Monetary policy case study: South Korea vs Japan

The picture may be four years old, but it does a great job of showing the South-Korean eagerness to take Japan`s place as high-end apparel exporter. While most of the eyes focus on the miraculous growth story of China, the economic power of South Korean business conglomerates (formally called chaebols) is ever-increasing at the expense of their Japanese counterparts (named keiretsu). This is because South Korean companies have a fortunate advantage in the relative weakness of their national currency.

February Chinese trade deficit at record $31.5 billion

The Chinese establishment is not shy to show us that after a long period of hoarding cash in the negative yielding "safe haven" of US Treasury bills, they are prepared to initiate the world`s biggest corporate shopping spree. Data released by the Chinese Customs Office present the biggest monthly trade deficit since 1989 as the industrial mammoth is seeking to employ its cash reserves by purchasing industrial commodities like copper and oil. Whereas the deficit may well be seasonal due to the timing of the Lunar New Year, the figure does show the spending appetite of China.

Greek debt deal 95% agreed

A major breakthrough in Greek debt talks was reached today as investors representing 95.7% of Greece`s privately held bonds agreed to restructure their bond holdings without being classified as a credit event and thereby not triggering the underlying credit default swaps. Out of these 95.7% of bond, investors holding 85.8% of bonds have voluntarily agreed to swap their current depressed bonds with new, lower yielding, higher maturity bonds, and the rest will be forced to accept the restructuring under invoking collective action. Where to now ?

Watson: the future of algo trading ?

News emerged today that the IBM supercomputer which defeated the champions of "Jeopardy!" almost a year ago was hired by City Group to analyse financial, economic and client data. Its main capabilities include translating natural human language into quantifiable objective data, an extremely refined form of what some algorithmic trading bots can accomplish at the moment. It will most likely be used to read and analyse SEC reports and market developments and issue prompt trading suggestions. Ladies and gentlemen welcome to the future!

Rusia is 140% Putin

It came to no-one as a surprise that Vladimir Putin won six more years in Kremlin, according to exit polls and preliminary results. He has been someway or another in power ever since he received his divine blessing from Boris Yeltsin at the beginning of 2000. According to an exit poll by the Public Opinion Foundation he got 59.3% of the votes and taking into account the Central Electoral Commission he won 62.81% of the votes, after counting almost 20% of the entire votes. 

Are icy times over in Iceland ?

The financial meltdown of leveraged icebergs started in 2007 a global economic ice-age. While credit has been, in all purposes, frozen for the last four years, the growth prospects have been ice-cold, and while governments in the western part of the world have applied massive stimulus to what is essentially a severely frost-bitten part of the economy, the financial waters are starting to become fine for a tiny European country: Iceland.