https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/rss/6334/feed en https://assets.i-scmp.com/static/img/icons/scmp-meta-1200x630.png https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg Here’s something you don’t hear often from companies: “We’d like to apply tougher accounting standards, but our government won’t let us.” This is the odd but interesting spin that many Chinese banks are putting on their latest set of results, in which most major financial institutions lowered their coverage ratios for bad loans; they did this not because levels of credit stress have improved, but rather as an easy accounting tweak to boost results after a tough third quarter. We believe the... https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/business/banking-finance/article/2043635/chinese-banks-are-suddenly-being-frank-about-non-performing?utm_source=rss_feed https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/business/banking-finance/article/2043635/chinese-banks-are-suddenly-being-frank-about-non-performing?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 07 Nov 2016 07:10:17 +0000 Less than a decade after cartoonishly rich US bankers blew up the global economy, Americans are considering electing as president a man who lives in gold-plated palaces and plies the oceans in supersized yachts. China, meanwhile, is publicly shaming former high flyers for conspicuous consumption as trivial as feasting on crocodile tails and swilling shots of Moutai liquor. For sure, the Chinese high flyers whose decadent behaviour is featured in the documentary series Always on the Road are in... https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/business/money/wealth/article/2041605/beijings-crackdown-wealthy-excess-puts-us-shame?utm_source=rss_feed https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/business/money/wealth/article/2041605/beijings-crackdown-wealthy-excess-puts-us-shame?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 31 Oct 2016 07:16:48 +0000 The Hong Kong International Literary Festival kicks off this Friday, and among the events is a dinner with the US novelist Lionel Shriver. Interestingly, Shriver just spoke at a similar festival in Australia, and was afterward rebuked, with the festival organisers scrubbing links to her speech from their website. The reason? Shriver, a white woman, defiantly wore a Mexican-style sombrero and delivered a scathing attack on the concept of “cultural appropriation”. In case that’s a new one on you,... https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/business/article/2039486/balancing-cultural-appropriation-good-business?utm_source=rss_feed https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/business/article/2039486/balancing-cultural-appropriation-good-business?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 24 Oct 2016 03:54:01 +0000 “I have a special message for anyone watching tonight’s show on their Samsung Galaxy Note 7,” a US talk show said in his opening monologue recently. “Run for your lives.” It is not nice to laugh at other’s misfortunes – and this will be an extremely costly one for Samsung Electronics. But spontaneously combusting phones do have a natural, slapstick comedy element to them, and also make for really funny internet memes. Plus let’s face it; there is something in human nature that thrills at seeing... https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/business/article/2028640/corporate-geniuses-often-make-daftest-mistakes-remember-greed-can-have?utm_source=rss_feed https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/business/article/2028640/corporate-geniuses-often-make-daftest-mistakes-remember-greed-can-have?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 17 Oct 2016 01:15:30 +0000 Jackie Chan, we love your apple-cheeked smile, and those amazing flying kicks and other aerial feats and the personal journey of your life. But it is time to move aside as Hong Kong’s unofficial tourism ambassador and I elect Joshua Wong for the job. Sure, I recognise that the young student activist might not be interested in promoting Hong Kong’s flagging tourist arrival numbers. When Beijing threatened to stop issuing permits for visiting Hong Kong to mainland visitors during the Umbrella... https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/business/article/2026716/those-standing-hong-kongs-rich-economic-and-cultural-traditions-are-its?utm_source=rss_feed https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/business/article/2026716/those-standing-hong-kongs-rich-economic-and-cultural-traditions-are-its?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 10 Oct 2016 07:15:45 +0000 “You win again,” the memoirist Karl Ove Knausgaard complains to his strong-willed toddler in the second volume of his autobiography, and I know exactly how he feels. I also have a daughter who does not take “no” for an answer. If she gets a rejection, she comes back with a new approach, a new argument, an adjusted pitch to the nasality of her whine. I like to joke that my cave-in parenting style is strategic, a way to prepare today’s youngsters for a career in one of the few fields of employment... https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/business/article/2024535/birth-salesperson-tough-parenting-key-career-success?utm_source=rss_feed https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/business/article/2024535/birth-salesperson-tough-parenting-key-career-success?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 03 Oct 2016 01:00:30 +0000 As an American, I must say that lately I’ve been jealous of almost any other country’s voter base. The level of political discourse seems more rational and advanced elsewhere. In Japan, for instance, the still-popular Prime Minister Shinzo Abe won office propounding a complex economic and monetary strategy. Would Donald Trump’s followers even know what a “monetary base” is? Yet after the Bank of Japan’s latest monetary gambit announced last week, one wonders if the country isn’t suffering from... https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/business/global-economy/article/2022615/abenomics-shows-japanese-voters-think-hard-about-whats-best?utm_source=rss_feed https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/business/global-economy/article/2022615/abenomics-shows-japanese-voters-think-hard-about-whats-best?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 26 Sep 2016 07:49:52 +0000 I’ve attended a number of speeches where eyes rolled while a Chinese government official read from a narrow script. So it was interesting to attend a speech last week where a Scot received the same treatment - simply for working for the Chinese. Danny Alexander, a former Chief Secretary to the Treasury who is now a vice president at the Beijing-based Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), spoke last week in Hong Kong, and even before he stepped to the podium, one could guess he was going... https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/business/article/2020570/big-infrastructure-xi-jinping-and-real-role-aiib?utm_source=rss_feed https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/business/article/2020570/big-infrastructure-xi-jinping-and-real-role-aiib?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 19 Sep 2016 04:18:33 +0000 Chinese President Xi Jinping has been compared to Mikhail Gorbachev – because of China’s stepped-up privatisation of state assets – and to Mao Zedong, on the back of Xi’s tendency towards personality cult and repression. Here’s another comparison worth considering: Xi and Mother Teresa. Ok, sure, this connection is less obvious. Mother Teresa is a Catholic nun who was this month elevated to sainthood, for her charity work among the poorest of the poor in India. Her canonisation is a... https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/business/article/2018531/xi-jinpings-china-dream-transforming-idea-slower-growth-virtue?utm_source=rss_feed https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/business/article/2018531/xi-jinpings-china-dream-transforming-idea-slower-growth-virtue?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 12 Sep 2016 03:21:27 +0000 The professional who follows financial markets in China requires an unusual toolkit. Besides econometric knowledge, he or she has to act as a detective, gossip-monger, pop-psychologist and conspiracy theorist. Just look at the difference between monetary outlooks on the Federal Reserve versus the People’s Bank of China. The Fed watcher’s report will heavily rely on Taylor rules and regression models. It cannot forecast surprises, because the Fed telegraphs its intentions with the same level of... https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/business/article/2014876/whats-driving-mysterious-gains-chinese-banking-shares?utm_source=rss_feed https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/business/article/2014876/whats-driving-mysterious-gains-chinese-banking-shares?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 05 Sep 2016 03:48:17 +0000 We are living in the “Asian Century”, so called because by 2050, the region is projected to be as wealthy as Europe on a per capita basis, and hold a dominant share of global economic output. But what if it turns out to be the “Asian Half-Century”? The narrative of an increasingly rich and busy Asia assumes we will continue on the current trajectory, however many things could go wrong. “Asia’s rise is by no means preordained,” the Asian Development Bank wrote in its book, Asia 2050: Realizing... https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/business/global-economy/article/2010511/global-warming-and-robotics-two-biggest-threats-asian?utm_source=rss_feed https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/business/global-economy/article/2010511/global-warming-and-robotics-two-biggest-threats-asian?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 29 Aug 2016 01:38:46 +0000 Imagine you work as a securities analyst, and in this capacity attend an interim results briefing, where you witness the company’s chief financial officer conduct himself in a stunningly unprofessional manner – shouting at and then ejecting a banker with a bearish rating on the stock. Do you tell clients of what you have seen? In theory, of course you do. In practice, however, it would seem the answer is No. The scene described above took place in Hong Kong on August 10, when Chris Lee, CFO of... https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/business/china-business/article/2007294/free-speech-must-be-paramount-meaningful-analyst-comment?utm_source=rss_feed https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/business/china-business/article/2007294/free-speech-must-be-paramount-meaningful-analyst-comment?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 22 Aug 2016 04:34:42 +0000 One rather sweet, virtuous subplot to the Olympics is the crucial role of volunteers. Volunteering gives members of the public a chance to express their civic pride, and to be a part of something bigger than themselves. The cost of hosting a major sports event would be unbearable were it not for those who freely give their time to seat guests, transport athletes and perform other services But when the Games are over we have to return to this principle: volunteers are increasingly seen not as... https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/business/global-economy/article/2004080/how-employers-have-turned-virtue-youthful-sacrifice-vice?utm_source=rss_feed https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/business/global-economy/article/2004080/how-employers-have-turned-virtue-youthful-sacrifice-vice?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 15 Aug 2016 06:41:17 +0000 Pokémon Go characters are everywhere, giving players of the augmented reality game the satisfaction of constant small victories. But it might prove trickier to hunt down the corporate creatures that are raking in the most cash flows from the game’s smash success. Nintendo, with its 32 per cent stake in The Pokémon Company, is the most obvious winner, but its shares have soared and some analysts believe they are now overvalued. Morgan Stanley, for example, has an 18,000-yen (US$176.70) price... https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/business/china-business/article/2000722/winners-and-losers-hunt-pokemon-success?utm_source=rss_feed https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/business/china-business/article/2000722/winners-and-losers-hunt-pokemon-success?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 08 Aug 2016 03:27:05 +0000 For those who may have missed it, a very interesting interview with a Foxconn Technology Group executive ran in this paper over the weekend. The world’s biggest single employer of factory workers came clean on its grand plan to switch to robot labour: it won’t be happening. The plan was first mooted in 2011, when the iPhone manufacturer’s chief executive and chairman, Terry Guo, vowed that within three years, a million robots would be deployed at its China-based factories. The “million” figure... https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/business/article/1997594/heres-perfect-rebuke-automation-alarmists-who-say-robots-are-taking-over?utm_source=rss_feed https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/business/article/1997594/heres-perfect-rebuke-automation-alarmists-who-say-robots-are-taking-over?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 01 Aug 2016 02:02:46 +0000 Here is my contrarian tip for preparing kids to compete in the modern knowledge economy: raise ‘em dumb. They will get richer and may help prevent world war three. This seems, on the surface, an unreasonable approach. The modern world is increasingly complex, and the knowledgeable and intelligent have an economic edge. Thus the entire parenting and educational infrastructure is geared towards making the next generation as smart as possible. The latest advice from cognitive psychologists is that... https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/business/global-economy/article/1994394/why-simplicity-solution-worlds-complex-problems?utm_source=rss_feed https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/business/global-economy/article/1994394/why-simplicity-solution-worlds-complex-problems?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 25 Jul 2016 03:00:15 +0000 Here is a pop quiz. I just flew from Hong Kong to the United States, and more than half the flight crew had grey hair. Which carrier was I on? The answer is: not an Asian carrier. In this case, it was United Airlines, and despite the Facebook meme “Friends don’t let friends fly United,” the staff were just fine. They were better than fine: they were real. In contrast, on so many Asian airlines the cabin crew is young and comely, as if we are floating along in some 1950s cotton-candy cloud drift.... https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/business/article/1991276/airlines-shouldnt-be-brothels-sky?utm_source=rss_feed https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/business/article/1991276/airlines-shouldnt-be-brothels-sky?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 18 Jul 2016 06:08:58 +0000 In a recent piece titled “The Rise of Fringe Politics”, Standard Chartered investment strategist Philippe Dauba-Pantanacce looked at how populist paranoia is buoying non-traditional political parties or candidates. “A growing phenomenon that is playing an important new role – helped by the development of the internet – is the rise of conspiracy theories. These can have the same roots as fringe politics (a loss of trust in the establishment and mainstream media), and the two can reinforce each... https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/business/article/1988355/what-all-these-conspiracy-theories-are-telling-us-about-ourselves?utm_source=rss_feed https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/business/article/1988355/what-all-these-conspiracy-theories-are-telling-us-about-ourselves?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 11 Jul 2016 05:42:21 +0000 No one likes an autocrat, but if there has to be one, can’t we make the best of it? Here’s hoping President Xi Jinping sorts out the airspace issue in China. Flights to and from the Chinese mainland are frequently and frustratingly delayed, and this is apparently because the People’s Liberation Army controls the skies, leaving commercial airlines to jostle over the slender remaining flight paths. Someone needs to change this situation. A report in this newspaper said that when compared with... https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/business/article/1985020/chinese-airlines-are-consistently-late-one-surprising-reason?utm_source=rss_feed https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/business/article/1985020/chinese-airlines-are-consistently-late-one-surprising-reason?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 04 Jul 2016 01:15:45 +0000 One media outlet wryly called it “motivational spanking”. The People’s Daily, which broke the story, called it “shocking”. Smartphone video footage obtained by the People’s Daily showed bank employees being physical disciplined by an outside consultant to Rural Commercial Bank in the city of Changzhi. The consultant can be seen berating a group of allegedly underperforming employees on a stage; then, after yelling at them to “get your butts ready,” he administers a paddling. An interesting... https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/business/banking-finance/article/1982080/motivational-spanking-shows-effects-chinas-one-party-rule?utm_source=rss_feed https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/business/banking-finance/article/1982080/motivational-spanking-shows-effects-chinas-one-party-rule?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 27 Jun 2016 05:13:54 +0000 There are many upsides to having been born in modern times. We live longer, get to drive cars and are less likely to end up burnt at the stake, or swallowed by a whale. Moreover, if we fall ill, the doctor won’t arrive at our bedsides and order a “bleeding.” Then there is this: interest rates are the lowest they’ve been in five millennia, as pointed out in a recent Bank of America Merrill Lynch global investment report. It is an “astonishing history investors are living through today: lowest... https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/business/article/1977939/perennially-low-interest-rates-product-our-modern-age?utm_source=rss_feed https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/business/article/1977939/perennially-low-interest-rates-product-our-modern-age?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 20 Jun 2016 04:09:39 +0000 There is an expression in investment circles that no one qualifies as a macro-trader until they have lost money shorting the Japanese bond market. The trade never worked even though it seemed obvious that Japan, with it combo of massive debt and anaemic growth, was heading for a bond market meltdown. Given that definition, Kyle Bass, the Texas hedge fund manager, qualifies as a bona fide macro trader. He long predicted doom for Japanese bonds, a call that clearly didn’t reap him the gazillions... https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/business/article/1974285/china-changing-way-will-soon-make-us-forget-about-old-economy?utm_source=rss_feed https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/business/article/1974285/china-changing-way-will-soon-make-us-forget-about-old-economy?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 13 Jun 2016 04:16:54 +0000 I am filing this column from the United States, as a bruising election year continues, replete with violent scuffles and shouting matches, particularly at political rallies for Donald Trump. Among the most popular insults being hurled this election season is: “Get a job!” Embedded in this phrase is a macroeconomic assumption: that American economic malaise is not a top-down problem, but a bottom-up one. There is work for those who are willing. So get a job! This would seem to contradict another... https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/business/article/1966769/i-asked-new-immigrants-us-why-so-many-americans-are-dropping-out-job-market?utm_source=rss_feed https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/business/article/1966769/i-asked-new-immigrants-us-why-so-many-americans-are-dropping-out-job-market?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 06 Jun 2016 02:32:41 +0000 For those fearful of the effects of the Federal Reserve’s telegraphed tightening of monetary conditions, I have two words: water sommelier. The water sommelier is a creature that now exists in places like California, guiding customers through the list of exotic stilled and sparkling waters on the menus of high-end restaurants. Their very existence would seem to indicate a bubble, one that could be pricked if the US raises interest rates, as Fed chair Janet Yellen has indicated recently. Some... https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/business/global-economy/article/1959163/some-people-see-bubbly-pockets-us-and-world-economy?utm_source=rss_feed https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/business/global-economy/article/1959163/some-people-see-bubbly-pockets-us-and-world-economy?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 30 May 2016 02:16:22 +0000 Some 15 years ago, a survey of retail stock investors in China showed that nine out of 10 polled vowed to never put a put a dime in the markets again. Scandals were rife, earnings pitiful and many investors were angry at the clown-quality of companies listed on the domestic bourses. In those days, foreign investors tended to get the best deals, such as being exclusively sold stakes in some of China’s best franchises like the duopoly in telecommunications, which provided monopoly-like returns in... https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/business/china-business/article/1951578/chinas-small-investors-have-advantage-over-some-worlds-most?utm_source=rss_feed https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/business/china-business/article/1951578/chinas-small-investors-have-advantage-over-some-worlds-most?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 23 May 2016 07:20:25 +0000 One way to make money in financial markets is to bet on unanticipated events, but these days surprises can be hard to come by. Only a few decades ago, the Federal Reserve used to make its monetary decisions in secret, informing the market weeks later. Nowadays the Fed, like the European Central Bank, telegraphs policy adjustments well in advance. It’s like the “jazz hands” version of monetary policy: try to act noiselessly, so as not to upset those economic actors who may suffer trauma. Japan... https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/business/article/1945586/pockets-opportunities-uncertain-china-market?utm_source=rss_feed https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/business/article/1945586/pockets-opportunities-uncertain-china-market?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 16 May 2016 04:44:51 +0000 China has been pumping an astounding amount of liquidity into the economy. Unlike money, however, optimism seems to be in short supply. “All this money being tossed around like an after-party at a rap concert is not generating any notable uptick in activity,” Christopher Balding, a Beijing-based business professor, wrote last week in a piece distributed by the research site Smartkarma. Total social financing – a measure that takes in bank loans as well as other forms of credit, such as bonds –... https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/business/article/1942582/all-cash-china-splashing-out-rev-its-economy-where-growth?utm_source=rss_feed https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/business/article/1942582/all-cash-china-splashing-out-rev-its-economy-where-growth?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 09 May 2016 04:38:49 +0000 In 2009, the People’s Bank of China governor Zhou Xiaochuan published an essay arguing that the US dollar was no longer working as the world’s reserve currency. “You’re fired!,” is the way Donald Trump would have put it. Zhou was writing at a time when the dollar-dependent trade financing system was still recovering from the shockwaves caused by the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy in 2008. That event led global banks to call in their trade financing and brutally cut off liquidity to producers in... https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/business/article/1940439/china-predator-or-great-reflator?utm_source=rss_feed https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/business/article/1940439/china-predator-or-great-reflator?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 02 May 2016 04:30:30 +0000 Cathy Holcombe Cathy Holcombe It used to be that young adults sometimes took “gap years” after graduation from university. Now the trend is to take a gap year before college even begins. What’s up with that? When my daughter asked for one I said great – go work in the salt mines for a year, and earn some money for school. Employers have noticed a similar lack of stick-to-itiveness. Recently I interviewed Ma Chan-chi, a local banking executive. Ma worked his way through school, then studied while working, cramming for his... https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/business/article/1938309/millennials-taking-longer-view-working-life?utm_source=rss_feed https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/business/article/1938309/millennials-taking-longer-view-working-life?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 25 Apr 2016 02:39:56 +0000 The daughter of Hong Kong’s chief executive leaves her carry-on bag behind, and airport security officials bring it to her as she boards an international flight. A local newspaper finds out, and the story splashes across the front pages with big headlines. Leung Chun-ying is asked to explain himself, legislators and aviation unions cry foul, internet users spew venom on social networks, and the incident gets dubbed “bag-gate”. Hong Kong is one of the least corrupt places in the world, coming in... https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/business/article/1936780/transparency-key-fighting-graft?utm_source=rss_feed https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/business/article/1936780/transparency-key-fighting-graft?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 18 Apr 2016 01:41:07 +0000 Dear daughter, this column is for you. I am sorry that I hissed when you asked for a US$29 Posie K liquid lipstick + lip liner duo by Kylie Jenner (shipping not included). I am sorry for spewing obscenities and calling you a chump. If I could explain. First, I was taken aback by the news that an 18-year-old had developed her own line, Kylie Lip Kit, or that you found no reason to doubt the testimonials on her Instagram fan page. I was also upset that this junior sister in the reality-TV... https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/business/article/1935096/letter-my-daughter-modern-economies?utm_source=rss_feed https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/business/article/1935096/letter-my-daughter-modern-economies?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 11 Apr 2016 00:29:42 +0000 The US trade agenda might be about to have a “supercollider” moment, and China, ironically, stands to benefit. The Superconducting Super Collider is the most famous particle accelerator never made. Some US$2 billion had already been spent when the US Congress cancelled the spectacular Texas-based project in 1993. Jobs were lost, and dreams shattered. Such ambitious undertakings take years to finalise, and along the way, the mood of a country can change. In the supercollider’s case, the fall of... https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/business/article/1933442/americas-trade-pact-woes-boost-beijing?utm_source=rss_feed https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/business/article/1933442/americas-trade-pact-woes-boost-beijing?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 04 Apr 2016 02:24:12 +0000 A couple of weeks ago mainland developer Country Garden reported its annual results, and the analyst community was unimpressed. Most brokers lowered their price targets on the company’s shares, pointing variously to a large inventory of unsold flats, rising debt and narrowing profit margins. CLSA was particularly cranky in tone, taking Country Garden to task for issuing perpetual bonds ahead of a potential acquisition that did not materialise, a move that padded finance costs by 1.6 billion yuan... https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/business/banking-finance/article/1931235/swinging-door-between-financial-journalism-and-banking?utm_source=rss_feed https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/business/banking-finance/article/1931235/swinging-door-between-financial-journalism-and-banking?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 28 Mar 2016 02:51:29 +0000 Here’s a pop quiz: in which major developed nation do one out of five citizens believe the sun revolves around the earth? We all know the answer. It is the same country where a quarter of all biology teachers think that dinosaurs and humans roamed the earth at the same time. It is, of course, the same country where Donald J. Trump could become the next president. America has long had a reputation for being the dumbest of the rich nations. Mostly, this is a source of amusement, but increasingly... https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/country-reports/business/topics/view/article/1928123/if-america-has-reached-peak-stupidity-donald?utm_source=rss_feed https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/country-reports/business/topics/view/article/1928123/if-america-has-reached-peak-stupidity-donald?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 21 Mar 2016 02:00:45 +0000 A Zimbabwean friend once explained to me why he preferred the country’s long-time corrupt and tyrannical president to remain in office. He assumed Robert Mugabe had already siphoned off a satisfactory cache of country’s wealth, whereas a newcomer would start a fresh plunder of the coffers. This is strange analogy, but such a principle roughly applies to China in its role of “factory of the world”. Even if we are critical of China’s reckless, predatory industrial supply build-out, the glut... https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/business/global-economy/article/1924501/make-india-who-needs-another-manufacturing-powerhouse?utm_source=rss_feed https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/business/global-economy/article/1924501/make-india-who-needs-another-manufacturing-powerhouse?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 14 Mar 2016 02:30:30 +0000 I once worked with someone whose favourite expression was “Money focuses the mind”, a playful twist on Samuel Johnson’s observation that when a man “knows he is to be hanged… it concentrates his mind wonderfully”. Transferred to business, the idea is that the prospect of monetary gain inspires talent and pushes aside unnecessary distractions. One common distraction in economic exchange, as in all human relations, is prejudice. From antiquity to modern times, trade is credited with facilitating... https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/business/article/1921802/who-needs-chinese-customers-when-money-doesnt-talk-hong-kong?utm_source=rss_feed https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/business/article/1921802/who-needs-chinese-customers-when-money-doesnt-talk-hong-kong?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 07 Mar 2016 02:42:17 +0000 The top-down tale of China’s industrial supply glut is often told with stunning comparisons – e.g., in the past few years, China produced twice as much cement as the United States consumed in the whole of the 20th century. The bottom-up story is told with red ink. Overall profits in the Chinese cement industry shrank by 60 per cent in 2015, and according to BOC International estimates, about 40 per cent of cement companies made losses. Nevertheless, analyst recommendations for the biggest cement... https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/business/china-business/article/1918426/analysts-still-bullish-chinas-big-cement-producers-and-banks?utm_source=rss_feed https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/business/china-business/article/1918426/analysts-still-bullish-chinas-big-cement-producers-and-banks?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 29 Feb 2016 02:01:18 +0000 Many families in Hong Kong send their children abroad for school, and, as a result, expose their household financial positions to substantial foreign exchange risk. The wind is currently at our backs, as the link to a strengthening US dollar has increased Hong Kong’s purchasing power in countries such as the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia. Yet there is a question of how long these beneficial terms of trade will last. Should Hong Kong households with younger kids, for example, be loading up... https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/business/article/1915139/heres-how-play-strong-hk-dollar-if-your-kids-are-studying-abroad?utm_source=rss_feed https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/business/article/1915139/heres-how-play-strong-hk-dollar-if-your-kids-are-studying-abroad?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 22 Feb 2016 02:02:01 +0000 Danny Yeung has been called a serial entrepreneur, having dabbled in everything from mango shakes to furniture to a Hong Kong-based internet retailer that was bought out by Groupon, who then put him in charge of its East Asian operations. The San Francisco native is now an investor in and chief executive officer of a local biotech firm. So one can’t help but to ask him jokingly if he is the Martin Shkreli of Hong Kong. “I’m the opposite,” he says of the controversial American hedge fund manager.... https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/business/companies/article/1913249/hong-kong-investor-danny-yeung-dives-biotech-after-trying-out?utm_source=rss_feed https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/business/companies/article/1913249/hong-kong-investor-danny-yeung-dives-biotech-after-trying-out?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 15 Feb 2016 05:00:45 +0000 Here’s an unsettling thought: what if Tim Cook is a liar, and Donald Trump a truth-teller. Cook, the chief executive of Apple, recently told a popular American television news programme that labour costs had nothing to do with why the iPhone is manufactured in China. “It’s skill,” he explained to 60 Minutes’ Charlie Rose. “You can take every tool and die maker in the United States and probably put them in a room that we’re currently sitting in. In China, you would have to have multiple football... https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/business/article/1908017/trump-has-point-when-he-says-us-lost-out-china-trade-deals?utm_source=rss_feed https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/business/article/1908017/trump-has-point-when-he-says-us-lost-out-china-trade-deals?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 01 Feb 2016 01:47:26 +0000 A long time ago I placed a chunk of my savings into a portfolio of Hong Kong-listed shares, including pure China plays, and left it there, untroubled by downturns and without temptation to take profits in the upturns. These are long-term holdings. I no longer consider these investments to be appropriate retirement savings, however. In my own head I have reclassified them as risk capital. China’s economic risk is a known known: the country expanded quickly and unevenly, and must make an uncertain... https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/business/article/1904792/china-plays-reclassified-risk-capital?utm_source=rss_feed https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/business/article/1904792/china-plays-reclassified-risk-capital?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 25 Jan 2016 01:26:54 +0000 The Big Short hit Hong Kong cinemas last week, just in time to provide some comic relief in the unfolding tragedy of recent global markets performance. The film, which chronicles the blind greed and systemic rot that allowed the subprime loan crisis to occur in the United States, is getting attention for its use of a “fourth wall” cinematic technique to explain how complex financial products work. In one such scene, the storyline cuts away to actress Margot Robbie sitting in a bubble bath.... https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/business/markets/article/1902220/those-arguing-less-regulation-should-remember-subprime-meltdown?utm_source=rss_feed https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/business/markets/article/1902220/those-arguing-less-regulation-should-remember-subprime-meltdown?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 18 Jan 2016 00:32:58 +0000 Just over three years ago, Shinzo Abe came to power in Japan, and a dead-in-the-water market was transformed into the world’s biggest macro-trade. As the new prime minister embarked on his radical experiment in monetary and fiscal stimulus, the Japanese currency plunged and equities skyrocketed. The yen remains repressed today, the Nikkei 225 is still elevated, and exporters’ profits continue to enjoy the magic boost known as the benign currency effect. But what about ordinary Japanese, how... https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/business/global-economy/article/1899815/dr-jim-japan-stop-fighting-deflation?utm_source=rss_feed https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/business/global-economy/article/1899815/dr-jim-japan-stop-fighting-deflation?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 11 Jan 2016 00:12:15 +0000 Here’s my New Year’s prediction for the next growth industry: boots camps for children. The South Koreans already have these things, and the country is big in cultural exports, for example K-pop and K-dramas. Why not K-boot camps? That’s K as in “kiddie.” When interviewed by the press, Korean parents say they periodically ship their kids off to these military-style camps, where youngsters are shouted at, made to run drills, clean latrines and sleep in rustic conditions, because they are worried... https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/business/article/1897817/why-hong-kongs-pampered-whiny-kids-need-stint-boot-camp-toughen?utm_source=rss_feed https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/business/article/1897817/why-hong-kongs-pampered-whiny-kids-need-stint-boot-camp-toughen?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 03 Jan 2016 23:04:50 +0000 Last week’s deadly collapse of a sludge pile in Shenzhen seems symbolic of the year we are about to put behind us. Economic conditions are anaemic, middle classes are shrinking, terrorist attacks have occurred on almost every continent, intolerance and political tensions are deepening around the globe. On a personal note, a trip home for Christmas revealed that half my relatives want to vote for Donald Trump. What can we possibly toast to this year? It will have to be statistics. Ignore the... https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/business/article/1895503/statistics-show-us-things-are-not-bad-they-seem?utm_source=rss_feed https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/business/article/1895503/statistics-show-us-things-are-not-bad-they-seem?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 28 Dec 2015 04:44:08 +0000 As a small, open economy hitched to monetary policy settings of the world’s largest economy, Hong Kong is accustomed to magnified business cycles. Interest rate cuts in the United States tend to have much greater impact here, sparking inflation or bubbles, while hikes in rates can hit like a hammer. With last week’s move by the Federal Reserve, Hong Kong for the first time faces a double-tightening effect: the yuan is likely to weaken, acting as an additional squeeze on the local economy. This... https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/business/companies/article/1893659/hong-kongs-currency-peg-likely-come-under-attack-amid-fed?utm_source=rss_feed https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/business/companies/article/1893659/hong-kongs-currency-peg-likely-come-under-attack-amid-fed?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 21 Dec 2015 02:49:09 +0000 Karl Marx famously said that money alienates man from himself. Less well known is the role money plays in connecting man with … the aliens. I have just finished a book on UFOs which a friend asked me to read after I scoffed at the idea that unidentified flying objects are extra-terrestrial in nature, and these ETs have mastered the technology to zip about at supersonic speeds and disable nuclear warheads and fighter jets. The book is surprising. A New York Times best-seller by journalist Leslie... https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/business/article/1890589/ufos-are-out-there-and-so-booming-conspiracy-industry?utm_source=rss_feed https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/business/article/1890589/ufos-are-out-there-and-so-booming-conspiracy-industry?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 13 Dec 2015 23:30:36 +0000 While visiting yet another gentrifying neighbourhood in Melbourne, Australia, recently, I spotted a rather imperial looking bird strutting about with a dignified crown. It turned out to be a crested pigeon. “Even our pigeons are living the grand life,” my companion quipped. He was ribbing me because in my two weeks in Australia, I had more than once commented that so many people seem to be living the good life. For instance, in America I have friends who are teachers, and their credit cards are... https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/business/global-economy/article/1887982/economic-planning-pays-australia-land-coffee-led-recovery?utm_source=rss_feed https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/business/global-economy/article/1887982/economic-planning-pays-australia-land-coffee-led-recovery?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 07 Dec 2015 03:50:36 +0000 China has so far avoided the thunderous crash many have long expected, given its multi-year investment spending boom of historic proportions. A crisis might still be in the cards but, meanwhile, let’s shift our gaze to Brazil. That country’s recent woes offer a reminder that as economic planning mistakes go, there may be worse things than an asset bubble, even one as grand as China’s, with its overlapping infrastructure from cement to steel-making, bullet trains competing with mushrooming... https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/business/global-economy/article/1885109/things-could-be-worse-china-just-ask-brazil?utm_source=rss_feed https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/business/global-economy/article/1885109/things-could-be-worse-china-just-ask-brazil?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 30 Nov 2015 00:57:11 +0000 When photographs circulated of Mark Zuckerberg proudly holding a copy of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s recently published autobiography, most commentators figured the Facebook founder was once again sucking up to Beijing. After all, it’s election season in the United States, which means candidates will be bashing the Chinese to gain votes, making life harder for those doing business in China or, like Zuckerberg, trying to wangle their way into a market currently protected by various ministries,... https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/business/global-economy/article/1881746/silicon-valley-trying-catch-china-not-other-way-around?utm_source=rss_feed https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/business/global-economy/article/1881746/silicon-valley-trying-catch-china-not-other-way-around?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 23 Nov 2015 07:35:54 +0000