| Road to Ruin
The swing could create real pain for investors, since in recent years numerous firms have created trading strategies which have loaded large debt levels onto these 'safe' securities, precisely because they assumed these instruments would never fluctuate in price. 'The last week has seen some of the worst falls in the ABX market this year, especially higher up the capital structure [with highly rated debt],' said Jim Reid, head of fundamental credit strategy at Deutsche Bank." November 2 - Bloomberg (Shannon D. Harrington): "The risk of owning the debt of Merrill Lynch & Co. and Citigroup Inc. rose to the highest in at least five years on speculation that losses from the mortgage-market collapse will worsen." November 1 - Bloomberg (Shannon D. Harrington and Hamish Risk): "The risk of owning corporate debt reached the highest in seven weeks as credit-default swap traders bet that companies, including Citigroup Inc., will further reduce the value of securities tied to subprime mortgages.
Your Comments : Natives misuse $40m: Ganilau
I think the Fijian leadership and here I am alluding to the traditional leadership needs to be carefully scrutinised. No offence intended but reality of everyday living needs to be faced by Fijians and others living in Fiji. You cannot continuously reward sub-standard schlastic performance by yet another scholarship. This will only produce inferior level of graduates unable to compete with those who excel on merit and hard work. 93 days and 6 hrs agoSuggest removalPermalink Vela of Texas, USA says… Information missing from this report which by the way is quite cheeky! How many landowners are there altogether to whom the quoted amount were distributed. Also, what is the point of sending all the Fijian students to FSM, USP, FIT when at the end of their studies they can not secure jobs due to the IG's existence which the last time I looked this EGanilau ascended Ministerial Post through.
S.J. County shares in celebration of the potato
Perhaps you haven't heard, but 2008 is the International Year of the Potato. No, really. The United Nations formally launched the observance in October in conjunction with World Food Day. According to the official Web site - www.potato2008.org - "The celebration of the International Year of the Potato (IYP) will raise awareness of the importance of the potato - and of agriculture in general - in addressing issues of global concern, including hunger, poverty and threats to the environment." .
London robusta coffee hits 9-year high
London robusta coffee futures hit a nine-and-a-half-year high and cocoa reached a four-year peak on Friday on a wave of enthusiasm among investment funds for all sorts of commodities. Reallocation of investments for the New Year has already seen several basic resource prices, including gold and oil, hit record highs this month and soft commodities such as coffee and cocoa have been tipped as a good bet for the year ahead. "Funds are increasing their holding in both commodities at the moment. It is not an overnight thing, I think it has been building for some time," soft commodities trader Jeff Cooper of Ambrian Commodities said. .
Meeting demand for oil-pricing answers
Stephen Schork, a former New York commodities trader who lives in Villanova, is attracting a lot of attention with his three-year-old newsletter that analyzes the wild changes in oil prices. Only about 100 people have agreed to pay the upwards of $10,500 that he charges for a one-year subscription. He shows up regularly in newspapers and on national television as reporters seek help in making sense of this crucial and volatile commodity market. This exposure during the year when crude oil prices nearly doubled has produced "a ton of people on trial subscriptions," he said. Schork, 41, caught a wave when the collapse of Enron and other factors came together to drastically change the oil markets. In addition to supply-and-demand and what OPEC is thinking, people with oil-centered lives now "have to worry about what some 28-year-old hedge fund manager in Manhattan, with billions of dollars of other people's money, will do next," Schork said over coffee at the MilkBoy Cafe in Ardmore.
Panel: Bloomberg Can Broaden Investments, With Caveats
Mayor Bloomberg is seeking to broaden the investments he makes for personal and philanthropic purposes, and a panel ruled today he can do so if the money management is cloaked in a layer of anonymity. Mr. Bloomberg sought the Conflicts of Interest Board ruling as a follow-up to its initial recommendation in 2002, the first year he took office. He left his financial information company, Bloomberg LP, to run for mayor, but retained a majority stake in the business. In 2002, the board ruled Mr. Bloomberg could keep that stake in the company but had to divest himself of at least $45 million in publicly traded stock, and his interest in a hedge fund. The ruling held that his ownership of stocks in companies that do business with the city violated the City Charter. The board said Mr.
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