearing Chong singing the song in Hakka in his car.

Christopher, 30, who choreographed the dance with Skyler, believes the video was a hit because it connected with Malaysians, especially those who spoke Hakka.

Skyler said he received calls from Malaysians living in the United States and Britain, congratulating and thanking him for the short video.

Enjoy the video

CNY Finale

2012-02-05T13:43:00.002+08:00

CNY Finale

Euro zone loses patience with Greece

2012-02-05T12:57:00.001+08:00

Euro zone loses patience with Greece

February 05, 2012

BRUSSELS, Feb 5 — Euro zone finance ministers told Greece yesterday it could not go ahead with an agreed deal to restructure privately-held debt until it guaranteed it would implement reforms needed to secure a second financing package from the euro zone and the IMF.

Euro zone ministers had hoped to meet tomorrow to finalise the second Greek bailout, which has to be in place by mid-March if Athens is to avoid a chaotic default. But the meeting was postponed because of Greek reluctance to commit to reforms.

Instead, the ministers held a conference call yesterday to take stock of progress on the second financing package, which euro zone leaders set at €130 billion (RM514 billion) back in October.

“There was a very clear message that was conveyed from all participants of the teleconference ... to the Greeks that enough is enough,” one euro zone official said. “There is a great sense of frustration that they are dragging their feet.

“They should get their act together and start talking honestly, decisively and speedily with the Troika on the aspects of the programme that remain to be finalised — on fiscal and labour market reforms,” the official said.

The Troika are the representatives of the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund, who have prepared a Greek debt sustainability analysis on which the second financing programme will be based.

“The main issue is the lack of reform, or prior action, in Greece,” a second euro zone official said.

Euro zone ministers were also dissatisfied with Greek Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos because they believed the minister was paying more attention to his position within his party ahead of the April elections, than to talks about reforms.

“There is a great sense of frustration with Minister Venizelos, who is very hard to get hold of because he is very busy campaigning for the leadership of (the Greek party) PASOK, so he is not available to meet with Troika members,” the first official said.

“He is preparing his own political future, rather than the future of his country. People are seriously disgruntled about that and have conveyed this very clearly to him this afternoon,” the official said.

“There is an increasing sense of frustration that why should we honour our part of the bargain, which we have in the past, while Greece does not seem to care that much, and has not delivered their part of the bargain,” the official said.

Athens admits to tough talks

In Athens, Venizelos admitted to a growing sense of impatience with the Greeks.

“There is great impatience and great pressure not only from the three institutions that make up the troika but also from euro zone member states,” Venizelos said after what he called a “very difficult” conference call with euro zone counterparts.

“The moment is very crucial. Everything should be concluded by tomorrow night.”

Jean-Claude Juncker, who chairs the Eurogroup of euro zone finance ministers, voiced the possibility of default.

“If we were to establish that everything has gone wrong in Greece, there would be no new programme, and that would mean that in March they have to declare bankruptcy,” he said in advance copy of comments to news weekly Der Spiegel.

Greece has secured a debt restructuring deal with private creditors to halve the value of Greek debt in nominal terms and in exchange receive new, 30 year bonds with an average coupon below 4 per cent, officials said.

The restructuring is to help make Greek debt sustainable by cutting it to 120 per cent of GDP in 2020 from 160 per cent now.

But euro zone governments will only agree to bolster the debt restructuring, called private sector involvement (PSI), with €30 billion and further finance the Greek government through 2014 if Athens presses on with lagging reforms.

“The message to Greece now is very clear. The PSI as it stands now is broadly OK but we will not allow you to go ahead with the PSI unless we have guarantees that the rest of the reform to make the whole situation sustainable in the long run will be delivered,” the first official said.

“We don’t want to give them the PSI, because once we do, we surrender our leverage to obtain any more concrete commitments in terms of policy,” the official said. “Before we go ahead with the PSI ... we want to have assurances that Greece is actually capable of implementing the second programme.”

Debt restructuring is likely to hit Greek banks harder than others, because they hold a lot of Greek government bonds.

Some EU officials said on Friday that euro zone governments may now have to contribute closer to €145 billion than the originally envisaged 130 billion to the second financing package to help recapitalise Greek banks after the bond swap.

But there is strong resistance to that idea from several countries, including paymaster Germany.

“It is highly unlikely that the overall envelope will increase,” the second official said.

“In some capitals there is absolutely no appetite whatsoever to reopen the size of the financing package,” the first official said.

Who pays?

Investors and some EU officials have suggested that any additional money needed to make Greek debt sustainable could come from the ECB, which holds a portfolio of around €40-€50 billion worth of Greek paper.

The issue was not discussed at yesterday’s call, however.

“This is off the table now. Everybody is saying now that before we can start discussing what the public sector can do, should do or may do, let’s talk to the Greeks about what they are prepared to do,” the first official said.

“If the Greeks don’t start delivering, the question of Official Sector Involvement (OSI) is superfluous.”

International lenders to Greece would like to see a lower minimum wage, the removal of the 13th and 14th month “bonus” salary and the liberalisation of labour markets - issues that are politically difficult for Greek parties before the April elections.

“We hope that over the next 12-24-48 hours they will get their act together and ... discuss these matters very urgently with the Troika,” the first official said.

Euro zone officials said that Greece, betting that the euro zone would not allow a disorderly default because of the possible repercussions across the 17-country single currency bloc, was playing a dangerous game.

“They think, that we think that the unthinkable cannot be thought. But they better think again,” the first official said.

The euro zone expects Greek politicians to come up with a consensus on reforms by tomorrow, but a letter committing to reforms from political parties may not be enough at this stage, the official said.

“We don’t care so much about signed letters by now, we want a clear timetable for legislative action, we would expect them to put it in legislation and pass it possibly before the end of February or in early March — that is the best guarantee — better than any signature,” the first official said. — Reuters

Italian Bonds Tumble As Greece Talks Drag On; Bunds Decline on U.S. Jobs

2012-02-04T22:09:00.001+08:00

talian 10-year bonds rose for a fourth week, the longest run in two years, as optimism that extra funds provided by the European Central Bank are helping contain the debt crisis spurred demand for the region’s assets.

French bonds advanced for a second week, narrowing the extra yieldover similar-maturity German bunds to less than 100 basis points after borrowing costs fell at an auction on Feb. 2. Greece’s bonds declined as the nation struggled to reach accords with European officials and its creditors needed to win a second rescue package. German bunds fell as signs global economic growth is improving damped demand for safer assets.

“There’s been an improvement in risk appetite, clearly supporting peripherals, and I expect that improved sentiment will continue near term,” said Nick Stamenkovic, a fixed-income strategist at RIA Capital Markets Ltd. in Edinburgh. “The ECB- induced improvement in liquidity definitely helps, and that has encouraged some banks to use that funding to buy some peripheral bonds. We had auctions in France, which saw particularly good demand.”

Italy’s 10-year yield declined 20 basis points in the week to 5.7 percent at 4:19 p.m. London time yesterday when it fell 5.54 percent, the lowest since Oct. 10. The 5 percent bond maturing in March 2022 rose 1.43, or 14.30 euros per 1,000-euro ($1,311) face amount, to 95.285. Two-year yields fell 53 basis points to 3.03 percent.

ECB Funds

Spanish and Italian bonds have rallied since the European Central Bank provided unlimited three-year cash to the region’s financial institutions in December to avoid a credit crunch.

Spain’s 10-year yields have fallen about 1.8 percentage points from a euro-era high in November amid speculation banks are buying the securities to use as collateral with the ECB under the program, known as the longer-term refinancing operation. The central bank will offer another set of the loans this month.

French borrowing costs fell at a sale of benchmark 10-year debt on Feb. 2. The nation sold 5.698 billion euros of bonds at an average yield of 3.13 percent, compared with 3.29 percent at the previous auction of the maturity on Jan. 5.

The spread between French and German 10-year yields shrank to as little as 94 basis points yesterday, dropping below 100 basis points for the first time since Dec. 6. French 10-year bond yields dropped 13 basis points this week to 2.91 percent.

Final Stretch

Greece’s two-year yields jumped 6.12 percentage points over the week to 177.4 percent, pushing the price down to 22.28 percent of face value.

Greek Prime Minister Lucas Papademos said the country is in the final stretch of negotiations for a second financing program that will place the economy on a sounder footing.

Germany is next week scheduled to sell 4 billion euros of 0.75 percent bonds maturing in 2017. Belgium also plans to auction bonds, while France, the Netherlands and Greece will sell bills.

Italian bonds have handed investors a gain of 8.1 percent this year, according to indexes compiled by the European Federation of Financial Analysts Societies and Bloomberg. German bunds have returned 0.1 percent, French debt has risen 1.4 percent and Greece’s gained 0.8 percent.

Euro Declines as Greek Debt Stalemate Increases European Crisis Concern

2012-02-04T22:08:00.000+08:00

The euro fell against the yen, dropping from a one-month high, as an unresolved Greek debt-swap agreement with private bondholders added to concern the region’s fiscal crisis is far from over.

The 17-nation currency dropped against all of its most- traded counterparts except for the Swiss franc, which declined after touching the highest level since the central bank acted in September to stem gains. The yen rose to almost a record against the U.S. dollar, leading to speculation Japan may intervene. South Africa’s rand and Mexico’s peso led gains after the U.S. jobless rate dropped. The European Central Bank is forecast to keep rates unchanged when it meets next week.

“The market is short euros and is likely to become increasingly short euros as the final decision about Greece is contemplated,” said Michael Woolfolk, senior currency strategist in New York at Bank of New York Mellon Corp., the world’s largest custodial bank. “This employment report has garnered a lot of attention on behalf of international investors, and it’ll be interesting to see if we see a carry- through rally next week.” A short position is a bet a currency will depreciate.

The euro dropped 0.6 percent to 100.79 yen after touching 102.21 on Jan. 26, the highest level since Dec. 23. The shared currency fell 0.5 percent to $1.3158. The yen appreciated 0.1 percent to 76.60 per dollar and reached 76.03 Feb. 1, the strongest level since reaching a post-World War II high of 75.35 Oct. 31.

The rand added 3.1 percent to 7.5218 per dollar in the biggest weekly gain against the greenback among the 16 major currencies tracked by Bloomberg. The peso rallied 2 percent to 12.6596, extending its gain against the dollar this year to 10.1 percent.

‘Uncertainty in Greece’

The euro dropped as leaders failed to reach an agreement with Greek bondholders on a restructuring of the nation’s debt. The deal is part of a second bailout that Greece and European officials have been attempting to finalize since July.

“The continuing uncertainty in Greece has contributed to a slightly weaker euro this week,” said Michael Derks, chief strategist at broker FXPro Financial Services Ltd. in London.

The ECB was considering using its bond holdings to bolster Greece’s next rescue program and support efforts to contain the sovereign-debt crisis, according to three euro-region officials.

The central bank meets Feb. 9 and will keep rates at 1 percent, according to the median estimate of 57 economists in a Bloomberg survey. The ECB cut rates twice, in November and December, and will auction unlimited three-year loans Feb. 29, after lending banks 489 billion euros ($642 billion) of them Dec. 21.

Net Shorts

Futures traders decreased bets the euro will fall versus the dollar, so-called net shorts, after increasing them for five straight weeks to a record last week. The difference between wagers that the shared currency will weaken versus those that it will rise narrowed to 157,546 on Jan. 31, data from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission showed yesterday.

U.S. nonfarm payrolls rose by 243,000, after a revised 203,000 gain in December, the Labor Department reported yesterday in Washington. The unemployment rate fell to 8.3 percent.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said Feb. 2, in testimony to the House Budget Committee in Washington, that the economy has shown “signs of improvement” while remaining vulnerable to shocks.

The dollar has gained 6.2 percent over the past six months, the best performance among the 10 developed-nation currencies tracked by Bloomberg Correlation-Weighted Indexes. The euro dropped 3 percent and the yen strengthened 5.1 percent.

Swiss Franc

The Swiss franc reached 1.02319 against the euro Feb. 1, the strongest level since September, when the Swiss National Bank said it would cap the franc at 1.20 per euro after it touched a euro-era record 1.00749 in August.

The franc fell 0.1 percent to 1.20838 per euro.

The Canadian currency appreciated even after the nation’s unemployment rate increased. The loonie rose 0.8 percent to 99.34 Canadian cents per U.S. dollar after yesterday touching 99.28 cents, the strongest since Oct. 31.

The nation’s jobless rate rose to 7.6 percent from 7.5 percent as employment increased by 2,300 last month, Statistics Canada said yesterday. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg News had forecast unemployment to stay at 7.5 percent and 22,000 jobs to be added.

Japan’s Finance Minister Jun Azumi has said he will take decisive steps against one-sided moves in the yen if needed. The currency’s level doesn’t reflect economic fundamentals, and falling U.S. interest rates are increasing speculative yen buying, he told reporters in Tokyo. Japan sold yen on Oct. 31 on concern its advance to a record would hurt exporters.

The yen dropped yesterday after the U.S. unemployment data damped speculation the Fed will add another round of asset purchases to spur growth.

“The pressure to intervene in the yen is receding with each rally in dollar-yen,” said Kathy Lien, director of currency research at the online trading firm GFT Forex in New York.

Reference www.bloomberg.com

COME O.N.!

2012-02-02T23:50:00.004+08:00

Quotes that create whiny bitches in everywhere

Facebook Files to Raise $5B in Biggest Internet IPO

2012-02-02T12:18:00.001+08:00

Facebook Inc. (FB), the social-networking website that in eight years changed the way the world communicates, filed to raise $5 billion in the largest Internet initial public offering on record.

Facebook, whose meteoric rise spawned an Oscar-winning film and captivated Wall Street, today named Morgan Stanley as the lead underwriter on the IPO, while reporting a 24-fold increase in sales over the past four years to $3.71 billion in 2011.

The planned IPO dwarfs Google Inc. (GOOG)’s 2004 offering and tests whether social-networking providers deserve valuations that surpass such established companies as International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) and Procter & Gamble Co. The Menlo Park, California-based company is considering a valuation of $75 billion to $100 billion, two people with knowledge of the matter said last week.

“The $100 billion valuation that’s being tossed around just puts it at a level we’ve never seen,” said Jeffrey Sica, chief investment officer of Morristown, New Jersey-based Sica Wealth Management LLC, which oversees $1 billion. “They have to be able to show that not only do they deserve to be at that level, but they have multiple channels to create new revenue.”

Sales Surge

Co-founded in 2004 by then 19-year-old Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook has grown into the world’s dominant social-networking site, squelching competitors such as MySpace Inc. with its more than 800 million users. While Facebook’s sales almost doubled last year, the company faces increasing competition from rivals such as Google, which debuted its own social-networking service last year, and short-message social site Twitter Inc., the filing shows.

A $100 billion market capitalization would value Facebook at 26.9 times trailing 12-month sales, more than double Google’s valuation when the search-engine operator went public in 2004. Facebook recruited Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg, a former Google executive, in 2008 to help expand the company globally.

Facebook didn’t specify the number or price of shares it will offer, and the $5 billion amount is a placeholder used to calculate fees and may change. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s public website suffered a slowdown today as traffic surged, forcing the agency to bring on additional capacity, according to spokesman John Nester.

Facebook Bankers

The stock would trade under the symbol FB on either the Nasdaq Stock Market or the New York Stock Exchange. The company plans to use the proceeds for working capital and other general corporate purposes.

In addition to Morgan Stanley, Facebook hired JPMorgan Chase & Co., Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Bank of America Corp., Barclays Plc and Allen & Co. to manage the IPO.

Net income last year surged by almost two-thirds to $1 billion, the filing showed. Last year, Facebook said it expects U.S. regulators to require that it disclose financial results by April 30, 2012, if the company hadn’t gone public by then. Facebook decided to wait until 2012 for its IPO to give Chief Executive Officer Zuckerberg more time to gain users and boost sales, people familiar with the matter said in 2010.

Zuckerberg, 27, is the company’s top holder with 28.4 percent of the shares, the filing shows. He also has proxy agreements with fellow stockholders that potentially give him voting control over more than half the shares.

Facebook Backers

Accel Partners remains the top outside stakeholder with 11.4 percent of the investor votes, while Dustin Moskovitz, one of Zuckerberg’s co-founders, holds 7.6 percent voting power.

Facebook would follow a crop of social-media companies that went public in 2011, the biggest year for U.S. Internet IPOs in more than a decade, according to Bloomberg data. Nineteen companies raised $6.6 billion in 2011, the most since 101 raised $11 billion in 2000, the data show. Professional-networking site LinkedIn Corp. (LNKD), music-streaming service Pandora Media Inc., daily-deal site Groupon Inc. and social-gaming company Zynga Inc. all sold shares last year.

In outlining its potential risks in the filing, Facebook cited hacker attacks, regulatory scrutiny, a shift to mobile technology and rivals such as Google+. The company also said it would face competition in China if it manages to gain access to that market, where its site is currently blocked.

Mobile Technology

Facebook is increasing its focus on mobile technology to take advantage of the shift to smartphones and tablets. It expects its next 1 billion users to come mainly from mobile devices, rather than desktop computers.

The company made at least 10 acquisitions in 2011, including group-messaging service Beluga in March. In addition to buying startups, Facebook has enabled hundreds of others to get off the ground by offering an easy, cheap and fast way for them to reach millions of potential customers, said Shervin Pishevar, a managing director at Menlo Ventures in Menlo Park, California.

“There will be a lot of $1 billion-plus companies built on these platforms,” said Pishevar, who owns Facebook shares.

Venture firm Accel Partners first led a $12.7 million investment in Facebook in 2005. Other investors include Microsoft Corp. and PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel, as well as Greylock Partners.

Top Investors

As the site’s popularity grew, banks, hedge funds and mutual fund companies started buying stock. In January 2011, Facebook said it raised $1.5 billion in a financing round led by Goldman Sachs Group Inc. that valued the company at $50 billion. Goldman Sachs, funds managed by the firm, and Digital Sky Technologies bought $500 million of stock, while Goldman Sachs offered $1 billion of shares to non-U.S. clients.

While Facebook has steadily added users since its creation, it has faced increased scrutiny over its protection of user data. In November, the company agreed to settle privacy complaints with the Federal Trade Commission. The move may help allay criticism that it doesn’t do enough to shield the information it prods users into sharing.

Reference : www.bloomberg.com

What is free in this world?

2012-02-02T09:41:00.001+08:00

Happiness is free if you want it to be !

Enjoy the music

H.A.P

I believe ,Do you!?

2012-02-01T20:58:00.000+08:00

New Year , New Aim

2012-01-31T23:54:00.003+08:00

The worship

The 9th day of Lunar Chinese New Year has flied like blink of eyes.Hereby, genuine wishing everyone has more prosperity year ahead. In spite of rambling around without any goals, we should be guided by our intuition to defeat the hurdle

Greece, Bankers Expect Debt-Swap Deal Next Week

2012-01-29T12:03:00.001+08:00

Greece and its private creditors said they expect to complete a debt-swap accord in the coming week, after bondholders signaled they would accept European government demands for lower interest rates.

The sides are “close” to completing a voluntary exchange within a framework outlined by Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean- Claude Juncker, the Institute of International Finance, negotiating on behalf of private creditors, said in an e-mailed statement in Athens today.

Creditors are prepared to accept an average coupon of as low as 3.6 percent on new 30-year bonds, said a person familiar with the talks, who declined to be identified because a final deal hasn’t been struck yet.

Juncker, who also leads the group of euro-area finance ministers, said Jan. 24 that bonds issued in the swap should have a coupon “well below” 3.5 percent for the period to 2020 and below 4 percent over the 30 years. As recently as Jan. 23, private investors wanted the new 30-year bonds to have an average coupon of about 4.25 percent, two people familiar with the talks said then. That offer equated to a loss of about 69 percent on the net-present value of Greek debt.

Bondholders agreed with European officials three months ago to implement a 50 percent cut in the face value of more than 200 billion euros ($263 billion) of debt by voluntarily swapping bonds for new securities. A worsening economy since then has made it more difficult to achieve a goal of cutting Greece’s debt to 120 percent of gross domestic product by 2020.

‘Further Progress’

An accord with bondholders is tied to a 130 billion-euro, second bailout from Greece’s European partners and the International Monetary Fundfor the country, which faces a 14.5 billion-euro bond payment March 20.

“Further progress was made, building on the understandings reached Jan. 27 on the key legal and technical issues,” the IIF said in its statement today.

It said it expects the deal to be finished in the new week “as discussions on other matters move forward,” in a reference to Greek government talks with the so-called Troika of the European Union, the IMF and the European Central Bank about steps required for the disbursement of the second bailout.

Private investors hold about 60 percent of Greece’s 350 billion euros of debt. The IIF is an industry group with more than 450 members.

Structural, Pension Changes

Greek Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos separately said today a final debt-swap pact will be concluded in the new week.

The next several days will shape Greece for the next decade, Venizelos said. In addition to the debt swap, “We have labor, structural reforms and pension issues to resolve,” he told reporters in Athens today after meeting with troika officials. “There must be a national pact forged with unions and employers,” he said.

Tomorrow, Jan. 29, Prime Minister Lucas Papademos is scheduled to meet the leaders of Greece’s political parties to discuss the second bailout, ahead of a summit of European Union leaders in Brussels on Jan. 30.

Greece now requires 145 billion euros for the second bailout, 15 billion euros more than was agreed in October, Der Spiegel reported today, citing an unidentified official from the troika in Greece.

IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde told Bloomberg Television yesterday in Davos,Switzerland, that Greece needs to make more headway in overhauling its economy.

Budget Oversight

“We’re not terribly positive about what has been done, but we want to put together a program for the country,” she said. “The country itself has to provide the adjustment.”

As a possible condition of the bailout, European policy makers are discussing plans to directly intervene in Greek budget decisions as the country struggles to cut its deficit, two euro-region government officials said today.

Under the proposal, European institutions would have powers to implement austerity measures agreed under the terms of Greece’s bailouts, said one of the officials, who declined to be identified because the talks are confidential. The plan would accelerate decision making and strengthen the power of troika officials overseeing Greece’s budget, the person said.

The Greek government rejects the plan because it’s contrary to national sovereignty, a Greek official said today. A German finance ministry spokesman declined to comment. The French finance ministry didn’t immediately return a call seeking comment.

Following a report in the Financial Times today that Germany is proposing the creation of a commissioner with the power to veto budget decisions by Greece, the European Commission said that executive tasks must remain the full responsibility of the Greek government.

“That responsibility lies on their shoulders and it must remain so,” commission economics spokesman Amadeu Altafaj said in an e-mailed statement today.

It also said, “The commission is committed to further reinforce its monitoring capacity and is currently developing its capacity on the ground.”

To contact the reporters on this story: Marcus Bensasson in Athens at

The Slum-dog Cage People of Hong Kong

2012-01-29T11:17:00.004+08:00

Hong Kong, one of the world's richest cities, is abuzz with a luxury property boom that has seen homes exchanged for record sums. But the wealth of the city has a darker side, with tens of thousands priced out of housing altogether and forced to live in the most degrading conditions. These pictures by British photographer Brian Cassey capture the misery of people - some estimates put the figure as high as 100,000 - who are forced to live in cages measuring just 6ft by 2 1/2ft.

The city is one of the planet's most densely packed metropolitan areas, with nearly 16,500 people living in every square mile of the territory. Unscrupulous landlords are charging around US$200 a month for each cage, which are packed 20 to a room, and up to three levels high.

Occupants must share toilets and washing facilities, which are rudimentary. Many of the apartments have no kitchens, forcing their impoverished residents to spend there meagre incomes on takeaway food. The cage homes have been a running scandal in Hong Kong's housing market for decades, yet rather than disappear, they are on the rise.As the world economic crisis has lashed the city a former British territory whose economy is focused on financial services, more have been forced to turn to them for a place to stay.The alternative is life on the streets.

One cage dweller, Cheung, who lives in Sham Shui Po, told the Asia Times Online he endures appallingly cramped and fetid conditions. 'The temperature inside the cages can be two to three degrees higher than what they are outside,' he said. 'It's really uncomfortable, and sometimes I cannot sleep until after 5 in the morning.'Cockroaches, wall lizards, lice and rats are common. 'Sometimes I am worried if lizards or cockroaches will crawl into my ears at night,' said Cheung.

沒時間後悔

2012-01-28T11:35:00.001+08:00

Five Steps To Financial Freedom Step 1 – Boost Your Active Income

2012-01-27T21:35:00.001+08:00

Active Income is simply income you generate by trading your time and effort for money. For more on Active Income, read Passive Income vs. Active Income. The most basic Active Income everybody has is a job. Assuming that you don’t have a wealthy family or a huge amount of inheritance, all of us have to work for our money initially. Now, the key here is to maximize your Active Income. How do I do that? Here are a couple of suggestions.

Work Harder on Your Career and Continuously Upgrade Yourself
Figure out where your career is going and how you can further improve in the climb up the ladder. All Companies want individuals who are willing to step up and contribute without being asked to. Show the initiative and work hard to prove yourself to the Company that you are ready for higher responsibilities. By doing so, you will eventually get recognized and be promoted, raising your salary packages and more. It is also necessary to continue upgrading yourself, be in taking new courses, getting an MBA, getting a CFA, picking up books on the industry and management. Learning never ends.

MaMake Sure You Are Paid Top Dollar for Your Job
There are a lot of people who for some reason choose to settle for a job less than what they are capable of. Either that or they choose to accept a salary package which works out to be a lot less than market rate. If you fall into that category, chances are you are probably working too hard and not get paid enough. All of us who come out to a job market should expect to get paid at least market rate for our productivity, otherwise it’s doing injustice to oneself. One of the first ways to figure that out is to look for job surveys published by recruitment agencies and job classifieds such as Jobstreet.com. They normally have ake Sure You Are Paid Top Dollar for Your Jobpay scale varied by industry and position level. Make sure your pay scale is at least in the middle tier or top tier. If you are not, you should start looking for a new job. At the same time, give your current Company a chance to raise your salary package by having a heart to heart talk with your current boss. However, make sure you are a valuable employee first before having that talk; you should know your contribution to the firm very well.

Get a Job with a Variable Package as Opposed to Fixed Package
A well designed salary package is often based on variable factors as opposed to a fixed salary. A good management knows that by tying rewards to contributions, employees are well incentivized to work harder. Similarly, you can try to get a job with a variable package such as sales, work really hard every month and you will see your rewards very quickly in terms of higher commissions and so on. Even if you are a manager on a fixed salary, discuss with your employer to see if they can tweak the salary package to one which is of lower basic but higher overriding or profit shared incentive. So when your division does well by having good profits, you get a higher compensation package as well, making it a win win situation.

Get a Part Time Job
This is a very practical solution for the young people who have a 9-5 job and don’t work weekends. There are many options here, depending on your education level, skill level and age. It can be as simple as working part time in a restaurant, retail shop or so on. Some of the more lucrative part time jobs include Insurance Agent and Real Estate Agent. However, being in the insurance or real estate industry is not simple. They are usually commissioned based and may require a huge commitment in terms of time and effort. Another very popular part time job these days is the tuition teacher. Parents are obsessed with their kids’ education from a young age and are willing to pay any undergraduate a decent sum to tutor their kids.

Freelance with Your Skills
There are some skills which are very sellable in the freelancing market. Such skills include web design skills, photography, graphic design, interior design and so on. There are always jobs out there which prefer to look for a freelancer instead of a full service firm due to costs, flexibility and so on. Many jobs are usually based on referral, so it is very important to treat every job seriously and perform them with utmost responsibility. There are many designers who get so much business from freelancing that they eventually quit their jobs to focus on their own business.

IMF Warns that Europe Poses Global Recession Threat

2012-01-26T11:31:00.001+08:00

I did it my way

2012-01-26T00:22:00.005+08:00

After months of working hard, I cultivate the habit of reading news everyday

Obama calls for higher tax pays

2012-01-26T00:16:00.001+08:00

President Barack Obama, offering an election-year prescription to spur the economy, said the wealthiest Americans should pay more taxes in the name of fairness, to bring down the deficit and ensure those trying to make ends meet don’t have to “make up the difference.”

In his State of the Union address last night, Obama called on Congress to embrace a tax plan named for billionaire Warren Buffett that would require those making $1 million or more pay at least 30 percent in taxes. With congressional gridlock heightened by the 2012 election, there is little chance the proposal will pass.

“You can call this class warfare all you want,” Obama said in a nationally televised speech before a joint session of Congress. “But asking a billionaire to pay at least as much as his secretary in taxes? Most Americans would call that common sense.”

The president’s 65-minute address was directed at both voters and Congress. The populist themes -- tax fairness, help for homeowners, cracking down on U.S. financial crimes and unfair trade practices in China and investigating the lending practices that preceded the housing crisis -- are those he will be repeating as he campaigns for a second term.

He invoked the teamwork and selflessness of the U.S. armed forces to urge lawmakers toward agreement on changing the tax code for individuals and corporations, promoting energy development and improving job training and education. Still, he is unlikely to get any major legislation through Congress before the November election, which will also decide control of the House and Senate.

Spending Constraints

He is also constrained on spending for proposals such as infrastructure projects by efforts to contain the national debt. Last year’s deficit of $1.3 trillion was third-highest as a share of the economy since 1945.

In the Republican response, Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels, who last year decided against a presidential run, said Democratic “extremism” has stifled domestic energy development and job growth.

“No feature of the Obama presidency has been sadder than its constant efforts to divide us, to curry favor with some Americans by castigating others,” Daniels said.

Former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who is vying with former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney for the lead in the Republican race, said in an e-mailed statement that Obama “described his conviction that his big government is built to last and should be paid for with higher taxes.”

Battleground States

Obama takes his case to voters today, beginning a three-day trip to election battleground states where he will talk about his initiatives on manufacturing, energy and education. With the presidential campaign under way, Obama is drawing contrasts with the Republican presidential candidates. He is also highlighting a willingness to confront congressional Republicans who have stalled his agenda and seek to overturn tougher regulation of Wall Street.

While saying he “will work with anyone in this chamber” to accelerate the economic recovery, “I intend to fight obstruction with action, and I will oppose any effort to return to the very same policies that brought on this economic crisis in the first place.”

Some Republicans said they found things to like in Obama’s address. Representative Jeff Flake of Arizona said he supports Obama’s call for additional power to consolidate federal agencies.

“We ought to see what we can give him and if he’s willing to use it to streamline government, to make it more efficient, to downsize, then I’m all for it,” Flake said.

Common Ground

Senator Rob Portman, an Ohio Republican, said there are “four or five things” to like in the speech, including calling for an overhaul of the corporate tax code and tougher enforcement of international trade rules.

Obama’s call for a minimum tax for million-dollar earners drew opposition. Portman said that, while he agrees the tax code should be fair, “It’s not about taxing wealthy people.”

Representative Jeb Hensarling, a Texas Republican, rejected the proposal. “We’re going to increase taxes on people in this economy?” he asked.

Obama argued that making sure that millionaires pay at least the same percentage in taxes as middle-income Americans is part of making sure “everyone gets a fair shot, and everyone does their fair share.”

“Because of loopholes and shelters in the tax code, a quarter of all millionaires pay lower tax rates than millions of middle-class households,” Obama said. “Right now, Warren Buffett pays a lower tax rate than his secretary.”

Buffett Rule

The so-called Buffett rule was inspired by a New York Times op-ed essay in August in which Buffett said that in 2010 he paid a lower tax rate -- 17.4 percent -- than “any of the other 20 people in our office.”

Buffett’s secretary, Debbie Bosanek, looked on from first lady Michelle Obama’s box in the House gallery where she was an invited guest for the address.

“This is all gamesmanship, but it was very well played,” said Charlie Cook, publisher of the nonpartisan Cook Political Report in Washington. “Having Warren Buffett’s secretary sitting there, it did force you to think about it for a second. This is a big and complicated debate, and it won’t be settled any time soon.”

Tax fairness has become an election-year issue and Obama is seeking a contrast to his challengers. Romney yesterday released his tax returns and they showed he earned $21.6 million in 2010 and paid 13.9 percent in taxes.

The former private-equity executive earned more than half of his income from capital gains and dividends, which are taxed at a top rate of 15 percent, rather than the 35 percent top rate for ordinary income.

Bipartisan Seating

Even with the partisan division in Congress, some lawmakers in the House chamber continued their recently adopted practice of bipartisan seating to listen to the president’s speech.

In an effort to keep manufacturing jobs in the U.S., Obama proposed ending tax breaks for companies that move their operations overseas. He said a tax credit should be created for companies that close operations abroad and bring jobs back home.

“Every multinational company should have to pay a basic minimum tax,” Obama said. “And every penny should go towards lowering taxes for companies that choose to stay here and hire here in America.”

Obama revisited an idea he presented in September to improve the nation’s infrastructure, except this time he would use half of the savings from winding down the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to pay for it. The other half, he said, would be used to pay down the deficit.

Job Training

Obama also talked about education and job training to make Americans more competitive and help reduce unemployment. Among his proposals is a partnership between community colleges and businesses to train and place 2 million workers.

To promote U.S. energy independence, Obama directed the government to promote development of natural gas, which he said will support more than 600,000 jobs by the end of the decade. He said the administration will create new rules for safe shale gas development and drilling practices.

The president bookended his remarks by referring to the May raid that killed al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, a victory that has helped Obama mute attacks from his opponents on national security.

“For the first time in two decades, Osama bin Laden is not a threat to this country,” he said within the first two minutes of the address, prompting a standing ovation.

Obama closed the address by referring to the day when his administration’s top officials, including former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, who served in former Republican President George W. Bush’s administration, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who ran against Obama for the 2008 nomination, huddled in the White House Situation Room as the Navy SEAL team conducted the raid that killed bin Laden.

“All that mattered that day was the mission,” Obama said. “No one thought about politics.”

Can an IMF firewall stem the EURO CRISIS

2012-01-20T20:14:00.003+08:00

The IMF has asked for as much as $500 billion, including approximately $200 billion from euro countries, to address an estimated $1 trillion funding need in the next few years. So the IMF, intent on protecting economic growth, may provide the firewall that the euro-zone rescue fund, the European Financial Stability Facility, is struggling to create. This may be more timely than ever after S&P’s rating cut threw the EFSF’s borrowing costs into doubt. But would the IMF fund be enough to stem the euro crisis?

The IMF won’t discuss the options for funding until it has completed full consultations with all of its member countries. Still, based on its funding increase in 2009, when its resources were tripled in response to the global financial crisis, the possible avenues are clear. Then, the G-20 met in London and agreed to add $500 billion to the IMF’S lending capacity, raising it to $750 billion. This was funded in two ways: $500 billion via bilateral loans from member countries and $250 billion in so-called special drawing rights. SDRs are essentially a basket of currencies comprising the U.S. dollar, euro, sterling and yen. Increasing SDRs is like a form of global QE or cash injection. In theory, boosting SDRs could ensure the IMF has enough funds, but in practise, amounts over $250 billion face political opposition in the U.S., which effectively has a veto in the IMF.

In 2009, the rest of the IMF’s funding increase came via bilateral loans, including from European national central banks. The European Union contributed $178 billion, the U.S. and Japan $100 billion each, China as much as $50 billion, with a number of other countries chipping in $10 billion or less. Countries tend not to count these loans as adding to their fiscal deficits—they are generally viewed as shifting foreign reserves to the IMF. This is also why a G-20 official told Bloomberg they were pushing for China, India, Brazil, Russia, Japan and oil-exporting countries to be the top contributors.

Even so, there may be a price to pay.The last time developing countries were asked to increase their contributions, their voting rights also rose as they asked for a bigger say in the running of the IMF in return. More than 6 percent of the quotas shifted to developing countries, making the BRIC countries among the top 10 shareholders in the Fund at the cost of European nations trimming their stakes. China’s share will more than double to 6.4% following the reforms. If they pitch in this time, what will be the cost? This is especially relevant as the U.S. has said that it won’t contribute. The U.K. and Japan have said they won’t either, unless the G-20 reaches an agreement at its meeting in Mexico on Feb. 24-25.

The IMF may have the potential to stem any liquidity crisis, but politics and concern the euro zone faces solvency problems may mean the fund won’t be big enough to be an effective firewall.

S&P 500 Rises Most Since ’87 as Bernanke Helps Offset Europe

2012-01-20T12:03:00.000+08:00

U.S. stocks are off to the best start in 15 years as investors speculate Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke has done enough to insulate the economy from Europe’s debt crisis.

The S&P 500 has gained 4.5 percent, the most since it rose 4.8 percent over the first 12 days in 1997, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Stocks are overcoming earnings that trailed estimates by the widest margin in three years as improvements in hiring, manufacturing and car sales extend the biggest fourth-quarter advance since 2003.

Bernanke has left the target rate on overnight loans between banks unchanged since the end of 2008, the longest stretch since at least 1971, data compiled by Bloomberg show. The policy may push more investors toward equities after yields on 10-year Treasuries finished 2011 within a quarter-point of a record low and the economy grew at an estimated 3.1 percent rate last quarter, said John Carey of Pioneer Investments.

“It’s probably a good idea not to fight someone so much bigger than you are,” Carey, a Boston-based money manager at Pioneer, said in a telephone interview on Jan. 18. The firm oversees about $220 billion. “The Fed will probably stay on its course,” he said. “I haven’t heard any indication that the Fed is considering boosting interest rates, so stocks will look attractive from an income point of view.”

Worst to First

Three companies whose declines were among the 10 biggest in the S&P 500 last year are among the 10 largest gainers in 2012. Netflix Inc., the Los Gatos, California-based movie service, climbed 49 percent. Charlotte, North Carolina-based Bank of America Corp., which lost 58 percent in 2011, gained 25 percent this year, while Sears Holdings Corp. in Hoffman Estates, Illinois, rose 36 percent after losing 56 percent.

The S&P 500 advanced seven of the first eight days this year, something that has occurred eight times since 1900, data compiled by JPMorgan Chase & Co. show. The mean return those years was 16 percent, the data show.

About $640 billion has been added to the value of American shares this year and the S&P 500 reached an almost six-month high yesterday, as economic reports outweighed concern that downgrades for European nations would worsen the debt crisis. France was stripped of its top rating by S&P and banks suspended talks with Greece over restructuring.

Economic Growth

“Europe is important but it’s not the end of the world if they see a recession,” James Dunigan, who helps oversee $107 billion as chief investment officer in Philadelphia for PNC Wealth Management, said in a Jan. 17 phone interview. “We’re starting to see that modest economic growth expectation for this year.”

The average forecast for U.S. gross domestic product growth this year has been rising since October. From a low of 2 percent, the median estimate in a survey of 72 economists has climbed to 2.3 percent, including a 0.2-point increase on Jan. 12 that represented the biggest one-day gain since projections for 2012 began, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Optimism about the economy is helping investors shrug off fourth-quarter earnings that have trailed estimates. Profit (SPX) fell short of analyst forecasts by an average of 4.3 percent among the eight S&P 500 companies that posted results in the first week of earnings season, the data show. Three other quarters with a worse first week of earnings season were in 2007 and 2008 as the economy was slipping into to the worst recession since the 1930s.

Five-Month High

The S&P 500 increased 1.1 percent to 1,308.04 yesterday, the highest level since July 26. It climbed 1.4 percent over four days last week, reaching a five-month high of 1,292.48 on Jan. 11 even after Microsoft Corp., the world’s biggest software maker, said personal computer sales were probably worse than forecast in the fourth quarter. The gauge advanced 0.5 percent to 1,314.50 today.

“This year isn’t going to be about earnings,” James Paulsen, who helps oversee about $333 billion as chief investment strategist at Minneapolis-based Wells Capital Management, said in a Jan. 17 phone interview. “There’s a lot of value in the market that could come just from people calming down about this recession, depression calamity. It’ll be about expanding that multiple.”

Combined S&P 500 profit is forecast to reach $104.64 a share in 2012, the highest level ever, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The benchmark index is trading at 12.6 times forecast earnings. That compares with 13.4 at the beginning of 2011. The S&P 500’s average ratio in 2011 was 14.1 based on reported earnings. The five-decade mean is 16.4.

Unprecedented Stimulus

Central banks around the world have taken unprecedented measures to prevent the European debt crisis from triggering a global recession. European Central Bank President Mario Draghi last month unveiled plans to offer banks 36-month, 1 percent loans through two so-called longer-term refinancing operations, known as LTROs.

That combined with investor speculation of a third round of stimulus by the Fed and bets China’s central bank will ease monetary policy has fueled stock prices, according to Doug Noland, the money manager for Pittsburgh-based Federated Investors Inc.’s Prudent Bear Fund, which oversees $1.3 billion. It won’t last, he said.

“Markets over the years have become programmed to focus a lot on monetary stimulus,” Noland said in a Jan. 17 phone interview. “It’s a very dangerous reason to be buying equities. We saw in 2011 how QE2 didn’t have much fire power. We’ve seen European policy making repeatedly disappoint the markets.”

Target Rate Unchanged

Fed policy makers have left their target rate unchanged since the end of 2008, data compiled by Bloomberg show. The S&P 500 more than doubled from its low in March 2009 after Bernanke signaled in August 2010 the central bank would embark on a second round of asset purchases, known as quantitative easing, to boost the economy.

The index declined as much as 19 percent from its 2011 high in April through October last year as the program ended and concerns European leaders would fail to tame the region’s debt crisis escalated. It has since rebounded 19 percent.

Gross domestic product in the euro region will shrink by 0.2 percent this year, the median estimate in a survey of 21 economists surveyed by Bloomberg. The diverging outlooks are reducing lockstep price moves. The so-called 30-day correlation coefficient between the euro and S&P 500 fell 27 percent to 0.66 after reaching a record 0.91 in November.

Correlation Weakens

Speculation about whether European leaders would succeed in containing the credit crisis sent equity, currency and commodity markets up and down in unison last year. The relationship between U.S. stocks and the euro weakened after American unemployment fell to 8.5 percent from 9 percent and business activity as measured by the Chicago Purchasing Managers Index expanded at the fastest pace in seven months.

“A lot of people dismissed the original data in the fall as being backward looking,” Paul Zemsky, the New York-based head of asset allocation for ING Investment Management, said in a telephone interview. His firm oversees $550 billion. “But when you started seeing jobless claims going down, it looked more and more like the U.S. had shrugged off a lot of the European contagion.”

Rallying stocks have done little to entice investors. Mutual funds that invest in U.S. equities posted $753 million in inflows for the week ending Jan. 11 after $7.1 billion in outflows during the first week of the year, Investment Company Institute data show. Customers pulled about $63 billion for the final three months of 2011, the data show.

Election Years

The S&P 500 has gained an average 6.1 percent during presidential election years, compared with 4.4 percent in the years that follow, according to Bloomberg data going back to 1952. The index has posted a positive return for the last seven months of those years 87 percent of the time, data from the Stock Trader’s Almanac show.

“Committed bears have to pull in their claws a little,” according to Brian Barish, who helps oversee about $7 billion as Denver-based president of Cambiar Investors LLC. “On the more bullish side, corporate earnings continue to be very good and stocks in a lot of areas are quite undemanding in terms of their valuations,” Barish said in a Jan. 17 phone intervie

Kodak

2012-01-20T09:13:00.001+08:00

As Eastman Kodak Co. (EK) investors bet the 131-year-old photographic pioneer was headed for bankruptcy, the company decided Chapter 11 was the simplest way to become the digital printing specialist it aspires to be.

Bankruptcy allows sales of the photography divisions and patents Chief Executive Officer Antonio Perez wants to jettison to pay off legacy employee benefits and creditors, as he focuses Kodak on faster, flexible commercial and consumer digital printers and the company’s superior ink. Its trove of 11,000 patents could fund expansion by allowing the company to sue for more licensing fees -- a move it has pursued more aggressively in recent weeks.

Efforts to turn Kodak into a company that makes sophisticated printers for the publishing, packaging, and advertising businesses have burned cash. Raising funds from intellectual property stalled amid delays in a royalty battle with Apple Inc. (AAPL) and Research In Motion Ltd. (RIM) Would-be asset buyers shunned deals because of concern that sales made before a Chapter 11 filing would be scrutinized in court for signs that Kodak was fraudulently transferring assets cheaply. Now that the filing has been made, that worry is gone.

“This is a melting ice cube of a business,” Amer Tiwana, an analyst at CRT Capital Group LLC in Stamford, Connecticut, said before the filing. “When you’re staring at a situation like that, it’s typically better to go ahead and deal with it rather than close your eyes and hope that the situation will somehow miraculously improve.”

Easier to Sell

Bankruptcy makes it easier for Kodak to sell assets to pay for layoffs, U.K. and U.S. employee pensions and health-care benefits, and providing capital needed to install a big enough base of digital printers to eventually be profitable.

The plan is to place printers with high volume users today -- sometimes at a loss -- and profit from ink and service sales tomorrow. The strategy to date has cost more money than it has made.

Perez, Hewlett-Packard Co.’s former inkjet chief, believes Kodak’s new commercial printers will displace older systems by producing pages faster and cheaper on different materials with digital flexibility. Kodak’s inks are made of longer lasting pigments, unlike the watery dye used in most devices, allowing quicker drying and smaller machines.

“We will now be well-positioned to complete our transformation,” Perez said in a video today. “Competing in large markets, where we have fundamental technology advantages, such as in digital printing, in packaging, in functional printing, in materials.”

Inkjet Market

Perez plans to increase Kodak’s share of the consumer inkjet printer market, which he has valued at $45 billion, by designing cheaper replacement cartridges. He wants to dominate commercial printing of magazines, books, newspapers and advertising with high volume inkjet machines that are faster and digitally flexible, to deliver smaller and more customized batches cheaper than old-tech presses and plates as the world moves toward on-demand publishing.

To be sure, Perez’s critics said the printing market itself may shrink as the world embraces mobile devices such as tablets and smart phones, eschewing traditional hard-copy publications and paperwork.

“You’re betting on the wrong horse,” Tiwana said, noting that most major paper producers have already gone through bankruptcy, and that consumer printers, like digital cameras, are becoming a commodity. “The amount of pain that printers and printing companies are going to take over the next five years is immense.”

Founder Largesse

Predictions computers would end the use of printed pages have proved premature in the past, said Mark Zupan, Dean of the Simon School at the University of Rochester. The university is the biggest beneficiary of company founder George Eastman’s largesse -- he bequeathed most of his fortune to the institution. Still, Zupan acknowledged printing profitability has eroded.

“The downside of the strategy is that printing is a very competitive field,” Zupan said. “It’s going to be hard to replicate what traditionally the film sector was able to provide Kodak. Ultimately they’ll emerge a leaner company, either independent or part of another company.”

Kodak’s answer is to revolutionize product packaging, an area “immune to digital substitution,” Perez said in his chairman’s letter in the 2010 annual report. The company is promoting its Flexcel technology, which can print quickly on diverse materials.

“Right now the printing business is too small to have an impact,” Dave Novosel, an analyst at bond researcher Gimme Credit LLC in Chicago, said before the filing. “The chances of success with the current portfolio’s pretty slim, unless there’s enough cash to get them through the next year, year and a half and maybe these products catch on.”

Asset Sales

To raise cash, the company could sell other units including Kodak Gallery, its online photo sharing unit that allows users to store, share and print digital pictures on scrapbooks and mugs; Kodak Picture Kiosk, where customers print their own photographs in drugstores and other retailers; and its real estate, including parts of its Rochester, New York, headquarters. Kodak could license its brand to another camera- maker, said Mark Kaufman, an analyst at Rafferty Capital Markets, earlier this month. Kaufman dropped coverage of Kodak Jan. 11.

The company last year said it was preserving tax credits from accumulated losses in anticipation of windfalls from asset sales. So far only small deals have been announced, including a gelatin factory in Pennsylvania and laboratory land in Colorado.

Factories Closed

As digital dissolved its film business, Kodak shed 47,000 employees since 2003 and closed 13 factories that produced film, paper and chemicals, along with 130 photo laboratories. The restructuring has already cost $3.4 billion, because it was done “in a socially responsible” way, said spokesman Christopher Veronda.

Kodak had counted on a victory in a patent-infringement case against Apple and Research In Motion at the U.S. International Trade Commission to help bring in as much as $1 billion in new revenue. Instead, the case had unexpected delays and a final decision isn’t expected until September.

The company, which contends it invented many of the basic aspects of digital imaging and deserves to be compensated, began shopping more than 1,100 digital imaging patents for sale in July. It’s also begun an aggressive patent-litigation strategy, suing Apple, HTC Corp., Fujifilm Holdings Corp. and Samsung Electronics Co. in the past week.

Apple Request

Apple asked the bankruptcy court to attach “clarifying language” to any order approving financing for Kodak. Apple said in a filing today the order should indicate that no security interests or liens will attach to patents that Apple owns and has asserted claims on until the court resolves the ownership dispute between it and Kodak.

Kodak has collected more than $3 billion in digital imaging patent royalties since 2004, including a $550 million deal with Samsung over technology used in mobile phones. The suit against Samsung, filed the day before the bankruptcy filing, is over tablet computers.

The securities market had decided weeks before last night’s filing that Kodak would probably seek bankruptcy protection. Bondholders are likely to recover about 28 cents on the dollar on their investments, debt-market trading shows.

Moody’s Investors Service on Jan. 5 cut ratings on about $1 billion of Kodak debt with a negative outlook, and cited “a heightened probability of a bankruptcy over the near-term” as liquidity deteriorates.

Swaps

Credit-default swaps on Kodak that pay out after a default or bankruptcy signal a recovery expectation of 25.5 cents on the dollar for its senior unsecured bonds, according to data provider CMA.

Five-year contracts tied to Kodak debt were quoted at 69.6 percent upfront, from 69 percent on Jan. 9 and 33 on Sept. 1, according to CMA, which is owned by CME Group Inc. and compiles prices quoted by dealers in the privately negotiated market.

That means investors now pay $6.96 million initially and $500,000 annually to protect $10 million of Kodak’s obligations. The swaps, which pay the buyer of the contracts face value, minus the recovery value of the bonds that are set by dealers and investors in an auction of the securities, are up from 12 percent upfront on Jan. 10, 2011, with a recovery of 34 cents on the dollar. Recovery fell as low as 18 cents in October.

The company’s $250 million in 7.25 percent senior unsecured notes due November 2013 fell to 27 cents on the dollar as of 7:54 a.m., according to Trace, the bond-price reporting system of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority. They traded at 29.5 cents as of 3:13 p.m. As recently as Jan. 9, they fetched 30 cents, and 63 cents on Sept. 27, compared with par on March 10.

Patents

Kodak’s patents -- including the digital imaging technology it pioneered that ultimately destroyed its iconic photography business -- may prove its most lucrative asset, said analysts including Gimme Credit’s Novosel.

“Filing could actually free them up to sell the patents to hopefully repay debtholders,” Bonnie Baha, the head of the global developed credit group at DoubleLine Capital LP in Los Angeles, which oversees $23 billion, said before the bankruptcy.

For Kodak’s hometown of Rochester, about 340 miles drive from New York City, the legacy includes the university that has educated thousands including business innovators, and grown to become the state’s seventh largest employer. The name is everywhere: Kodak Hall at Eastman Theatre, the Eastman School of Music, and the Eastman Institute for Oral Health.

“Too much success can be your worst enemy” is today’s lesson for all companies and entrepreneurs, said university dean Zupan. “If you’re not willing to cannibalize yourself, others will do it for you.”

My Girl

2012-01-15T16:52:00.003+08:00

Step 2 – Get Rid of Unnecessary Debt

2012-01-15T05:30:00.001+08:00

Why is getting rid of unnecessary debt important? Simple, useless debt is a drag on our personal finances, increasing our expenses with high interest expenses. Not only is the debt painful to the pocket, it is stressful to the mind and body as well. Speak to anybody under mounting credit card debts; you will know they are really stressed by trying to make payments.

Every useless debt we pick up takes us further and further away from our goals, instead of getting Passive Income, we are getting Passive Expense instead! Debt management is a really large topic in itself and I will not attempt to address every single aspect in this Five Steps Financial Freedom series, I will however try to cover the main points.

Let’s look at some of the main culprits.

Loan shark Debt/ Unlicensed Moneylender / Black market Moneylender
This is the worst scenario one can be in. Loan sharks/ unlicensed money lenders whatever you call it do not play by the rules. They often make the borrowing really easy but make paying it off extremely difficult. Interest rates of such debt are known to hit over 100 percent interest per month! Once you get in, it is very tough to get out. Worse still, they will make your life hell by harassing you and your family constantly. Never ever step into this category.

Licensed Moneylender Debt
This debt is only slightly better than the previous. However, the interest rates are also extremely high, as high as 200% a year. The good news is that they are regulated by the government; the bad news is that many of them still employ harassment tactics used by the loan sharks. For more information, read Staying Away From High Interest Rate Money Lenders. Again, stay away from these sources no matter what.

Credit Card Debt
Most young people are guilty of carrying credit card debt balances and rolling them over month after month just by paying the minimum charges. Many also do transfer balance from an existing card to a new card at lower interest rates, which is supposed to be good, but they end up charging their previously paid credit card to the max again. With a credit card limit of up to 2-3x the salary of an individual, it’s easy to see how people can end up owing lots of money with couple of maxed out credit cards.

Banks are also extremely cunning in that they allow you to pay a minimum of say $50 per month, but they will charge you up to 24% interest on your remaining balance! How often does one make investments which can yield over 20% per year?

Personal Loan / Credit Line
Banks are just as guilty of pushing personal loans as are licensed moneylenders. While the interest rates are not as high as credit cards, they can still be between 5% to 15% per year depending on your credit status and the loan amount. When the loan check comes in the mail from your bank, resist the temptation and just tear it up, remember it’s a loan, not cash.

Car Loan
Car loans are one of the most misunderstood loans as they are structured differently from a housing loan. People often claim that car loans which have 1-3% interest rates are very cheap, cheaper than housing mortgage interests in some countries, or is it? Car loan interests are calculated based on the principle for the whole tenure while housing loan interests are calculated based on the principal outstanding. A simple rule of thumb is that the car loan interest rate is nearly double in housing loan term rates! So a 3% car loan interest is actually closer to 6% if you want to compare to housing loan.

Now you know why you should pay up your car loan as soon as you can. For those who live in the city like Singapore, public transport is a viable alternative. If you have to own a car due to work or so on, buying a second hand car can be a huge money saver as well.

Mortgage Loan on a Non Performing Property
While housing mortgage loans are typically one of the cheapest loans you can get, it really doesn’t make sense to be paying financing costs for a property which is not generating any income or capital appreciation. Examples are where the location is not as hot as it used to be or the demographics have changed into one of lower income and increasing crime rates. It may also make sense to cut loss on a property if the fundamentals have downgraded dramatically. Since housing loans are usually very large in amount, clearing them off also helps to improve your leverage ratio dramatically.

As we can see, there are many types of unnecessary debt which can be a huge burden to us. We have to identify if we have any of these debts and understand the impact of what this debt has on us. As we work through the different classes of debt, we also find out that most of these debts have interest rates far exceeding that of many asset yields like dividends and rental. As long as we have these debts, Financial Freedom will be difficult to achieve. If you do not have any of the above debts, Congratulations! You are one Step closer to Financial Freedom!

This post has gone on to be much longer than I expected. As such, I will have to continue this Step 2 is the next post. In the upcoming post, I will discuss concepts like leverage ratio and tips to reduce the debt burden so you can be a step closer to Financial Freedom

Reference
http://max-wealth.blogspot.com/

人走茶凉

2012-01-15T01:24:00.000+08:00

人与人之间总有一天会遇经历的

时过沧桑
人走茶凉
望月思乡已是昨日过往
物是人非
唯有泪千行

Five Steps To Financial Freedom Step 1 – Boost Your Active Income

2012-01-14T18:17:00.000+08:00

Financial Freedom has been the latest buzzword recently. Everybody is talking about it. Open up the newspaper and you will at least 3-5 advertisements a day teaching you how to achieve Financial Freedom through some kind of investment, whether be it in your career or getting a higher education degree. Well, what is financial freedom and do those advertisements really deliver Financial Freedom to you? For me, I define Financial Freedom in a very simple way; basically, you have enough Passive Income to pay for your basic expenses, so that you have time to do what you really want to do it life.

Achieving Financial Freedom is not that hard really; it just takes 5 simple steps.

Step 1 – Boost your Active Income
Step 2 – Get Rid of Unnecessary Debt
Step 3 – Save More
Step 4 – Reduce Spending and Live Within Your Means
Step 5 – Invest For Passive Income

The problems with a lot of those advertisements are they just focus on Step 5. There are all kinds of gurus which teach you how to invest In Stocks, Properties, Trade Stocks, Options to become a multi-millionaire. Wow! That’s assuming everybody has already mastered Step 1 to Step 4! If you have already mastered Step 4, you wouldn’t be paying few thousand dollars to attend a seminar! Wouldn’t that money be better spent investing In Passive Income? Alright, let’s get back to the 5 steps.

Step 1 – Boost your Active Income
Active Income is simply income you generate by trading your time and effort for money. For more on Active Income, read Passive Income vs. Active Income. The most basic Active Income everybody has is a job. Assuming that you don’t have a wealthy family or a huge amount of inheritance, all of us have to work for our money initially. Now, the key here is to maximize your Active Income. How do I do that? Here are a couple of suggestions.

Work Harder on Your Career and Continuously Upgrade Yourself
Figure out where your career is going and how you can further improve in the climb up the ladder. All Companies want individuals who are willing to step up and contribute without being asked to. Show the initiative and work hard to prove yourself to the Company that you are ready for higher responsibilities. By doing so, you will eventually get recognized and be promoted, raising your salary packages and more. It is also necessary to continue upgrading yourself, be in taking new courses, getting an MBA, getting a CFA, picking up books on the industry and management. Learning never ends.

MaMake Sure You Are Paid Top Dollar for Your Job

There are a lot of people who for some reason choose to settle for a job less than what they are capable of. Either that or they choose to accept a salary package which works out to be a lot less than market rate. If you fall into that category, chances are you are probably working too hard and not get paid enough. All of us who come out to a job market should expect to get paid at least market rate for our productivity, otherwise it’s doing injustice to oneself. One of the first ways to figure that out is to look for job surveys published by recruitment agencies and job classifieds such as Jobstreet.com. They normally have ake Sure You Are Paid Top Dollar for Your Jobpay scale varied by industry and position level. Make sure your pay scale is at least in the middle tier or top tier. If you are not, you should start looking for a new job. At the same time, give your current Company a chance to raise your salary package by having a heart to heart talk with your current boss. However, make sure you are a valuable employee first before having that talk; you should know your contribution to the firm very well.

Get a Job with a Variable Package as Opposed to Fixed Package
A well designed salary package is often based on variable factors as opposed to a fixed salary. A good management knows that by tying rewards to contributions, employees are well incentivized to work harder. Similarly, you can try to get a job with a variable package such as sales, work really hard every month and you will see your rewards very quickly in terms of higher commissions and so on. Even if you are a manager on a fixed salary, discuss with your employer to see if they can tweak the salary package to one which is of lower basic but higher overriding or profit shared incentive. So when your division does well by having good profits, you get a higher compensation package as well, making it a win win situation.

Get a Part Time Job
This is a very practical solution for the young people who have a 9-5 job and don’t work weekends. There are many options here, depending on your education level, skill level and age. It can be as simple as working part time in a restaurant, retail shop or so on. Some of the more lucrative part time jobs include Insurance Agent and Real Estate Agent. However, being in the insurance or real estate industry is not simple. They are usually commissioned based and may require a huge commitment in terms of time and effort. Another very popular part time job these days is the tuition teacher. Parents are obsessed with their kids’ education from a young age and are willing to pay any undergraduate a decent sum to tutor their kids.

Freelance with Your Skills
There are some skills which are very sellable in the freelancing market. Such skills include web design skills, photography, graphic design, interior design and so on. There are always jobs out there which prefer to look for a freelancer instead of a full service firm due to costs, flexibility and so on. Many jobs are usually based on referral, so it is very important to treat every job seriously and perform them with utmost responsibility. There are many designers who get so much business from freelancing that they eventually quit their jobs to focus on their own business.

Stay Tuned for Step 2 – Get Rid of Unneccessary Debt

Reference
http://max-wealth.blogspot.com/

RBS plans to cut 3500 investment bank jobs

2012-01-12T23:26:00.000+08:00

Badminton annual lunch

2012-01-11T22:03:00.000+08:00

Germany May Be on Brink of Recession

2012-01-11T21:55:00.001+08:00

Germany may be on the brink of recession after the sovereign debt crisis caused the economy to contract in the final quarter of 2011.

Europe’s largest economy shrank “roughly” 0.25 percent in the fourth quarter from the third, the Federal Statistics Office in Wiesbaden said today in an unofficial estimate. Economists such as Christian Schulz at Berenberg Bank expect gross domestic product to contract again in the current quarter. A recession is defined as two consecutive quarters of declining GDP.

“If the euro crisis does not get worse or is finally brought under control after another wave in early 2012, the German economy can rebound nicely from the summer onwards,” said Schulz, a senior economist with Berenberg in London. “However, we see a 25 percent chance of the euro crisis remaining out of control longer, or completely spiraling out of control with a series of sovereign and bank defaults. In such a scenario, Germany would enter a major recession.”

Growth slowed to 3 percent in 2011 from 3.7 percent in 2010, which was the most since German reunification two decades earlier, the statistics office said. The economy last contracted in 2009, when it was in the throes of the global financial crisis. Unemployment at a two-decade low may bolster growth this year by supporting consumer spending.

Domestic Demand

Domestic demand was the main contributor to GDP growth last year, adding 2.1 percentage points, today’s report showed. Private consumption increased 1.5 percent in the year, while government spending rose 1.2 percent. Investment in plant and machinery gained 8.3 percent.

The euro rose after the 2011 GDP report before giving up its gains to trade at $1.2755 at 11:50 a.m. in Frankfurt. European stocks fluctuated, with the Stoxx Europe 600 Index little changed. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index added 0.3 percent today, while Standard & Poor’s 500 Index futures gained less than 0.1 percent.

The weaker global economy and waning demand from debt- stricken euro-area neighbors have eroded German foreign sales, the main pillar of its economic expansion. Net trade contributed 0.8 percentage point to growth last year, with exports up 8.2 percent and imports gaining 7.2 percent. In 2010, exports increased 13.7 percent.

“All in all, the German economy has remained relatively resilient,” said Annalisa Piazza, an economist at Newedge Group in London. “Signs of moderation have recently emerged but we expect the German economy to remain afloat in the coming quarters, maintaining its role as the major engine of growth for the euro area.”

2012 Forecast

German growth will slow to 0.6 percent this year before recovering to 1.8 percent in 2013, the Bundesbank predicted on Dec. 19. The European Central Bank, which has cut interest rates to a record low and flooded the banking system with cash during the debt crisis, last month reduced its 2012 growth forecast for the 17-nation euro region to just 0.3 percent.

Spanish industrial production fell the most in two years in November reflecting a contraction in the euro area’s fourth- largest economy as the government prepares to implement a new wave of austerity. Output at factories, refineries and mines adjusted for the number of working days declined 7 percent from a year earlier, the most since October 2009, the National Statistics Institute in Madrid said today.

In the U.K., the goods-trade deficit widened more than economists forecast in November as exports dropped, the Office for National Statistics said. The trade gap widened to 8.64 billion pounds ($13.6 billion) from 7.87 billion pounds in October. Exports fell 1.5 percent on the month while imports rose 1.1 percent.

Beige Book

The effects of Europe’s debt crisis may cost the U.S. as much as half a percentage point in economic growth this year, Goldman Sachs Chief Economist Jan Hatzius said at an event in Frankfurt today.

The U.S. Federal Reserve will release its Beige Book survey later today, and the Mortgage Bankers Association will give data on mortgage applications for the week ended Jan. 6.

“The debt crisis is unprecedented and economic forecasts in this environment are very difficult,” said Joerg Kraemer, chief economist at Commerzbank AG in Frankfurt, who expects the German economy to contract “a little” in the first three months of this year. “For 2012 as a whole, we expect stagnation,” he said.

There are signs Germany’s economic downturn will be shallow. Business confidence unexpectedly rose for a second month in December and service industries expanded.

The statistics office said today it may revise its fourth- quarter GDP assessment by the time official data are published on Feb. 15.

“Minus 0.25 percent is a too-pessimistic call both on the basis of hard and soft data,” said Andreas Rees, chief German economist at UniCredit in Munich. “Our bottom line: Don’t worry too much about 2012, and let’s be grateful about last year.”

Olympus Sues Executives Over $1.7B Cover-Up

2012-01-10T09:58:00.000+08:00

Olympus Corp. (7733) said it is suing 19 current and former executives (7733) over their roles in a $1.7 billion cover-up of losses following an independent panel’s report into management involvement in the fraud.

The Japanese camera maker’s auditors filed the lawsuit at the Tokyo District Court on Jan. 8, Olympus said in a statement today. The company is seeking 3.6 billion yen ($46.8 million) in damages from ex-Chairman Tsuyoshi Kikukawa, it said.

Olympus should seek more than 90 billion yen from more than 10 current and past executives, including President Shuichi Takayama, for hiding losses for more than a decade, according to the panel’s findings. Former President Michael Woodford, who was fired after he challenged the board (7733) on takeover and accounting practices, is suing the company for wrongful dismissal.

“It’s all part of the natural fallout to be expected with each party trying to stake their positions and to protect their legal interests,” Eugene Tan, assistant professor of law at the Singapore Management University, said yesterday following Japanese media reports that the lawsuits had been filed. “We’ll see suits and countersuits taking place in the next couple of weeks, if not months.”

The company inflated fees to advisers on the $2.1 billion acquisition of Gyrus Group Plc in 2008 and overpaid in purchasing three Japanese companies with the intention of increasing goodwill, a separate independent panel investigating the fraud said last month. The panel said it found a culture of “yes men” and a board that failed in its duty to stop a “rotten” core of executives from duping auditors, regulators and investors.

To contact the reporters on this story: Chris Cooper in Tokyo at ccooper1@bloomberg.net; Shunichi Ozasa in Tokyo at sozasa@bloomberg.net

from bloomberg

EX

2012-01-09T21:26:00.001+08:00

It is simple and yet harsh

Iran Sentences American to Death for Spying Amid Hormuz Tensions

2012-01-09T20:50:00.000+08:00

Iran’s revolutionary court sentenced a former U.S. soldier of Iranian descent to death for spying amid rising tensions over concerns that Iran may try and close the Strait of Hormuz if Western sanctions are imposed.

The court found Amir Mirzaei Hekmati guilty of collaborating “with a hostile country and spying for the Central Intelligence Agency,” Iran’s state-controlled Fars news agency said, citing its reporter.

Hekmati, who was born in Arizona in 1983, said he joined the U.S. military in 2001 after completing high school, according to an earlier report by Fars. Iranian state television broadcast video images of him last month.

The sentencing comes as the European Union discusses imposing a ban on Iranian oil imports due to the country’s nuclear program when the bloc’s foreign ministers meet on Jan. 30. Iranian Vice President Mohammad Reza Rahimi said Dec. 27 that his nation would block oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz, a transit point for a fifth of the world’s crude, if sanctions are imposed, the Islamic Republic News Agency said.

Crude oil for February delivery rose as much as 59 cents to $102.15 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange and was at $101.66 at 9:41 a.m. London time. The contract fell 0.3 percent on Jan. 6 to $101.56, the lowest close since Dec. 30, and has risen 2.9 percent this year.

The U.K.’s Royal Navy said today it’s deploying one of its most modern destroyers, HMS Daring, to the Persian Gulf in a “long planned” and “routine” replacement of another ship.

Blocking Strait

The move is not in reaction to developments in relation to Iran, a navy spokesman, who declined to be identified in line with government policy, said in a telephone interview today, confirming a report in the Daily Telegraph newspaper.

Iran has the ability to block the Strait of Hormuz “for a period of time,” and the U.S. would take action to reopen it, U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman General Martin Dempsey said in an interview aired yesterday on the CBS “Face the Nation” program.

An Iranian blockade could disrupt world trade in goods as companies divert ships from the Persian Gulf to safer regions. Such a move could force companies including Ford Motor Co., BASF SE (BAS) and Caterpillar Inc. to seek safer routes for transporting items including car parts and chemicals, John Manners-Bell, chief executive officer of Transport Intelligence Ltd., a Wiltshire, England-based logistics consultant, said Jan. 5.

‘Any Reason’

“If for any reason the strait were closed it would have a huge impact on the economy in the Middle East and would cause a systematic restructuring of flows of goods around the world,” Manners-Bell, who used to manage European marketing at United Parcel Service Inc. (UPS), said by phone.

A pipeline that would allow crude oil from the United Arab Emirates to bypass the Strait of Hormuz separating it from Iran has been delayed because of construction difficulties, two people with knowledge of the matter said.

As many as 270 construction issues have pushed back the completion date, said the two people, declining to be identified because they’re not allowed to speak publicly on the matter. The $3.3 billion project won’t be ready until at least April, one of them said.

To contact the reporters on this story: Andrew J. Barden in Dubai at barden@bloomberg.net; Jonathan Ferziger in Tel Aviv at jferziger@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Andrew J. Barden at

Fickle minded

2012-01-05T22:40:00.000+08:00

After many days of comparison and research plus many factors ,i have decided to take the old model