Saturday, December 15, 2012
Thursday, December 13, 2012
Tuesday, December 11, 2012
OV Year End Gathering
Date: 6pm 17/12/12
Venue: 4th Floor Bangsar Branch
Programme: Food & plenty of food....., games including Gangnam Style dance competition with attractive prize to be won
Venue: 4th Floor Bangsar Branch
Programme: Food & plenty of food....., games including Gangnam Style dance competition with attractive prize to be won
Wednesday, November 14, 2012
Saturday, October 13, 2012
Not all that glitters is gold — Tay Tian Yan
OCT 5 — This gold investment, to put it squarely, is too good to be true.
In the beginning, when you first purchase gold with the company, they will hand the solid gold bar to your hands to prove their sincerity.
As if that is not enough, they will sign a contract with you, offering you 1.5 per cent to 3 per cent monthly interests, meaning 18 per cent to 36 per cent per annum of lucrative returns.
If you buy a million ringgit worth of gold bars from them, you will be entitled to RM30,000 of monthly interests, or RM360,000 a year!
The same amount of investment, if put in a fixed deposit account with a commercial bank, will only yield about RM30,000 a year.
The returns will be even higher if gold prices soar.
So, some sell their houses and empty their bank savings to invest with the company, while others take their investment a step further, relinquishing their jobs to become full-time agents for this company.
If is said that some 60,000 have entrusted their fortunes to this company during the past one or two years.
Several months back, a company bearing the same name and associated with it in Singapore was reported to have encountered financial problems. The company was later raided by the authorities after investors lodged reports having failed to receive their promised interests.
Before long, the company in Malaysia was put in Bank Negara’s watch list, its assets frozen pending investigation.
We cannot pass down any verdict before the probe is concluded. Sure enough I hope the investors and agents would escape losses and have their investment sums recovered.
If we were to scrutinise this incident carefully, we should be able to draw some good lessons from it.
In the very beginning, the gold bars that they hand over to you are indeed genuine, certified gold bars that are nevertheless sold to you at a price 25 per cent above the market value. In other words, they have already made some good profits from selling gold to you.
Thanks to the profit margin, they are now able to provide unrealistically high interest rates to lure investors.
In no time, the company has managed to draw massive investment funds to sustain its operations and honour the pledges it has made to customers.
Nevertheless, such operations are not sustainable over the long term unless the company has special investment channels that would yield 40 per cent of annual returns in order to disburse to its clients as interest incomes.
40 per cent! A figure that not even Warren Buffet could dream of. Buffet recently admitted that it would not be easy to even get 10 per cent.
What is left will have to wait until the music stops and see who are unlucky enough not to grab a chair. These are the people who have refused to pull back from their investments and have continued to dump their savings into the bottomless pit.
Who is to take the blame eventually?
No way could the authorities be spared. There is always a grey area in gold investment that can be manipulated by irresponsible quarters for their own benefit.
Meanwhile, the investors must also question the rationality of raking in incredibly good returns without having to move a finger or put on a thinking cap.
Think about this, and we should see what has actually gone wrong. — mysinchew.com
source:http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/sideviews/article/of-ponzi-schemes-tay-tian-yan/
In the beginning, when you first purchase gold with the company, they will hand the solid gold bar to your hands to prove their sincerity.
As if that is not enough, they will sign a contract with you, offering you 1.5 per cent to 3 per cent monthly interests, meaning 18 per cent to 36 per cent per annum of lucrative returns.
If you buy a million ringgit worth of gold bars from them, you will be entitled to RM30,000 of monthly interests, or RM360,000 a year!
The same amount of investment, if put in a fixed deposit account with a commercial bank, will only yield about RM30,000 a year.
The returns will be even higher if gold prices soar.
So, some sell their houses and empty their bank savings to invest with the company, while others take their investment a step further, relinquishing their jobs to become full-time agents for this company.
If is said that some 60,000 have entrusted their fortunes to this company during the past one or two years.
Several months back, a company bearing the same name and associated with it in Singapore was reported to have encountered financial problems. The company was later raided by the authorities after investors lodged reports having failed to receive their promised interests.
Before long, the company in Malaysia was put in Bank Negara’s watch list, its assets frozen pending investigation.
We cannot pass down any verdict before the probe is concluded. Sure enough I hope the investors and agents would escape losses and have their investment sums recovered.
If we were to scrutinise this incident carefully, we should be able to draw some good lessons from it.
In the very beginning, the gold bars that they hand over to you are indeed genuine, certified gold bars that are nevertheless sold to you at a price 25 per cent above the market value. In other words, they have already made some good profits from selling gold to you.
Thanks to the profit margin, they are now able to provide unrealistically high interest rates to lure investors.
In no time, the company has managed to draw massive investment funds to sustain its operations and honour the pledges it has made to customers.
Nevertheless, such operations are not sustainable over the long term unless the company has special investment channels that would yield 40 per cent of annual returns in order to disburse to its clients as interest incomes.
40 per cent! A figure that not even Warren Buffet could dream of. Buffet recently admitted that it would not be easy to even get 10 per cent.
What is left will have to wait until the music stops and see who are unlucky enough not to grab a chair. These are the people who have refused to pull back from their investments and have continued to dump their savings into the bottomless pit.
Who is to take the blame eventually?
No way could the authorities be spared. There is always a grey area in gold investment that can be manipulated by irresponsible quarters for their own benefit.
Meanwhile, the investors must also question the rationality of raking in incredibly good returns without having to move a finger or put on a thinking cap.
Think about this, and we should see what has actually gone wrong. — mysinchew.com
source:http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/sideviews/article/of-ponzi-schemes-tay-tian-yan/
Of Ponzi schemes — Tay Tian Yan
OCT 8 — Some people involved in the recent gold investment scandal argued that it was a new business model and questioned on what wrong was with it, since they were neither stealing nor robbing.
They believed that it was originally a profitable business but, unfortunately, the intervention of Bank Negara and media coverage have ruined everything and broken the golden bowl.
No, it is wrong. It is not a new business model, but rather an old-fashioned, repeated ploy.
It was started about 100 years ago.
In 1903, Italian Charles Ponzi immigrated to the US with only US$2.50 in his pocket, and a resolution to make big money on that piece of land.
He did a lot of jobs, but had faced lawsuits and sent to jail for embezzlement and theft.
After he was released, he decided to do something big instead of just stealing and embezzling.
His mind was quite agile. He targeted at posts sent between the US and Europe countries and started selling postal reply coupons. He set up a company in Boston, claiming that it invested in postal coupons.
He promised clients a 50 per cent profit within 45 days, or 100 per cent profit within 90 days, by buying discounted postal reply coupons in other countries and redeeming them at face value in the US as a form of arbitrage. Many saw it as a windfall.
Only a few of the rich tentatively invested in the beginning and, surprisingly, they received the promised high returns and everyone was overjoyed.
The news spread and people rushed to invest. Ponzi rose to become a business tycoon overnight and was highly praised. Together with Columbus and Marconi, they were called the three greatest Italians. Christopher Columbus discovered the New World, Guglielmo Marconi invented wireless telegraphy, and Ponzi created money.
However, no one knew that postal coupon was not a profitable investment. In fact, Ponzi did not invest in postal coupons.
Instead, he just used the money of new investors to pay the returns for earlier investors and when more and more people invested, he would then be able to issue returns. The snowball continued to roll as long as the number of new investors was greater than the number of existing investors.
However, Ponzi’s luck ran out one day. He faced a commercial lawsuit and the incident was reported by the media.
The investigation found that with the investment amount received, his company should have bought 16 million of postal reply coupons, but only 27,000 postal coupons were sold nationwide over the same period.
The Ponzi scheme was exposed and the Ponzi enterprise collapsed. Tens of thousands of people lost everything and Ponzi was put behind bars.
Similar low-risk, high-return investments could be found over the past 100 years and they were actually elaborate Ponzi schemes, instead of new business models.
The Bernie Madoff investment scandal broke out a few years ago, which was known as the largest elaborate Ponzi scheme in history, and the gold investment scandal are just two among the other Ponzi schemes. — mysinchew.com
* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insider.
Source:http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/sideviews/article/of-ponzi-schemes-tay-tian-yan/
They believed that it was originally a profitable business but, unfortunately, the intervention of Bank Negara and media coverage have ruined everything and broken the golden bowl.
No, it is wrong. It is not a new business model, but rather an old-fashioned, repeated ploy.
It was started about 100 years ago.
In 1903, Italian Charles Ponzi immigrated to the US with only US$2.50 in his pocket, and a resolution to make big money on that piece of land.
He did a lot of jobs, but had faced lawsuits and sent to jail for embezzlement and theft.
After he was released, he decided to do something big instead of just stealing and embezzling.
His mind was quite agile. He targeted at posts sent between the US and Europe countries and started selling postal reply coupons. He set up a company in Boston, claiming that it invested in postal coupons.
He promised clients a 50 per cent profit within 45 days, or 100 per cent profit within 90 days, by buying discounted postal reply coupons in other countries and redeeming them at face value in the US as a form of arbitrage. Many saw it as a windfall.
Only a few of the rich tentatively invested in the beginning and, surprisingly, they received the promised high returns and everyone was overjoyed.
The news spread and people rushed to invest. Ponzi rose to become a business tycoon overnight and was highly praised. Together with Columbus and Marconi, they were called the three greatest Italians. Christopher Columbus discovered the New World, Guglielmo Marconi invented wireless telegraphy, and Ponzi created money.
However, no one knew that postal coupon was not a profitable investment. In fact, Ponzi did not invest in postal coupons.
Instead, he just used the money of new investors to pay the returns for earlier investors and when more and more people invested, he would then be able to issue returns. The snowball continued to roll as long as the number of new investors was greater than the number of existing investors.
However, Ponzi’s luck ran out one day. He faced a commercial lawsuit and the incident was reported by the media.
The investigation found that with the investment amount received, his company should have bought 16 million of postal reply coupons, but only 27,000 postal coupons were sold nationwide over the same period.
The Ponzi scheme was exposed and the Ponzi enterprise collapsed. Tens of thousands of people lost everything and Ponzi was put behind bars.
Similar low-risk, high-return investments could be found over the past 100 years and they were actually elaborate Ponzi schemes, instead of new business models.
The Bernie Madoff investment scandal broke out a few years ago, which was known as the largest elaborate Ponzi scheme in history, and the gold investment scandal are just two among the other Ponzi schemes. — mysinchew.com
* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insider.
Source:http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/sideviews/article/of-ponzi-schemes-tay-tian-yan/
Friday, October 12, 2012
Golden Week Chaos Brings Cheer for China's Economy
The annual Golden Week holiday in China is typically marked by chaos on motorways as millions of Chinese travelers hit the holiday trail, and this year is no different. The upside? The clogged roads are hints the economy may avert a hard landing, at least for now.
This is because the traffic gridlock tells a story that official data don’t: that the Chinese consumer is still confident about the economy, spending and going on holidays, even as the headline GDP figure slows and stock prices fall.
In the first four days of the eight-day holiday, arguably the most important dates for Chinese tourism in the calendar, the number of travelers to 119 major attractions across the country totaled 18.2 million, up 23.4 percent from the same period the year before, according to the National Tourism Administration. This compares to a 6.5 percent growth in 2010, and 8.8 percent in 2011.
Sales revenue at these destinations reached 957 million yuan ($151 million), up 25 percent.
Market watchers say this backs the view that the Chinese consumer remains a bright spot in a slowing economy—GDP of the world’s second-biggest economy slowed to 7.6 percent in the second quarter, its slowest pace in three and a half years.
“Chinese tourists are in a spending mood…something is stirring out there,” Uwe Parpart, chief strategist and head of research with Reorient Financial Markets in Hong Kong said. “People don't travel and spend when the economy is in terrible shape.”
So what’s behind the consumer optimism? According to analysts from Bank of America Merrill Lynch, a few factors are at play. For one, the employment picture, which has a direct impact on the consumer’s wallet, remains fairly robust. While wages in the first half of 2012 grew 13.1 percent from the year before, lower than the 14.4 percent figure in 2011, wage growth actually picked up due to lower inflation.
China, India Consumer Spending to Triple by 2020: StudyChinese Give Luxury Goods a Pass, Go on Holiday InsteadWhat Happens If China Comes In for a Hard Landing?
“Though we expect the unemployment rate to rise in 2H12, it is unlikely that we will see massive layoffs if the Chinese government would take some necessary measures to support growth for the rest of the year,” Ting Lu and Larry Hu, economists with Bank of America Merrill Lynch said in a report on Thursday.
Also helping sentiment is the fact that property prices have stayed almost unchanged in the past year despite numerous tightening measures, Lu and Hu said, adding that the consensus among investors are that real estate prices are about to recover.
Whilst Chinese stocks have staged an appalling performance so far this year, down about 15 percent on average, the impact is limited on Chinese investors who are largely used to high market volatility, and whose stock exposure on average is less than 20 percent of household bank deposits, they added.
“Chinese consumers are still relatively confident about China’s economic fundamentals,” Lu and Hu wrote. “Strong tourism data support our soft-landing views … and also point to a shift of consumption toward leisure, a new source of demand.”
Golden Week a Boost to Rebalancing Efforts
The Chinese government has been trying to rebalance the economy by increasing domestic consumption’s share of GDP and reducing the nation’s reliance on exports so that it would not be too vulnerable to a decline in overseas demand. During the 2009 financial crisis, Chinese exports plunged for the first time since 1983, by 16 percent over the year as demand from its biggest markets collapsed.
According to Parpart, the tourism data point to a resilient Chinese consumer and should give China’s rebalancing ambitions a boost.
“It’s a positive signal. Chinese salaries have increased by an average of over 20 percent over the past year and a half,” he said. “If some of that now goes to consumption, it is what the government likes to see to make the economy less dependent on exports.”
Indeed, to encourage people to travel and spend during the holiday, when normal economic activity is suspended and stock markets shut down, the Chinese government slashed entry-ticket prices at 94 tourist attractions nationwide by 25 percent on average.
BofA-Merrill says the upbeat travel data show China’s economy indicators run beyond the closely-watched electricity and manufacturing gauges.
“Robust Golden Week tourism data also suggest that China’s GDP data… might be more real than what’s perceived by (market) bears, who are focused too much on power usage and industrial production,” the report said.
—By CNBC’s Jean Chua.
© 2012 CNBC.com
Source: http://soc.li/mDYJF7J
This is because the traffic gridlock tells a story that official data don’t: that the Chinese consumer is still confident about the economy, spending and going on holidays, even as the headline GDP figure slows and stock prices fall.
In the first four days of the eight-day holiday, arguably the most important dates for Chinese tourism in the calendar, the number of travelers to 119 major attractions across the country totaled 18.2 million, up 23.4 percent from the same period the year before, according to the National Tourism Administration. This compares to a 6.5 percent growth in 2010, and 8.8 percent in 2011.
Sales revenue at these destinations reached 957 million yuan ($151 million), up 25 percent.
Market watchers say this backs the view that the Chinese consumer remains a bright spot in a slowing economy—GDP of the world’s second-biggest economy slowed to 7.6 percent in the second quarter, its slowest pace in three and a half years.
“Chinese tourists are in a spending mood…something is stirring out there,” Uwe Parpart, chief strategist and head of research with Reorient Financial Markets in Hong Kong said. “People don't travel and spend when the economy is in terrible shape.”
So what’s behind the consumer optimism? According to analysts from Bank of America Merrill Lynch, a few factors are at play. For one, the employment picture, which has a direct impact on the consumer’s wallet, remains fairly robust. While wages in the first half of 2012 grew 13.1 percent from the year before, lower than the 14.4 percent figure in 2011, wage growth actually picked up due to lower inflation.
China, India Consumer Spending to Triple by 2020: StudyChinese Give Luxury Goods a Pass, Go on Holiday InsteadWhat Happens If China Comes In for a Hard Landing?
“Though we expect the unemployment rate to rise in 2H12, it is unlikely that we will see massive layoffs if the Chinese government would take some necessary measures to support growth for the rest of the year,” Ting Lu and Larry Hu, economists with Bank of America Merrill Lynch said in a report on Thursday.
Also helping sentiment is the fact that property prices have stayed almost unchanged in the past year despite numerous tightening measures, Lu and Hu said, adding that the consensus among investors are that real estate prices are about to recover.
Whilst Chinese stocks have staged an appalling performance so far this year, down about 15 percent on average, the impact is limited on Chinese investors who are largely used to high market volatility, and whose stock exposure on average is less than 20 percent of household bank deposits, they added.
“Chinese consumers are still relatively confident about China’s economic fundamentals,” Lu and Hu wrote. “Strong tourism data support our soft-landing views … and also point to a shift of consumption toward leisure, a new source of demand.”
Golden Week a Boost to Rebalancing Efforts
The Chinese government has been trying to rebalance the economy by increasing domestic consumption’s share of GDP and reducing the nation’s reliance on exports so that it would not be too vulnerable to a decline in overseas demand. During the 2009 financial crisis, Chinese exports plunged for the first time since 1983, by 16 percent over the year as demand from its biggest markets collapsed.
According to Parpart, the tourism data point to a resilient Chinese consumer and should give China’s rebalancing ambitions a boost.
“It’s a positive signal. Chinese salaries have increased by an average of over 20 percent over the past year and a half,” he said. “If some of that now goes to consumption, it is what the government likes to see to make the economy less dependent on exports.”
Indeed, to encourage people to travel and spend during the holiday, when normal economic activity is suspended and stock markets shut down, the Chinese government slashed entry-ticket prices at 94 tourist attractions nationwide by 25 percent on average.
BofA-Merrill says the upbeat travel data show China’s economy indicators run beyond the closely-watched electricity and manufacturing gauges.
“Robust Golden Week tourism data also suggest that China’s GDP data… might be more real than what’s perceived by (market) bears, who are focused too much on power usage and industrial production,” the report said.
—By CNBC’s Jean Chua.
© 2012 CNBC.com
Source: http://soc.li/mDYJF7J
Wednesday, October 3, 2012
Gold trading firm Genneva's offices raided
PETALING JAYA: The police, Bank Negara, the Companies Commission of Malaysia and the Ministry of Domestic Trade, Cooperatives and Consumerism jointly raided gold trading firm Genneva Malaysia Sdn Bhd and its affiliates in the country for various suspected offences.
Singapore's Commercial Affairs Department also conducted a similar operation against Genneva Pte Ltd in the republic.
In a statement released yesterday, Bank Negara said the raid was to probe suspected offences under the laws administered by the agencies.
“The public is advised to be cautious in investing money to avoid becoming victims of activities that are illegal and in breach of the law,” the statement read.
Waiting patiently: Customers gathering outside Genneva’s office in Jalan Kuchai Maju 6 as the raid is in progress. The website for Genneva Malaysia remained accessible providing visitors with information on the company's background and contact details, among others.
The firm's Singapore portal, however, was not fully accessible.
The website for the Genneva Pte Ltd at http://www.genneva.com.sg/, takes visitors to a single page with the message that reads: “Work in progress, to ensure all obligations to our customers and consultants are met.”
The message urged for calm and cooperation during “these trying times as we work out amicable solutions for everyone”.
Genneva Singapore's Facebook stated: “Pray for positive outcome while the new management is working round the clock to solve problems.”
“We Shall Overcome!,” read a message posted on the page yesterday afternoon. (http://www.facebook.com/GennevaWorld.Sg)
Meanwhile, several clients and gold traders of the company cried foul over the raid.
A trader, who only wished to be known as Nick, said money earned from the purchase and sale of gold had helped fund his son through university.
“There has never been any complaint by the clients. The company has helped the livelihood of thousands of people. Why are the authorities interfering in a legitimate business?” he asked.
Another trader, S. Shanti, said the money from her buying and selling of gold, which she stressed was done with the relevant documentation and tax deductions, had helped pay for her mother's dialysis weekly treatment costing RM1,000 over the past three years.
“If they put a stop to this company, how am I going to foot the expensive bill for my mother's health?” she asked outside the company's office in Jalan Kuchai Maju 6.
She was among 100 customers, aged between those in their 20s and 70s, who had gathered at the office in support of Genneva after hearing of the raid yesterday afternoon.
They hoped that the authorities would complete the investigations and leave the company alone after that.
It was learnt that Bank Negara held a briefing with all the other agencies in Putrajaya at 8am before the simultaneous raids were conducted.
Staff at the Jalan Kuchai Lama office had their statements recorded until about 9pm before they were allowed to leave.
Officers at the scene were tight-lipped over the operation. However, they were seen carting away documents and files from the two premises located opposite each other.
As of 9.30pm, Bank Negara officers were still going through the records while customers of the company waited.
Source
http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2012/10/2/nation/12110572&sec=nation#1349158501604223&if_height=609
Singapore's Commercial Affairs Department also conducted a similar operation against Genneva Pte Ltd in the republic.
In a statement released yesterday, Bank Negara said the raid was to probe suspected offences under the laws administered by the agencies.
“The public is advised to be cautious in investing money to avoid becoming victims of activities that are illegal and in breach of the law,” the statement read.
Waiting patiently: Customers gathering outside Genneva’s office in Jalan Kuchai Maju 6 as the raid is in progress. The website for Genneva Malaysia remained accessible providing visitors with information on the company's background and contact details, among others.
The firm's Singapore portal, however, was not fully accessible.
The website for the Genneva Pte Ltd at http://www.genneva.com.sg/, takes visitors to a single page with the message that reads: “Work in progress, to ensure all obligations to our customers and consultants are met.”
The message urged for calm and cooperation during “these trying times as we work out amicable solutions for everyone”.
Genneva Singapore's Facebook stated: “Pray for positive outcome while the new management is working round the clock to solve problems.”
“We Shall Overcome!,” read a message posted on the page yesterday afternoon. (http://www.facebook.com/GennevaWorld.Sg)
Meanwhile, several clients and gold traders of the company cried foul over the raid.
A trader, who only wished to be known as Nick, said money earned from the purchase and sale of gold had helped fund his son through university.
“There has never been any complaint by the clients. The company has helped the livelihood of thousands of people. Why are the authorities interfering in a legitimate business?” he asked.
Another trader, S. Shanti, said the money from her buying and selling of gold, which she stressed was done with the relevant documentation and tax deductions, had helped pay for her mother's dialysis weekly treatment costing RM1,000 over the past three years.
“If they put a stop to this company, how am I going to foot the expensive bill for my mother's health?” she asked outside the company's office in Jalan Kuchai Maju 6.
She was among 100 customers, aged between those in their 20s and 70s, who had gathered at the office in support of Genneva after hearing of the raid yesterday afternoon.
They hoped that the authorities would complete the investigations and leave the company alone after that.
It was learnt that Bank Negara held a briefing with all the other agencies in Putrajaya at 8am before the simultaneous raids were conducted.
Staff at the Jalan Kuchai Lama office had their statements recorded until about 9pm before they were allowed to leave.
Officers at the scene were tight-lipped over the operation. However, they were seen carting away documents and files from the two premises located opposite each other.
As of 9.30pm, Bank Negara officers were still going through the records while customers of the company waited.
Source
http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2012/10/2/nation/12110572&sec=nation#1349158501604223&if_height=609
Tuesday, October 2, 2012
Saturday, September 1, 2012
China’s Bear Market Lures Foreign Bids as Locals Pull Funds
International money managers are lining up to buy stocks in mainland China at a record pace, even as a third year of equity losses spurs local investors to empty trading accounts like never before.
While overseas firms were granted $6.9 billion of quotas to purchase mainland securities since December, more than in any full year since the government program began, the number of Chinese stock accounts containing funds dropped by 788,000 to 56.3 million in the year to Aug. 3, the most for a 12-month period. A record 110 million are empty or frozen, according to regulatory data compiled by Bloomberg.
Foreign funds from Taiwan Life Insurance Co. to Shinhan BNP Paribas Asset Management Co. say the 54 percent discount for companies in the Shanghai Composite Index to their 10-year average, and the lowest valuations relative to MSCI Inc.’s developing-nations measure make China shares irresistible. Local individuals, companies and institutions, which hold about 99 percent of mainland shares, are turning more bearish as the world’s second-largest economy slows.
“The value story is clearly emerging in China,” Kim Jun Sung, the chief investment officer for equities at Samsung Asset Management Co., which oversees about $100 billion and received a $150 million quota to buy mainland securities in 2010, said in an Aug. 7 interview in Seoul. “The economic outlook continues to be negative so the catalyst for growth is not yet there.”
State Support
At least 41 overseas institutions gained access to mainland stocks this year as China eased capital restrictions before a once-in-a-decade leadership transition in the ruling Communist Party. China Securities Regulatory Commission Chairman Guo Shuqing expanded the qualified foreign institutional investor, or QFII, program as part of a plan to restore confidence in the $2.8 trillion stock market.
The Shanghai Composite has tumbled 32 percent from its November 2010 high through yesterday, the most among benchmark equity gauges in 21 developing nations tracked by Bloomberg. PetroChina Co., the nation’s largest energy company, and Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd., the biggest lender by market value, contributed most to the Shanghai Composite’s 631-day bear market, the longest in its two-decade history.
The gauge fell 1.1 percent to 2,118.95 at the 3 p.m. local- time close, extending its drop this year to 3.7 percent.
“We are keen on entering” China’s equity market, Chen Tai-shan, a Taipei-based vice-president at Taiwan Life, said by phone on Aug. 7. His company received a $100 million QFII quota in March and plans to invest as much as 60 percent of the money in stocks, favoring retailers and railways. “Shares have reached a bottom.”
Selling Out
The Shanghai Composite’s price-to-earnings (SHCOMP) ratio has dropped to 11.5 from an average 25 during the past decade and a 2007 high of 46, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The MSCI Emerging Markets Index (MXEF) is valued at 12 times profit while the Bovespa index in Brazil, the second-biggest emerging market after China, trades for 14.6 times.
Falling valuations aren’t enough to entice Yao Lina, a 32- year-old accountant in Shanghai who sold all her stock holdings in February and withdrew 80,000 yuan ($12,580) from her trading account. She has no plans to invest in equities, saying the government may take as long as five years to fix “structural” challenges in the economy that have curbed growth.
“I have no confidence in the stock market,” Yao said by phone on Aug. 8.
Slowing Economy
Policy makers cut their expansion target to 7.5 percent from the 8 percent goal in place since 2005, Premier Wen Jiabao said on March 5. Wen, 69, is trying to reduce China’s reliance on exports and boost consumption as he hands power to a younger generation of leaders this year.
Gross domestic product rose 7.6 percent in the second quarter, the slowest pace since 2009. Retail sales growth fell to the lowest level since February 2011 last month, while industrial production expanded at the weakest rate in three years. The 1 percent increase in exports reported by the nation’s customs bureau on Aug. 10 trailed all 32 economist estimates in a Bloomberg survey.
Chinese industrial companies’ earnings fell for a third month in June, according to the government. Beijing-based Air China Ltd. (601111), the world’s second-biggest carrier by market value, said last month its first-half profit probably dropped more than 50 percent, while Tianjin-based China Cosco Holdings Co. (601919), the nation’s largest listed shipping firm, reported a loss.
Empty Accounts
As economic growth has slowed, the number of Chinese equity accounts that contained assets fell for 11 straight weeks through Aug. 3, the longest stretch of declines on record, according to the China Securities Depository & Clearing Corp.
Investors opened 322,851 new accounts to trade shares last month, the fewest since the clearing house began publishing the weekly data five years ago and down from a peak of 4.1 million in the four weeks to Sept. 21, 2007. The 110 million empty or frozen accounts are equivalent to about 8.5 percent of China’s 1.3 billion people and exceed the populations of Germany and the Philippines.
A gauge of sentiment towards Chinese stocks compiled by Credit Suisse Group AG, Switzerland’s second-biggest bank, sank for a third month in July, according to an Aug. 6 report. Seven percent of the 200 people surveyed said they invested in equities last month, compared with 27 percent who planned to purchase property.
Alternative Investments
Chinese real estate and fixed-income securities are luring residents from stocks as home prices rally and inflation slows. Yao used the proceeds from her share sales to help pay for a 400,000 yuan apartment.
Carrie Pan, a 29-year-old accountant in Shanghai who hasn’t purchased equities since April, plans to increase her 300,000- yuan holding of wealth-management products. The investments, comprised mostly of bonds and money-market securities, are arranged by banks and provide an average annual return of 4 percent, Pan said.
Wealth-management products in China were valued at 10.4 trillion yuan at the end of the second quarter, according to Fitch Ratings. The amount is about 60 percent of Chinese companies’ market value, data compiled by Bloomberg show.
Prices for Chinese homes rose for a second straight month in July, marking a “turning point” in the property market after nine months of declines, SouFun Holdings Ltd., the country’s biggest real estate website owner, said on Aug. 1.
Shifting Assets
An index of local-currency debt in China compiled by JPMorgan Chase & Co. has returned 2.6 percent this year as consumer price increases slowed to a 30-month low of 1.8 percent last month. The benchmark one-year savings deposit rate is 3 percent, the highest versus inflation since December 2009.
Pan is waiting for the Shanghai Composite to fall to 2,000, about 7 percent below yesterday’s closing level, before she considers adding to holdings.
Some local individuals and companies are moving assets overseas, Hao Hong, the Hong Kong-based managing director for research at Bocom International Holdings Co., said in an Aug. 7 phone interview.
China reported a capital-account deficit of $71.4 billion in the second quarter, the widest gap since at least 1998. Residents with at least 10 million yuan of assets surveyed by the Hurun Report have 19 percent of their holdings overseas, while more than 60 percent have emigrated or plan to leave the country in the near future, according to a July 31 statement from the Shanghai-based firm, which tracks China’s rich.
QFII Boost
“Local investors are seeing things the foreigners are not,” said Hong, the only strategist among 13 brokerages surveyed by Bloomberg at the start of the year to forecast declines for Chinese stocks in 2012. “There are structural issues in the economy that are hard to resolve.”
Policy makers are taking steps to revive confidence in the stock market and boost economic growth. Guo, the chairman of the CSRC, has reduced transaction fees on equity trades by 20 percent, urged listed companies to pay more cash dividends and changed how initial public offerings are priced. The government also more than doubled allotments under the QFII program in April to $80 billion from $30 billion.
“During the application, the government encouraged investors to put more into stocks,” said Stan Lee, the head of financial and investor relations at Taipei-based Shin Kong Financial Holding Co., which received a $100 million quota to invest in China in March. Shin Kong plans to put as much as 70 percent of the money in equities, Lee said by phone on Aug. 7.
Looser Restrictions
About 75 percent of total QFII assets are invested in yuan- denominated stocks, known as A shares, with the rest in bonds and deposits, according to a CSRC statement in April. There are 176 foreign firms with approval to buy securities under the QFII scheme, which was set up in 2002. Of those, 147 have been given a combined quota of $28.5 billion, State Administration of Foreign Exchange data as of July 20 show. That’s about 1 percent of locally-listed Chinese equities’ total market value, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
“In the medium to long term, we believe the Chinese market is going to do very well,” Mark Mobius, the executive chairman of Templeton Emerging Markets Group, said in an e-mailed response to questions yesterday. Templeton has a $300 million QFII quota, according to SAFE data.
China has also loosened restrictions on the yuan, doubling its daily trading band in April. The government is promoting greater use of the currency in international trade and investment. Sales of yuan-denominated bonds in Hong Kong climbed 25 percent to 121.9 billion yuan this year, after quadrupling in 2011, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Growth Outlook
China’s central bank cut interest rates in June and July, the first reductions since 2008, and lowered lenders’ reserve requirement ratios three times since November to boost lending and support growth.
The economic expansion will accelerate in the second half of this year and into 2013 as the government’s stimulus efforts take effect, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. economists including Hong Kong-based Cui Li said in a research report this month. The measures will increase foreign confidence in the stock market, Shin Kong Financial’s Lee said.
China’s leaders have adopted “pro-growth” policies as they seek a smooth political transition following the suspension of former Chongqing Communist Party Secretary Bo Xilai from the ruling Politburo in April, Bill McCahill, a managing director at Religare Capital Markets in Beijing, wrote in an Aug. 2 report.
Murder Trial
Bo was stripped of his post after his former police chief fled to the U.S. consulate in Chengdu in February with evidence implicating Bo’s wife in the murder of a British businessman, according to U.S. officials briefed on the matter. Gu Kailai confessed to the crime during a seven-hour trial on Aug. 9, the state-run Xinhua News Agency reported. The court has yet to announce its ruling.
GDP will increase at an average annual pace of about 8.7 percent during the next five years, the second-fastest rate among the 70 largest economies after Iraq, according to April estimates from the International Monetary Fund. China has $3.2 trillion of foreign exchange reserves, the world’s biggest holdings, data compiled by Bloomberg show.
“China has a lot of firepower to respond to threats to long-term growth,” Julie Dickson, a London-based product manager for equities at Ashmore Investment Management Ltd., which has $60 billion of assets in emerging markets, said in a phone interview on Aug. 10. Ashmore has a $250 million QFII quota, according to Dickson.
Profit Projections
The Shanghai Composite may rally 25 percent in the next 12 months, according to more than 3,000 share-price estimates for companies in the index compiled by Bloomberg. Earnings will probably jump 32 percent during the period, compared with an 18 percent gain for the MSCI emerging-markets index, projections compiled by Bloomberg show.
ICBC, which traded at a record-low of 5.9 times reported earnings last month, may advance 23 percent in Shanghai, according to the average of seven analysts’ estimates. PetroChina (601857), Asia’s largest company by market value, is poised to gain 14 percent, projections compiled by Bloomberg show. Both companies are based in Beijing.
“Most of the negatives are already priced in, and chances of further decline from the current level are low,” said Park Jae Wu, a Hong Kong-based fund manager at Shinhan BNP Paribas Asset Management, which received a $100 million QFII quota in March and favors consumer companies. “Once the Chinese government announces more aggressive measures to support the economy, the market’s recovery trend will set in.”
Pan, the Shanghai accountant, said she isn’t so sure after the value of her equity investments lost 30 percent since last year. “Stocks have never halted declines.”
--Richard Frost, Weiyi Lim, Zhang Shidong, Michael Patterson, Saeromi Shin and Allen Wan. With assistance by Jun Luo in Beijing. Editor: Darren Boey
Source:http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-08-14/china-bear-market-lures-record-foreign-bids-as-locals-pull-funds.html
While overseas firms were granted $6.9 billion of quotas to purchase mainland securities since December, more than in any full year since the government program began, the number of Chinese stock accounts containing funds dropped by 788,000 to 56.3 million in the year to Aug. 3, the most for a 12-month period. A record 110 million are empty or frozen, according to regulatory data compiled by Bloomberg.
Foreign funds from Taiwan Life Insurance Co. to Shinhan BNP Paribas Asset Management Co. say the 54 percent discount for companies in the Shanghai Composite Index to their 10-year average, and the lowest valuations relative to MSCI Inc.’s developing-nations measure make China shares irresistible. Local individuals, companies and institutions, which hold about 99 percent of mainland shares, are turning more bearish as the world’s second-largest economy slows.
“The value story is clearly emerging in China,” Kim Jun Sung, the chief investment officer for equities at Samsung Asset Management Co., which oversees about $100 billion and received a $150 million quota to buy mainland securities in 2010, said in an Aug. 7 interview in Seoul. “The economic outlook continues to be negative so the catalyst for growth is not yet there.”
State Support
At least 41 overseas institutions gained access to mainland stocks this year as China eased capital restrictions before a once-in-a-decade leadership transition in the ruling Communist Party. China Securities Regulatory Commission Chairman Guo Shuqing expanded the qualified foreign institutional investor, or QFII, program as part of a plan to restore confidence in the $2.8 trillion stock market.
The Shanghai Composite has tumbled 32 percent from its November 2010 high through yesterday, the most among benchmark equity gauges in 21 developing nations tracked by Bloomberg. PetroChina Co., the nation’s largest energy company, and Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd., the biggest lender by market value, contributed most to the Shanghai Composite’s 631-day bear market, the longest in its two-decade history.
The gauge fell 1.1 percent to 2,118.95 at the 3 p.m. local- time close, extending its drop this year to 3.7 percent.
“We are keen on entering” China’s equity market, Chen Tai-shan, a Taipei-based vice-president at Taiwan Life, said by phone on Aug. 7. His company received a $100 million QFII quota in March and plans to invest as much as 60 percent of the money in stocks, favoring retailers and railways. “Shares have reached a bottom.”
Selling Out
The Shanghai Composite’s price-to-earnings (SHCOMP) ratio has dropped to 11.5 from an average 25 during the past decade and a 2007 high of 46, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The MSCI Emerging Markets Index (MXEF) is valued at 12 times profit while the Bovespa index in Brazil, the second-biggest emerging market after China, trades for 14.6 times.
Falling valuations aren’t enough to entice Yao Lina, a 32- year-old accountant in Shanghai who sold all her stock holdings in February and withdrew 80,000 yuan ($12,580) from her trading account. She has no plans to invest in equities, saying the government may take as long as five years to fix “structural” challenges in the economy that have curbed growth.
“I have no confidence in the stock market,” Yao said by phone on Aug. 8.
Slowing Economy
Policy makers cut their expansion target to 7.5 percent from the 8 percent goal in place since 2005, Premier Wen Jiabao said on March 5. Wen, 69, is trying to reduce China’s reliance on exports and boost consumption as he hands power to a younger generation of leaders this year.
Gross domestic product rose 7.6 percent in the second quarter, the slowest pace since 2009. Retail sales growth fell to the lowest level since February 2011 last month, while industrial production expanded at the weakest rate in three years. The 1 percent increase in exports reported by the nation’s customs bureau on Aug. 10 trailed all 32 economist estimates in a Bloomberg survey.
Chinese industrial companies’ earnings fell for a third month in June, according to the government. Beijing-based Air China Ltd. (601111), the world’s second-biggest carrier by market value, said last month its first-half profit probably dropped more than 50 percent, while Tianjin-based China Cosco Holdings Co. (601919), the nation’s largest listed shipping firm, reported a loss.
Empty Accounts
As economic growth has slowed, the number of Chinese equity accounts that contained assets fell for 11 straight weeks through Aug. 3, the longest stretch of declines on record, according to the China Securities Depository & Clearing Corp.
Investors opened 322,851 new accounts to trade shares last month, the fewest since the clearing house began publishing the weekly data five years ago and down from a peak of 4.1 million in the four weeks to Sept. 21, 2007. The 110 million empty or frozen accounts are equivalent to about 8.5 percent of China’s 1.3 billion people and exceed the populations of Germany and the Philippines.
A gauge of sentiment towards Chinese stocks compiled by Credit Suisse Group AG, Switzerland’s second-biggest bank, sank for a third month in July, according to an Aug. 6 report. Seven percent of the 200 people surveyed said they invested in equities last month, compared with 27 percent who planned to purchase property.
Alternative Investments
Chinese real estate and fixed-income securities are luring residents from stocks as home prices rally and inflation slows. Yao used the proceeds from her share sales to help pay for a 400,000 yuan apartment.
Carrie Pan, a 29-year-old accountant in Shanghai who hasn’t purchased equities since April, plans to increase her 300,000- yuan holding of wealth-management products. The investments, comprised mostly of bonds and money-market securities, are arranged by banks and provide an average annual return of 4 percent, Pan said.
Wealth-management products in China were valued at 10.4 trillion yuan at the end of the second quarter, according to Fitch Ratings. The amount is about 60 percent of Chinese companies’ market value, data compiled by Bloomberg show.
Prices for Chinese homes rose for a second straight month in July, marking a “turning point” in the property market after nine months of declines, SouFun Holdings Ltd., the country’s biggest real estate website owner, said on Aug. 1.
Shifting Assets
An index of local-currency debt in China compiled by JPMorgan Chase & Co. has returned 2.6 percent this year as consumer price increases slowed to a 30-month low of 1.8 percent last month. The benchmark one-year savings deposit rate is 3 percent, the highest versus inflation since December 2009.
Pan is waiting for the Shanghai Composite to fall to 2,000, about 7 percent below yesterday’s closing level, before she considers adding to holdings.
Some local individuals and companies are moving assets overseas, Hao Hong, the Hong Kong-based managing director for research at Bocom International Holdings Co., said in an Aug. 7 phone interview.
China reported a capital-account deficit of $71.4 billion in the second quarter, the widest gap since at least 1998. Residents with at least 10 million yuan of assets surveyed by the Hurun Report have 19 percent of their holdings overseas, while more than 60 percent have emigrated or plan to leave the country in the near future, according to a July 31 statement from the Shanghai-based firm, which tracks China’s rich.
QFII Boost
“Local investors are seeing things the foreigners are not,” said Hong, the only strategist among 13 brokerages surveyed by Bloomberg at the start of the year to forecast declines for Chinese stocks in 2012. “There are structural issues in the economy that are hard to resolve.”
Policy makers are taking steps to revive confidence in the stock market and boost economic growth. Guo, the chairman of the CSRC, has reduced transaction fees on equity trades by 20 percent, urged listed companies to pay more cash dividends and changed how initial public offerings are priced. The government also more than doubled allotments under the QFII program in April to $80 billion from $30 billion.
“During the application, the government encouraged investors to put more into stocks,” said Stan Lee, the head of financial and investor relations at Taipei-based Shin Kong Financial Holding Co., which received a $100 million quota to invest in China in March. Shin Kong plans to put as much as 70 percent of the money in equities, Lee said by phone on Aug. 7.
Looser Restrictions
About 75 percent of total QFII assets are invested in yuan- denominated stocks, known as A shares, with the rest in bonds and deposits, according to a CSRC statement in April. There are 176 foreign firms with approval to buy securities under the QFII scheme, which was set up in 2002. Of those, 147 have been given a combined quota of $28.5 billion, State Administration of Foreign Exchange data as of July 20 show. That’s about 1 percent of locally-listed Chinese equities’ total market value, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
“In the medium to long term, we believe the Chinese market is going to do very well,” Mark Mobius, the executive chairman of Templeton Emerging Markets Group, said in an e-mailed response to questions yesterday. Templeton has a $300 million QFII quota, according to SAFE data.
China has also loosened restrictions on the yuan, doubling its daily trading band in April. The government is promoting greater use of the currency in international trade and investment. Sales of yuan-denominated bonds in Hong Kong climbed 25 percent to 121.9 billion yuan this year, after quadrupling in 2011, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Growth Outlook
China’s central bank cut interest rates in June and July, the first reductions since 2008, and lowered lenders’ reserve requirement ratios three times since November to boost lending and support growth.
The economic expansion will accelerate in the second half of this year and into 2013 as the government’s stimulus efforts take effect, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. economists including Hong Kong-based Cui Li said in a research report this month. The measures will increase foreign confidence in the stock market, Shin Kong Financial’s Lee said.
China’s leaders have adopted “pro-growth” policies as they seek a smooth political transition following the suspension of former Chongqing Communist Party Secretary Bo Xilai from the ruling Politburo in April, Bill McCahill, a managing director at Religare Capital Markets in Beijing, wrote in an Aug. 2 report.
Murder Trial
Bo was stripped of his post after his former police chief fled to the U.S. consulate in Chengdu in February with evidence implicating Bo’s wife in the murder of a British businessman, according to U.S. officials briefed on the matter. Gu Kailai confessed to the crime during a seven-hour trial on Aug. 9, the state-run Xinhua News Agency reported. The court has yet to announce its ruling.
GDP will increase at an average annual pace of about 8.7 percent during the next five years, the second-fastest rate among the 70 largest economies after Iraq, according to April estimates from the International Monetary Fund. China has $3.2 trillion of foreign exchange reserves, the world’s biggest holdings, data compiled by Bloomberg show.
“China has a lot of firepower to respond to threats to long-term growth,” Julie Dickson, a London-based product manager for equities at Ashmore Investment Management Ltd., which has $60 billion of assets in emerging markets, said in a phone interview on Aug. 10. Ashmore has a $250 million QFII quota, according to Dickson.
Profit Projections
The Shanghai Composite may rally 25 percent in the next 12 months, according to more than 3,000 share-price estimates for companies in the index compiled by Bloomberg. Earnings will probably jump 32 percent during the period, compared with an 18 percent gain for the MSCI emerging-markets index, projections compiled by Bloomberg show.
ICBC, which traded at a record-low of 5.9 times reported earnings last month, may advance 23 percent in Shanghai, according to the average of seven analysts’ estimates. PetroChina (601857), Asia’s largest company by market value, is poised to gain 14 percent, projections compiled by Bloomberg show. Both companies are based in Beijing.
“Most of the negatives are already priced in, and chances of further decline from the current level are low,” said Park Jae Wu, a Hong Kong-based fund manager at Shinhan BNP Paribas Asset Management, which received a $100 million QFII quota in March and favors consumer companies. “Once the Chinese government announces more aggressive measures to support the economy, the market’s recovery trend will set in.”
Pan, the Shanghai accountant, said she isn’t so sure after the value of her equity investments lost 30 percent since last year. “Stocks have never halted declines.”
--Richard Frost, Weiyi Lim, Zhang Shidong, Michael Patterson, Saeromi Shin and Allen Wan. With assistance by Jun Luo in Beijing. Editor: Darren Boey
Source:http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-08-14/china-bear-market-lures-record-foreign-bids-as-locals-pull-funds.html
Sunday, July 22, 2012
Monday, July 16, 2012
Hedge Funds - Mastered by the universe
Jul 11th 2012, 16:16 by Buttonwood
..IT IS turning into another difficult year for the hedge fund industry. Data from GlobeOp found that, in June, funds suffered the largest withdrawals in assets since October 2009. Eurekahedge found that hedge funds suffered their fourth consecutive month of negative returns in June; in the first half of the year, they eked out a return of 1.3%, compared to a 3.7% gain for the MSCI World index. That follows a 3.6% decline in 2011. for those investors who picked a fund-of-funds, with the accompanying extra layer of fees, a 0.4% return this year followed a 5.4% loss in 2011. In short, investors have lost money over the last 18 months.
The marketing claims of hedge funds have changed over the years. In the 1990s, the glory days of George Soros and Michael Steinhardt, it was argued that hedge fund managers were the "smartest guys in the room" who could produce superior returns. In the 2000s, as equity markets faltered, it was claimed that hedge fund managers delivered absolute returns; they tended not to lose money. But then they lost almost 20% in 2008. So now people talk about the uncorrelated returns hedge fund managers achieve.
There are lots of claims, and counter-claims; in this area; lots of studies that try to account for factors such as survivorship bias and volatility. But a few things seem pretty certain.
1. Many hedge fund managers are smart, and some managers may be a lot smarter than the average investor. The difficulty is in identifying those investors in advance.
2. There are some generally uncorrelated strategies but these niches can be quite small, and consist of illiquid assets. As a result, the lack of correlation with the big asset classes may be partly caused by the slowness of price adjustment in such assets, since deals are less common. But the corollary is that it is difficult to exit such strategies in a crisis, with the result that there are occasional steep drops in valuations.
3. For the bulk of the industry there is likely to be a reasonable correlation with indices such as the S&P 500. As the industry gets larger, this correlation is likely to increase and it will be harder for the average manager to outperform.
4. Hedge fund managers will thus be subject to the same constraint as mutual fund managers; that returns are equal to the index minus costs. And since their fees are higher, the result will be disappointing returns for the average investor.
« The economy: Creeping inflation
Source :
http://www.economist.com/blogs/buttonwood/2012/07/hedge-funds
..IT IS turning into another difficult year for the hedge fund industry. Data from GlobeOp found that, in June, funds suffered the largest withdrawals in assets since October 2009. Eurekahedge found that hedge funds suffered their fourth consecutive month of negative returns in June; in the first half of the year, they eked out a return of 1.3%, compared to a 3.7% gain for the MSCI World index. That follows a 3.6% decline in 2011. for those investors who picked a fund-of-funds, with the accompanying extra layer of fees, a 0.4% return this year followed a 5.4% loss in 2011. In short, investors have lost money over the last 18 months.
The marketing claims of hedge funds have changed over the years. In the 1990s, the glory days of George Soros and Michael Steinhardt, it was argued that hedge fund managers were the "smartest guys in the room" who could produce superior returns. In the 2000s, as equity markets faltered, it was claimed that hedge fund managers delivered absolute returns; they tended not to lose money. But then they lost almost 20% in 2008. So now people talk about the uncorrelated returns hedge fund managers achieve.
There are lots of claims, and counter-claims; in this area; lots of studies that try to account for factors such as survivorship bias and volatility. But a few things seem pretty certain.
1. Many hedge fund managers are smart, and some managers may be a lot smarter than the average investor. The difficulty is in identifying those investors in advance.
2. There are some generally uncorrelated strategies but these niches can be quite small, and consist of illiquid assets. As a result, the lack of correlation with the big asset classes may be partly caused by the slowness of price adjustment in such assets, since deals are less common. But the corollary is that it is difficult to exit such strategies in a crisis, with the result that there are occasional steep drops in valuations.
3. For the bulk of the industry there is likely to be a reasonable correlation with indices such as the S&P 500. As the industry gets larger, this correlation is likely to increase and it will be harder for the average manager to outperform.
4. Hedge fund managers will thus be subject to the same constraint as mutual fund managers; that returns are equal to the index minus costs. And since their fees are higher, the result will be disappointing returns for the average investor.
« The economy: Creeping inflation
Source :
http://www.economist.com/blogs/buttonwood/2012/07/hedge-funds
Sunday, July 15, 2012
OV Night
Dear all OV members,
Here we are, the long awaited publication of our night - THE INTERNATIONAL NIGHT! Proudly organised by One Vision!
CONGRATULATIONS ON YOUR NATIONAL SALES CONVENTION ACHIEVEMENT!
Lets break for food!
THE BEST DRESS PARTICIPANTS OF THE NIGHT!
CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL THE PROMOTEES & NSC ACHIEVERS, WE WILL SEE YOU NEXT YEAR ON THE STAGE AGAIN!
Here we are, the long awaited publication of our night - THE INTERNATIONAL NIGHT! Proudly organised by One Vision!
Hey! We are no more baby!
We are 10 years old already!
 Let's celebrate! |
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| The main entrance to the night! |
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| The Management Team with our Present & Immediate Past President |
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| MC of the Night! |
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| Organising Chairlady's speech by Ms Alice Chung |
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| Speech by Mr Henry Wong, the IPP |
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| The Current President, Ms Lau Lee Peng |
CONGRATULATIONS ON YOUR PROMOTIONS!
CONGRATULATIONS ON YOUR NATIONAL SALES CONVENTION ACHIEVEMENT!
Lets break for food!
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| The Best Dress Costume Winners for the night! |
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| Ooh! We have lucky draw for the night too! |
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| Dancing section lead by a Professional Coach, Ms Ruby |
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| Game Time! |
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