Bloomberg (October 31)
“Japan’s central bank insists it still wants to cap long-term market rates,” but their “actions suggest officials are losing the stomach for it.” Kazuo Ueda is dismantling “the cumbersome legacy of his predecessor… more rapidly” than expected “when he took the helm of the Bank of Japan.” Nevertheless, BOJ officials are insisting that the “policy is only being tweaked.” This threatens “the credibility of its communications” as “key parts of the BOJ’s entire approach to setting borrowing costs are being removed or watered down.”
Tags: BOJ, Cap, Central bank, Credibility, Cumbersome, Japan, Legacy, Long term, Market rates, Officials, Predecessor, Threatens, Ueda
Reuters (March 1)
“Strong investor inflows into bond markets this year mean traders and bankers are confident the European Central Bank will have a smooth start to unwinding its huge bond holdings, but the long term impact of its ‘quantitative tightening’ is a big unknown.”
Tags: Bankers, Bond markets, Confident, ECB, Holdings, Impact, Inflows, Investor, Long term, Quantitative tightening, Smooth, Strong, Traders, Unknown, Unwinding
Boston Globe (February 2)
“More than 10 months into a pandemic that has all but emptied downtown towers, the long-term future of offices in Boston remains unclear. Vacancy rates downtown are the highest they’ve been in a decade. There’s more than 3.5 million square feet available for sublease from companies holding long-term leases on space they’ve decided they no longer need. Rents, after climbing steadily for years, are starting to fall.”
Tags: Boston, Companies, Downtown, Emptied, Future, Leases, Long term, Offices, Pandemic, Rents, Sublease, Towers, Vacancy
Foreign Policy (April 24)
“Britain can’t afford to keep talking about Brexit. The never-ending conversation about leaving the EU has stalled all other progress on economic policy…. We need a resolution to this phase of Brexit, not just to resolve the short-term issue but so that we can start to think about the long term again.”
Reuters (August 7)
If EU Budget Commissioner Guenther Oettinger gets his way, “Britain will have to keep making payments for long-term programmes to the European Union until at least 2020, even after it leaves the bloc in 2019.”
Australian Financial Review (November 28)
“Mr Trump will not reverse America’s relative decline. The chances are he will drastically accelerate it…. The US-led international order as we knew it for 70 years is over. “ While much focus will be “on Mr Trump’s dealings with Mr Putin,” that’s strictly short term. “The long-term trajectory is towards China.” Going forward, things “will not be pretty. Europe will be the loser. So too will American prestige.”
Tags: China, Decline, Europe, International order, Long term, Prestige, Putin, Short term, Trump, U.S.
Euromoney (February Issue)
Those who quickly dismiss Bitcoin and other digital currencies may be overlooking their potential. “In theory, Bitcoin could serve two understated purposes: facilitating mobile transactions in emerging markets and, in the process, being a weapon in the so-called global currency war…. In fact, in some countries, as many as a fifth of respondents claimed that virtual-currency investments were a safer long-term bet than stocks and property.”
Tags: Bitcoin, Currency war, Emerging markets, Investments, Long term, Mobile transactions, Potential, Property, Respondents, Safety, Stocks, Virtual-currencies
The Economist (August 3)
“The world’s thirst for oil could be nearing a peak. That is bad news for producers, excellent for everyone else.” Is oil becoming “yesterday’s fuel”? The Economist believes demand may be nearing long-term decline brought about by advances in fracking and automotive technology.
Washington Post (July 11)
“The eclipse of the long-term shareholder has been accompanied by the eclipse of the individual shareholder.” Over 90% of shares in U.S. companies were held by individuals in the 1950s when the average share was held 7 years. Today, it’s about 30-35% and just 6 months. Institutional investors now make up the difference, but this raises some problems. “Investment funds that hold shares in many different companies often lack the resources to focus on a single corporation’s performance.” As such, they may not be properly fulfilling their role in ensuring effective corporate governance.
Financial Times (February 28, 2012)
European companies have been required to report on a quarterly basis for fiver years. This has “done little but confuse and distract management and investors.” Short-termism encourages management to reject good investments simply because they conflict with quarterly earnings expectations. “Data overload cannot enhance company and shareholder interests. Rather than bombing investors with short-term data, companies should explain their long-term objectives, and how they propose to reach them.”
Tags: Europe, Investors, Long term, Management, Quarterlies, Shareholders, Short term
