International Banker (December 18)
If Japan’s Financial Services Agency and the nation’s “asset-management industry work together to establish ‘customer-oriented business operations’, they may succeed in gaining the trust of retail investors, and the financial assets of Japanese households may finally show a visible shift from cash and deposits to securities.” Two decades of failed efforts starting with the Big Bang financial reform suggest “it will take much effort to gain the trust of retail investors, some of whom have experienced disappointing returns in the past. Unless the Japanese financial industry works harder than ever for customers’ interests, the goal of ‘savings to investments’ will turn out to be elusive once again.”
Tags: Asset-management industry, Big bang, Customer-oriented, Disappointing, Elusive, Failed, Financial assets, Financial Reform, FSA, Households, Investments, Japan, Retail investors, Securities, Trust
Financial Times (April 28)
“Deprived of investment opportunities abroad, Russians have piled their savings into the likes of Lukoil, Gazprom and Sberbank, which combined account for about 40 per cent of the stock market’s total value.” Marking a rebound, “Russia’s stock market has climbed to its highest level in more than a year as domestic retail investors with nowhere else to go snap up the dividend-paying stocks that sold off heavily following the invasion of Ukraine”.
Tags: Abroad, Deprived, Dividend, Domestic, Gazprom, Invasion, Investment, Lukoil, Opportunities, Rebound, Retail investors, Russia, Savings, Sberbank, Stock market, Stocks, Ukraine
Investment Week (April 27)
The European Union’s Packaged Retail and Insurance-based Investment Products (PRIIPS) regulation “is aimed at helping retail investors better understand and compare the key features, risks, rewards and costs of different products through a short Key Information Document (KID).” However, Andrew Bailey, the chief executive of the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) “has expressed he is ‘concerned’ about the new PRIIPS legislation, highlighting literature requirements ‘are not providing useful context’ while there is evidence it is causing US funds to withdraw from Europe.”
Tags: Bailey, Context, Costs, EU, FCA, KID, PRIIPS, Regulation, Retail investors, Rewards, Risks, US funds, Useful
Bloomberg (April 13)
A “$105 billion ‘ghost stock’ blunder” created market upheaval in Korea. An error at the South Korean brokerage Samsung Securities Co. gave employees 1,000 Samsung Securities shares each instead of 1,000 won (less than $1). “In total, the company distributed 2.83 billion shares, worth—on paper—about 112.6 trillion won. That was more than 30 times the company’s market value.” As employees sold the ghost shares, the stock price “plunged” 12% and “many retail investors got burned.”
Tags: Blunder, Brokerage, Burned, Employees, Market upheaval, Retail investors, Samsung Securities, South Korea, Stock
Financial Times (June 25)
“For thrill and spills, you cannot beat Chinese share markets. Recent wild price swings on the Shanghai and Shenzhen bourses—and the fortunes being made, or lost, by individual retail investors—have made for gripping tales. They have raised fears of a highly-inflated equity bubble about to burst spectacularly. But how much should the rest of the world worry?” This shouldn’t simply be shrugged off “as a local story without wider significance for global financial markets.” The volatility should reinforce concerns that China is “in a bumpy economic transition phase that threatens significant ripple effects in distant parts of the world.”
Tags: Economic transition, Equity bubble, Financial markets, Markets, Price Swings, Retail investors, Shanghai, Shares, Shenzhen
Euromoney (July Issue)
Suntory Beverage “successfully completed an almost $4 billion IPO, Asia’s largest this year” by listing on the first section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange. “Encouragingly for the wider market, Suntory’s story is not unique. In Japan, the opening–day share prices for more that 20 recent IPOs have exceeded their pre-market fixed prices as retail investors pile into companies in the firm belief that Japan’s growth path is assured. In fact, with the much-reported liquidity problems in China, Japan is emerging as something of a bright spot in Asia at exactly the right time.”
Tags: Asia, China, IPO, Japan, Liquidity, Retail investors, Share price, Suntory Beverage, TSE