Today, we have reserved a guest post for Jan De Blonde who is very actively engaged in sustainable farmland investment abroad. Jan is ...
My friend the equity racehorse sent me me the following interesting link which appeared on Dutch television and which basically ...
Vorige zondag (6 mei 2012) verscheen het volgend interview in De Zondag:
Elk jaar omtrent deze tijd publiceert BP zijn Statistical Review of World Energy. Bijna 50 pagina’s grotendeels gevuld met tabellen ...
Door een abrupt beëindigde skivakantie (nauwelijks 50 meter op de latten gestaan) bracht ik de rest van de week haast immobiel en al ...
Well, it's not exactly Moody's but more precisely Fitch, sending out messages which are "surprising" to say the least. Remember ...
Davos, setting of the Thomas Mann novel "Der Zauberberg" and sheltering famous people throughout history such as ...
Following our adventures in today's every changing moods in the world of finance, it's not a bad thing to assess volatility as a ...
You may remember I wrote a piece on Asia Pacific Breweries (APB) , Heineken and Fraser & Neave (F&N) when I was in Singapore earlier ...
My dear friend Sideshow Bob sent me a short note which I think deserves some attention. It opens up the discussion on one of the most ...
Geen kat die deze stelling zal betwisten, maar de impact ervan op de Chinese economie wordt vermoedelijk zwaar onderschat. We hebben ...
De kogel is door de kerk, iedereen van ons kan straks aandeelhouder van Facebook worden. Intekenen op een IPO is echter niet altijd ...
Apple kwam de afgelopen week met de langverwachte medeling over hun spaarpot van 100 miljard $. Een mogelijke overname is nog niet in ...
On March 14th, the Media Innovation Center was launched (under the wings of the IBBT) and baptized 'Mix'. Its goal is to support and ...
Yesterday Fitch released a report with some arithmetics and outlook on the ageing population and how the developed west so far has ...
According to the World Economic Forum, Canadian banks have been ranked as the soundest and most safe banks world-wide, this for 5 ...
Gemini, the immortal twins Castor and Pollux, in this case Dublin and Cork. We picked up an interesting story from out of Bloomberg ...
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There's an old Irish joke about a guy who's lost and desperately looking for the road to Kilearney. When encountering a farmer and asking for the right direction, the answer comes straight : "If you're heading for Kilearney, I wouldn't depart from here". Chinaman's dilemma is identical. The detour ...
"I don't trust automatic pilot, I wanna be myself when the fall-out comes..."D. Blanchart - "Living in a cockpit". 2008 was a period where world markets suffered a correlated crash with virtually every asset class collapsing in an unprecedented fashion. Can it happen again ?
Rating agencies : when the music plays, you most of the time don't need them around and when the music stops, you really don't want them to be around. Yesterday, after years of not being welcome to the party, Moody's invited itself once again and guess what : They even gave a round of free drinks !
One week into the Japanese drama and we have already witnessed some important developments on the financial front. As usual, just follow the flows.
James Dean will always be remembered for 1 famous scene in "Rebel without a cause". The scene depicts two teenage opponents competing for the favours of a sixteen year old girl, played by Natalie Wood. Both young turks drive a car at full speed towards a cliff. He who jumps as the first from his car is called the ...
Last Thursday, a rather hawkish ECB press conference took the investors' community by surprise. It seems that April will end the period of extreme low interest rates in Europe. Some even argue that the ECB is on the verge of repeating the July 2008 rate hike mistake (4%-4,25%). Why is the ECB worried and what's at ...
The latest string of monthly figures on foreign holdings of US Treasuries gives some surprising results : Of the big global players, only Japan and Brazil keep on accumulating US debt at a steady pace. Opec, Russia and the Carribean seem to be losing interest while China apparently heralds status quo, if we believe the official ...
Apparently, 70% of all traded volume on the NYSE is not executed by human beings. Welcome to the world of algo trading and flash crashes, predatory trading, all explained by an 8th grade student.
Speaking on CNBC at a FDIC sponsored forum last week, FED chairman Bernanke was asked how quantittative easing could be called a success in view of rising interest rates and commodity price spikes. His answer revealed that the FED now officially admits having a third mandate : "Our policies have contributed to a stronger ...
De regeringsvorming in België moet een dubbele kloof overbruggen. De Noord/Zuidkloof is de eerste. De taalproblematiek is wellicht echter minder ernstig dan de Link/Rechts tegenstellingen, een tweede kloof.Door de uitputtingsslag die nu bezig is, groeit de roep om een snelle oplossing. Deze snel op te richten regering moet met ...
"Camelot, Camelot, Camelot !!!", yell the Knights of the Round Table when finally arriving at King Arthur's residence. Their optimism is quickly put down to earth when Concorde, the brave carrier, mumbles "it's only a model." FED Governor Yellen to some extend shared the same kind of enthusiasm last week, and equally we tend to ...
If he would have the chance, he would do it over again, in exactly the same way...Alan Greenspan has no regrets. The ICT bubble, the housing bubble, the credit bubble, all built on cheap money. The Greenspan era had two periods: a sound policy until 1996, then a period of easy money and monetary experiments. Curiously, after his ...
According to the CDS premia (source: FT)
Experts almost unanimously are pushing for a nationalisation of the banking sector, especially in the US. As this decision will determine to an important degree the next decade, it might be interesting to look at some counterarguments before deciding. The case for nationalisation can be summarised : ... the ...
De wet van Gresham is aan een demonstratie bezig in Europa: het goede geld wordt in snel tempo achter het slechte geworpen. De ECB is ontmaagd, Maastricht verkracht en de euro verdrachmet.
S&P has revised its outlook for Belgium from stable to negative. "We believe that Belgium's prolonged domestic political uncertainty poses risks to its government's credit standing, especially given the difficult market conditions many eurozone governments are facing" Some remarks: - S&P is lagging behind ...
"Don't fight the FED, they always come up with a perfect put option". So far so good when it comes to equities and some other assets. One exception : Mr Bond doesn't seem to go along anymore.
In a rare appearance before national broadcast, Ben Bernanke yesterday on CBS gave comment on the state of the economy and his intentions further up the road. Apparently it took 1 bad number - November pay-rolls released last Friday - to ring the alarm bells inside the FED. Just 1 month after QE2 has been announced, it seems QE3 is ...
The Fed will buy 600Bn USD debt ... "...the Committee intends to purchase a further 600 billion of longer-term Treasury securities by the end of the second quarter of 2011, a pace of about $75 billion per month. The Committee will regularly review the pace of its securities purchases and the overall size of the ...
