Wall Street Journal (March 19)
“Foreign investors have increasingly shifted their investments to India from China in recent years, partly because of concerns over Beijing’s unpredictable policy moves and China’s sputtering economy.” The shift doesn’t necessarily shield them. “A recent clampdown on one of India’s biggest financial technology companies rattled investors and serves as a reminder that New Delhi can also make sudden moves with a hefty impact on companies and market value.”
Tags: Beijing, China, Clampdown, Concerns, Economy, Financial, Foreign, Impact, India, Investments, Investors, Shift, Shifted, Sputtering, Technology, Unpredictable
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
Fortune (April 11)
“Billionaire investor Warren Buffett is visiting Japan for the first time in more than a decade, and his thoughts are on his large—and growing—investments in the East Asian nation.” So far, it appears that “Buffett is looking to increase those stakes again.”
Tags: Billionaire, Buffett, Increase, Investments, Investor, Japan, Stakes
American Banker (March 27)
“Silicon Valley Bank was not the only institution that loaded up on bonds at precisely the wrong time. Based analyzing the regulatory filings of over 4,700 U.S. banks, “dozens of other banks — most of them quite small — are deeply underwater on their bond investments and could hit trouble if they were unexpectedly forced to liquidate the investments.” Still, “many experts say there is very little risk that those unrealized losses could ever turn into a problem, given the many options available to banks and regulators’ focus on avoiding that type of scenario.”
Tags: Banks, Bonds, Experts, Forced, Investments, Liquidate, Regulators, Regulatory filings, Risk, SVB, U.S., Underwater, Unrealized losses, Wrong time
Financial Times (November 11)
The bankruptcy of “Sam Bankman-Fried’s business empire includes billions of dollars of illiquid venture capital investments… including exposure to Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Boring Company.” The giant sprawl of his “venture capital portfolio will add to the complexity of the insolvency proceedings, which itself includes more than 130 companies controlled by Bankman-Fried. FTX’s collapse is among the most dramatic failures in the crypto industry not just this year, but since the creation of bitcoin more than a decade ago.”
Tags: Bankman-Fried, Bankruptcy, Bitcoin more, Business empire, Complexity, Crypto, Exposure, Failure, FTX, Illiquid, Insolvency, Investments, Musk, SpaceX, Sprawl, VC
Nikkei Asia (July 19)
“A Chinese startup this month became the first in the world to mass-produce large, bendable perovskite solar panels, based on technology initially developed by researchers in Japan.” The revolutionary “technology is seen as a candidate to win a Nobel Prize” and holds tremendous commercial potential, but “Japanese companies have little capacity to make new investments, allowing China to take the lead in large-scale perovskite panels.”
Tags: Bendable, China, Commercial potential, Investments, Japan, Mass-produce, Nobel prize, Perovskite, Solar panels, Startup, Technology
Bloomberg (March 20)
Paul Clements-Hunt coined the acronym. ESG. He now thinks “the ESG fund industry is headed for a ‘shakeout’ over the next five years.” In successfully attracting trillions of dollars to these investments, “the finance sector has ‘sprinkled ESG fairy dust’ on products that do little to account for environmental, social and governance risks.” These and other shenanigans will increasingly come into “jeopardy.”
Tags: Clements-Hunt, ESG, Fairy dust, Finance sector, Fund industry, Investments, Jeopardy, Risks, Shakeout, Shenanigans
Bloomberg (March 1)
“First BP, then Shell. In just two days, Britain’s twin energy giants have dumped Russian investments nurtured over decades and shut themselves out of the world’s largest energy exporter, probably forever.” The moves will “put pressure on remaining foreign investors, including Exxon Mobil Corp. and France’s TotalEnergies SE, to follow suit as Russia’s war in Ukraine forces a dramatic rupture with the global economy.”
Tags: BP, Energy giants, Exporter, Exxon Mobil, Investments, Investors, Nurtured, Pressure, Russia, Shell, TotalEnergies, UK, Ukraine, War
Wall Street Journal (January 24)
“The financial industry has spotted an opportunity to make money by helping people feel good about themselves. Despite claims to the contrary, these investments don’t do much to make the world a better place…. The explosion of ESG investing… is mostly—but not completely—a waste of time.”
Tags: Better place, Claims, ESG investing, Feel good, Financial industry, Investments, Money, Opportunity, Waste, World
Wall Street Journal (June 4)
“Investors have piled into new carbon-credit-trading funds, helping make the upstart market one of the best-performing commodities-related investments of the past year.” In Europe, the trading price for carbon credits “has jumped 135% over the past 12 months and recently hit a series of records as economic activity rebounded from pandemic lockdowns. Only lumber, driven higher by the housing boom, has proved a better commodities investment.”
Tags: Best-performing, Carbon credits, Commodities, Europe, Funds, Housing boom, Investments, Investors, Lockdowns, Lumber, Market, Pandemic, Rebounded, Records, Trading, Upstart