Bloomberg (March 25)
There are lots of questions for the Bank of Japan about its negative rate strategy, which “has caused bond yields to fall below zero, money market funds to stop accepting money, and lawmakers to summon Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda to parliament a record number of times to explain it.”
Tags: BOJ, Bond yields, Kuroda, Lawmakers, MMF, Negative rates, Parliament, Strategy
Wall Street Journal (March 22)
“Europe seems determined to keep treating this as a policing problem, or at least as anything other than a call to bolster military efforts in Syria…. There’s a role for policing in a counterterror strategy, but also a limit. Brussels…can’t live in perpetual lockdown. Until the West is prepared to fight this terrorist threat at the source, Tuesday’s victims in Brussels won’t be the last.”
Tags: Brussels, Counterterror, Europe, Lockdown, Military, Policing, Strategy, Syria, Terrorist threat, Victims
Financial Times (February 18)
The conditional deal between Saudi Arabia and Russia delivered “maximum rhetorical impact for the minimum genuine commitment.” Ultimately, it “will not take a single barrel of oil off the market to ease the glut that has driven crude prices down about 70 per cent since the summer of 2014.” The deal reveals “nervousness among the world’s two largest oil producers. But the fact that Saudi Arabia is not already cutting its output, in spite of mounting signs of financial strain, shows that while its strategy might be painful, it is still rational.”
Tags: Deal, Financial strain, Glut, Market, Oil, Output, Producers, Rational, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Strategy
Washington Post (October 28)
Ten Republican candidates (Donald Trump, Ben Carson, Marco Rubio, Jeb Bush, Carly Fiorina, Ted Cruz, Mike Huckabee, Chris Christie, John Kasich and Rand Paul) faced off in the latest debate. They seemed “to be testing a strategy of winning by whining. Certainly, voters are discontented and even angry. But do they want a leader who campaigns by kvetching?”
Tags: Angry, Bush, Carson, Christie, Cruz, Debate, Discontented, Fiorina, Huckabee, Kasich, Paul, Republican, Rubio, Strategy, Trump, Voters, Whining
Washington Post (April 1)
“Deal or no deal, the Iran talks have borne fruit” by engaging Iran with the outside world. “Iran is now a diplomatic and political factor in regional and world politics, for better or worse. The right U.S. strategy was to prevent this rising Iran from getting nuclear weapons, not to pretend that it didn’t exist.”
Tags: Deal, Diplomatic, Engaging, Iran, Nuclear weapons, Political, Pretend, Strategy, U.S.
The Economist (March 7)
“Twenty-five years after the Soviet collapse, the world is entering a new nuclear age. Nuclear strategy has become a cockpit of rogue regimes and regional foes jostling with the five original nuclear-weapons powers (America, Britain, France, China and Russia), whose own dealings are infected by suspicion and rivalry.” The new nuclear age is far more unstable. “During much of the cold war the two superpowers, anxious to avoid Armageddon, were willing to tolerate the status quo. Today the ground is shifting under everyone’s feet.”
Tags: Armageddon, China, Cold war, France, Nuclear age, Regional foes, Rivalry, Rogue regimes, Russia, Strategy, Superpowers, Suspicion, U.S., UK
The Economist (November 22)
It has become fashionable to praise long-termism and deplore the corrosive influences of short-termism, but this is simplistic. “Long-termism and short-termism both have their virtues and vices—and these depend on context. Long-termism works well in stable industries that reward incremental innovation.” In other businesses, however, long-termism “is a recipe for failure” and success goes to those who can constantly “abandon their plans and ‘pivot’ to a new strategy, in markets that can change in the blink of an eye.”
Tags: Failure, Incremental innovation, Long-termism, Markets, Pivot, Short-termism, Stable industries, Strategy, Success
Euromoney (August Issue)
“Mexico’s strategy of diversifying its investor base is succeeding… following the sovereign’s multi-tranche samurai transaction which was priced on July 15 and included a 20-year tenor,” the first of any Latin American country. The highly oversubscribed placement also marked “the first emerging market sovereign to place a 20-year bond in Japan’s domestic market since 2008.”
Tags: 20-year tenor, Diversification, Emerging market, Investor base, Japan, Latin America, Mexico, Oversubscribed, Placement, Samurai bonds, Sovereign, Strategy
New York Times (June 23)
“Any reasonable American strategy for managing China’s increasingly aggressive actions in Asia depends heavily on cooperation with Japan and South Korea.” Alas, a new report on comfort women, calling the sincerity of Japan’s 1993 apology into question, has again cast a wrench in relations with neighboring South Korea. Prime Minister Abe’s “continued willingness to play to that political fringe is interfering with Japan’s ability to carry on its leading role in the region.”
Tags: Abe, Aggression, Apology, China, Comfort women, Cooperation, Japan, Political fringe, Sincerity, South Korea, Strategy, U.S.
Financial Times (May 12)
There’s little obvious business sense to Pfizer’s proposed takeover of AstraZeneca. Strategically, there’s not much to be gained aside from effecting a change of tax domicile. “Pfizer’s dealmaking history is moreover a deeply dispiriting one…. Despite having spent some $240bn on three big acquisitions since 2000, its market capitalisation is just $185bn today. Meanwhile the Dow Jones index is more than 40 per cent higher.” AstraZeneca’s directors must proceed warily. This is about more than the potential short-term profit to existing shareholders.
Tags: Acquisitions, AstraZeneca, Dealmaking, Directors, Dow Jones, Market-cap, Pfizer, Profit, Shareholders, Short term, Strategy, Takeover, Tax domicile
