Category: Finance and economics
Hedge-fund closures: Quitting while they’re behind
THE past few years have been “as miserable as I can remember”, says Johnny Boyer of Boyer Allen Investment Management, a British hedge fund focused on Asia. The fund, which looked after $1.9 billion at its peak, faced the prospect of spending the n…
Measuring the impact of regulation: The rule of more
IN DECEMBER Barack Obama trumpeted a new standard for mercury emissions from power plants. The rule, he boasted, would prevent thousands of premature deaths, heart attacks and asthma cases. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) …
America’s mortgage deal: Unsettling
Why the banks could not win
IT WAS billed as a landmark deal that exacted retribution on banks which wrongly turned millions of Americans out of their homes. Yet the announcement on February 9th of a huge mortgage-foreclosure settlem…
Buttonwood: The oil barons have a ball
DALLAS is in confident mood. The city, one of the fastest-growing metropolitan areas in America, is investing around $11 billion in improving its road, rail and air links. The Perot Museum of Nature & Science is being built downtown along with a new pa…
The lexicon of hedge funds: From alpha to smart beta
Dear investor,In line with the rest of our industry we are making some changes to the language we use in our marketing and communications. We are writing this letter so we can explain these changes properly. Most importantly, Zilch Capital used to refe…
The Bank of Japan: Time for action
CONSERVATIVE, cautious and cowardly: the Bank of Japan (BOJ) has endured all manner of insults over the years. Among the complaints from critics is the charge that the central bank could have boosted Japan’s economy if it had increased its balance-sh…
Free exchange: Latin lessons
EUROPE’S handling of its sovereign-debt crisis has been disastrous. Euro-zone leaders succeeded in turning a manageable economic problem in Greece into a political conundrum that jeopardises the single currency. A premature insist…
Rescuing Greece: Beyond the edge
BILL HICKS, a comedian, used to joke that there must be a “ledge beyond the edge”. How else could the survival of Keith Richards be explained? What goes for rock stars also appears to go for Greece, which has been on the brink o…
Credit cards in China: Citi building
Colours to the mast
LAST year your correspondent visited one of Citibank’s few branches in mainland China, hoping, among other things, to get a local credit card. The reply was unexpected. “Sorry, sir, but we are not very good in…
Sovereign bonds: Oat cuisine
FIFTEEN years ago Western government bonds were regarded as being like porridge: stodgy but easily digestible. Investors knew returns would be modest but perceived the asset class as risk-free, an important concept in both financial…
