Readers will know that I am a great admirer of Gillian Tett’s analyses of banking issues in the Financial Times. Today, she has another thought-provoking article, this time on the emergence of Iceland as ‘the world’s first country run like a hedge fund’. The article is worth reading in itself, but also for the question […]
Chemicals and the Economy
FT’s subprime jokes page
Those who liked my earlier posting about Margin calling, might like to look at the new online Financial Times page devoted to subprime jokes. For example, ‘What’s the definition of an optimistic investment banker?’ ‘Someone who irons 5 business shirts on a Sunday night.’ It also mentions the prospect of a new breakfast cereal being […]
Oil price volatility rises
Volatility has been rising in the crude oil and feedstocks markets. This is because individual players have completely different strategies. In turn, this makes it difficult for chemical companies to forecast short-term feedstock costs. It also makes it difficult to maintain margins. Last Monday, crude reached a new high of $111/bbl. Then, as the scale […]
A simple guide to the credit crisis
The New York Times has an excellent feature today that aims to explain how ‘US sub-prime mortgages could take out the whole global financial system’. I know that many readers found the Bird/Fortune video on the subject very useful last December. So I thought you might like to know about this new analysis. The Times […]
Northern Rock, Carlyle, now Bear Stearns
We have now seen 3 financial disasters in a matter of days: • Northern Rock, the UK’s 5th largest mortgage lender, was nationalised last month, after failing to secure sufficient funds to continue lending. • Carlyle, one of the world’s largest private equity firms, saw their $16.6bn mortgage fund default on Thursday, due to its […]
‘Who is this guy Margin that keeps calling me?’
I am indebted to Paul Krugman for passing on this piece of black humour, now going the rounds in financial markets. Unfortunately, these problems are getting closer to home. Carlyle, who have a number of private equity investments in chemical companies, defaulted on a $16.6bn bond fund today.
Fed/IMF worry that US may see ‘severe recession’
The Financial Times this morning reports that the US Fed fears that ‘the economic downturn in the US could turn into a deep and protracted recession of the kind that plagued Japan’. Clearly based on interviews with senior Fed officials and other policymakers, the two articles (one for the European edition, and one for the […]
Buffett says US is in recession
‘If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then its a duck’. This simple logic probably best sums up Warren Buffett’s position on the current state of the US economy. ‘By any commonsense definition’, said Buffett yesterday, ‘the US is in recession’. Buffett is the world’s leading investor. And key evidence from […]
3 ways to spot a failing business
Anthony Bolton of Fidelity has been the UK’s premier stock picker for 30 years. His learnings from his ‘worst disasters’ provide an insider’s perspective on how to spot a company that’s about to fail. He revealed his top 3 warning signs in the Financial Times this weekend:
Traders sell $, buy oil
‘ ‘A vicious circle now seems to be in place again, where a lower dollar inspires raw material prices to rally, which in turn increases worries about inflation’. This was how strategists at BNP Paribas summed up the US Fed Chairman’s two days of testimony to Congress last week. For the last 20 years, every […]
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