Institutional Investor (August 6)
“For the world of institutional investing, the topic of our time is none other than fees.” Most of the solutions being touted, such as 1-or-30, are anything but revolutionary. “Any magic is really just sleight-of-hand meant to distract us from realizing how low our expectations are for any meaningful improvement in the existing misaligned fee structures.” We must overcome this built-in bias and “expand the window of possible choices to include those that will be seen as utterly unthinkable by today’s standards.” For example, a “rent” system could be adopted in which “the allocator no longer pays fees to the manager for the use of its own capital and is assured of receiving the investment outcome it seeks (i.e., the negotiated rent). The manager gets the capital and potential revenue it needs to run its business.” Such a revolutionary move would place the risk directly where it belongs: on the asset manager.
Tags: 1-or-30, Allocator, Asset manager, Capital, Expectations, Fee structures, Investing, Outcome, Rent, Revenue, Revolutionary, Risk
Bloomberg (May 11)
“It’s not making headlines yet, but wages in Japan are rising the fastest in decades, in a shift that’s poised to divide the nation’s companies — and their stocks — into winners and losers…. Consumer-focused sectors with low salary bills as a percentage of revenue are best positioned. Logistics and some health-care companies will be most negatively impacted,” according to a report from Morgan Stanley.
Tags: Consumers, Healthcare, Japan, Logistics, Morgan Stanley, Revenue, Rising, Stocks, Wages
Washington Post (November 23)
“No matter how much more money flows into the top tier of college athletics, few big-time athletics departments turn a profit.” Of the over 50 public schools in the Power Five conferences (The NCAA’s SEC, PAC12, Big 10, Big 12 and ACC), only about 15 to 25 have been profitable over the past decade. The majority operate at a loss, despite a more than doubling of revenue in the past decade.
CFO.com (October Issue)
“After years of treating Big Data almost exclusively as a way to aid marketers and drive revenue, companies are starting to explore its risk management capabilities. Increasingly, they’re looking for patterns in their internal emails and audio files and on social media to spot and avert a plethora of potential risks.”
Tags: Audio files, Big Data, Capabilities, Emails, Marketers, Patterns, Revenue, Risk management, Social media
Bloomberg (September 10)
“Golf is a microcosm for the problems that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is facing in reviving Japan’s economy — low prices, unwilling consumers, a lack of female participation and an aging populace. The sport generated 1.37 trillion yen ($11.5 billion) in sales for Japan’s courses, driving ranges and equipment retailers in 2013, less than half the revenue of the peak years.”
Tags: Abe, Aging populace, Consumers, Economy, Female participation, Golf, Japan, Microcosm, Prices, Revenue
Washington Post (August 10)
“Matters are not as clear as is often suggested regarding short-term-driven ‘quarterly capitalism.’” The “most enthusiastic champions of long-termism” are often the “managements of companies that are dissipating the most value, such as General Motors before it needed to be bailed out.” Long-termism can also lead to short-term excesses, such as “market participants who willingly place huge valuations on many Silicon Valley companies that lack any profits and have little revenue.”
Tags: GM, Long-termism, Profits, Quarterly capitalism, Revenue, Short term, Silicon Valley, Valuations
Bloomberg (March 1)
Macau’s going through a bit of a slump. “Players failed to materialize during what is traditionally one of the busiest weeks of the year…. Casino revenue is now projected to plunge 53.5 percent for the month” of February, with annual gambling revenue forecast to decrease nearly 10% for the year. Nevertheless, Macau “remains way ahead of its closest global competitor in Las Vegas.” In 2014, Macau took in nearly seven times more gaming revenue than Las Vegas.
Washington Post (November 18, 2013)
Little is definitively known about global warming, but it would be wise to take pragmatic measures. “Putting a price on carbon—through a tax on oil, coal and natural gas—that reflects global warming’s costs… would promote energy efficiency and favor renewables.” But how would one determine the size of that carbon tax? “We don’t know global warming’s full effects…. But we do know the size of the budget deficit, and we do know that revenue from a carbon tax might help finance a simplification of the income tax. By addressing multiple problems, an admittedly unpopular carbon tax might command broader support.”
Tags: Budget deficit, Carbon, Carbon tax, Energy efficiency, Global warming, Income tax, Renewables, Revenue, Support
Wall Street Journal (October 2)
The rise in Japan’s consumption tax is an unwelcome return to the old “tax and spend” playbook. Of the estimated $88 billion in revenue, over $50 billion is marked for spending as stimulus. “More rapid and durable economic growth is the only escape from Japan’s self-constructed fiscal trap. Mr. Abe still has a chance to rescue his economic program with a new reform plan, the long-awaited ‘third arrow.’ But with his tax increase he is creating another headwind to overcome.”
Tags: Abe, Consumption tax, Economic growth, Fiscal trap, Headwind, Japan, Reform, Revenue, Stimulus, Tax and spend, Tax increase, Third arrow
Institutional Investor (January 31)
“A platform war is intensifying in the global foreign exchange market, with more than half a dozen entrants jumping into the space in the past few months. It’s still too early to know which platforms will emerge as winners, but the proliferation of venues is already sparking declines in already-low trading costs, with banks earning less on each trade, in a situation similar to what’s happened in equity markets over the past decade. One banker estimates that revenue per trade has dropped by about 9 percent over the past year through a narrowing of bid-offer spreads.”
