Institutional Investor (April 24)
To strengthen their balance sheets, large banks (including Deutsche Bank, Royal Bank of Scotland, UBS, Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan Chase and Barclays) have been reducing their commodities businesses, mainly through sales to independent trading companies. With these sales “to smaller players, conflicts of interest remain a potential problem” and nobody’s sure whether new problems will accompany this major shift. Given the skinnier balance sheets of the new players, market liquidity could conceivably suffer. In addition, “concerns abound that the underlying problems that have traditionally beset the commodities markets are simply being pushed onto a new and less tightly regulated set of actors.”
Tags: Balance sheets, Banks, Barclays, Commodities, Conflicts of interest, Deutsche Bank, JPMorgan Chase, Liquidity, Morgan Stanley, Regulated, Royal Bank of Scotland, Shift, Trading, UBS
Bloomberg (February 4)
Japan is no longer the belle of the global investment ball, but not everyone’s counting her out. At a price-to-book value of 1.1, the Topix is trading at roughly half of 2006 levels. The Topix looks even cheaper compared to the S&P 500’s price-to-book ratio of 2.3. Balance sheets are generally strong and many are poised to prosper on growing demand from China. Goldman Sachs expects “corporate profits in Japan this year will approach 2007 highs.” Deutsche Bank is forecasting returns exceeding 20% for Japanese stocks in the first half of 2011 alone.
Japan is no longer the belle of the global investment ball, but not everyone’s counting her out. At a price-to-book value of 1.1, the Topix is trading at roughly half of 2006 levels. The Topix looks even cheaper compared to the S&P 500’s price-to-book ratio of 2.3. Balance sheets are generally strong and many are poised to prosper on growing demand from China. Goldman Sachs expects “corporate profits in Japan this year will approach 2007 highs.” Deutsche Bank is forecasting returns exceeding 20% for Japanese stocks in the first half of 2011 alone.
Tags: Deutsche Bank, Equity, Goldman Sachs, Investment, Japan
