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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"The art of taxation consists in so plucking the goose as to obtain the largest possible amount of feathers with the smallest possible amount of hissing" Jean Baptiste Colbert (1619-83), Finance Minister du Roi Soleil One of the "file rouges" and my personal pre-occupations during the current financial & sovereign ...
Het is nog niet zoveel jaren geleden dat de aandelen van grote farmabedrijven zonder discussie een plaats mochten hebben in elke beleggersportefeuille. Ze genereerden miljarden winsten en cash flows, keerden gulle dividenden uit en hadden allemaal een aantal blockbusters die de voornaamste brandstof waren voor deze zonnige ...
Manipulation and conspiracy theories are of all times. Last year, rumors surged that 1 particular giant broker in the US was doing all within its powers to depress the price of silver by selling silver futures. And the conspiracy became complete when rumors surged this was done at the request of the FED because precious metals were ...
It seems we not only have missed the bonanza of 2012 so far, but we also see a redefining of risk in the markets. And we are talking here about sub-investment grade corporate bonds, AKA high yield or more commonly : Junk. And if we are to believe various comments, the B and C rated companies of today are "the sweet spot" and "new ...
You have to learn the rules of the game. And then you have to play better than any one else", dixit Albert Einstein. On these rules of the game, playing better and fair play, some confusion has arisen over the past couple of weeks. And the fact that it has become headline news should start ringing bells for our policy makers. A ...
Na de eindejaarcijfers komen nu ook de presentaties en toelichtingen op gang, en vanuit mijn persoonlijke interessesfeer kijk ik met meer dan gewone belangstelling naar het oliewereldje.Door de dure olie waren de sectoriële resultaten behoorlijk geflatteerd, maar bij de meesten zagen we toch dat het vierde kwartaal iets minder ...
The most recent FOMC statement was again an exercise in walking on eggs. Bernanke told the world things were brightening up and at the same time being extremely frustrated about the slow recovery of the labor market. On the latter, he is right : of the more than 8 million jobs lost since this crisis struck, 2 mio have been picked ...
Insiders en inkoop van eigen aandelen. Het is me al vele weken een raadsel waarom de beurzen zijn blijven stijgen, wars tegen het onderliggend economisch negatief sentiment. Zowat elk bedrijf maakte bij de bekendmaking van zijn jaarcijfers voorbehoud voor dit jaar, alhoewel zeer weinigen het aandurfden om er een getal op te ...
Another day in the sovereign debt saga, another hurdle taken. The Greek government overnight has announced it has reached its target in the biggest sovereign restructuring in history. The participation rate among investors amounts 95,7%. Bondholders tendered 152 bio EUR of Greek-law bonds (85,8%), complemented by 20 bio EUR of ...
Outspoken as he is, Wolfgang Munchau in his latest FT comments described the current problems in the Euro-zone as follows : "...Besides stimulus policy in surplus countries, you need to harmonize many aspects of structural policy to ensure that imbalances do not become entrenched. But there is no appetite for any of ...
Just when you thought you were helping the market, the media are now starting to bash the ECB for doing too much. In various Dutch and Anglo-saxon media we find headlines such as "ECB bank support could harm debt market" and "Money market struggles with massive support from ECB". So the 1 trillion EUR liquidity shot has overdone ...
Rond deze tijd van het jaar komt de Opperbelegger met zijn brief aan de aandeelhouders, en die wordt ook gretig door de rest van de wereld gelezen. Wie deze lectuur (en andere boeken over de man) doorneemt, moet wel gaan dromen over onmetelijke rijkdommen die door beleggen blijkbaar kunnen worden vergaard. Zelf kocht ik mijn eerste ...
Yesterday, leading rating agency Standard & Poor's maintained its credit rating for Japan at AA-. And although the state of public finance should give some reason for concern, S&P nevertheless is quite confident that Japan's future current account will be sufficient in the black in order to absorb the domestic funding needs. Well, ...
Wie naar de beursgrafieken kijkt en overschouwt wat er de laatste maanden gebeurde, zou zich misschien vertwijfeld in de haren kunnen krabben en denken dat de aandelen zonder hem of haar vertrokken zijn. Op een rijdende trein proberen te springen is iets wat je soms ziet in oude Westerns, maar in de praktijk loopt dat niet zelden ...
In the ongoing saga on Greece and the Troika, again a meeting is deferred on whether or not extra money will be granted towards Athens. And the language becomes more harsh by the : "Wealthier countries are playing with fire by toying with the idea Greece should be expelled from the EMU-17 area". "There are plenty who don't want us ...
Before turning to our little soccer game - which the Swiss supervisors apparently seem to be losing - we like to turn one more time to what is happening over in Frankfurt. After the successful LTRO of last December (489 bio EUR cash injection into banks), a new round of auctioning is heating up for 29/02. And it seems we are gonna ...
The answer is "yes", that is if you read today's main article on Bloomberg. The main story line being : "The criticism about the FED being inflationary is not fact-based. Unemployment is slightly improving but far from inflationary levels. And though several republican presidential candidates are claiming Mr Bernanke is the most ...
Dit oude sprookje kennen we haast allemaal, we herinneren ons vast en zeker het idyllische plaatje uit onze kindertijd. Een hard werkende mier die de ganse dag eten versjouwt en opbergt in haar ondergrondse verblijfplaats, terwijl de krekel in de zon ligt te fluiten en te zingen dat het een plezier is om te horen. Het laatste ...
The LTRO operation of late December by the ECB has relieved some tensions on money markets and bank funding cost in the short term. Indeed, libor spreads have come in considerably while certain government bonds have had a serious rally versus the core led by Bund. It doesn't stop quite there and the ECB is preparing another set of ...
For once we have some good news to report, a glimmer of hope. Last week, Ireland managed to come to the international bond market on which it made a partial buy-back of existing debt (2014) and managed to roll it over into 2015 @ 4,9%. And it was a success with an announcement of more buy-backs in the pipeline. The Irish drama and ...
Als er de voorbije jaren één opvallende zaak was in het investeringspatroon van de olie- en gas producerende bedrijven, dan is het dat er miljarden werden en nog steeds worden geïnvesteerd in gas, niet in het minst in het zgn. shale gas. Als gevolg hiervan besteden de beleggersmedia veel aandacht aan bedrijven zoals BG, Chesapeake ...
May you live in interesting times", so goes the English translation of a Chinese curse/proverb. And indeed we live in interesting times because the FOMC yesterday decided to shift the outlook on a 0% short term rate from 2013 to at least 2014. And at the same time, the FED made some choices on explicit inflation ...
A funny string of recent events have captured my attention. And it involves the IMF and politics. May be far fetched but a warning as well towards various addressees, either politically, economically or both. And the IMF is balancing here on a thin line judging the noises we are recently hearing.First of all there was Christine ...
In my previous posting dd 16/01, I forgot to mention some important leverage factors as well. I therefore take the privilege to give you an update with new numbers, taken from a very recent McKinsey study on global debt and debt deleveragingThe following chart gives you the facts on the composition of total debt across main ...
China, de grootste exponent van deze regio, kampt met een dalende groei en sommige media brengen het nieuws alsof het een negatieve groei is. Ronkende titels doen het aantal lezers immers toenemen en dat is altijd goed voor de reclame inkomsten. Voor we het weten dreigen we echter straks het kind met het badwater weg te gooien en ...
