| Indonesian Rupiah to Rise 7% as Funds Favor Stocks, HSBC Says | | Posted Wednesday, February 07, 2007 2:54:29 PM by Blog57 Team | | Feb. 7 (Bloomberg) -- The Indonesian rupiah will climb 7 percent by year-end as the central bank's reduction of interest rates yesterday to a 17-month low attracts global equity funds, said HSBC Holdings Plc. Stock buying by overseas investors will outweigh sales by bondholders as lower yields reduce the appeal of fixed-income assets, said Richard Yetsenga, a currency strategist at HSBC in Hong Kong. The extra yield investors receive for buying 10-year rupiah-denominated bonds over similar-dated U.S. Treasuries has dropped by more than half in the past 18 months. ``The currency is not reliant on fixed-income flows as now equity flows have become more important,'' Yetsenga said yesterday in an interview. ``Rate cuts are going to be good for equity inflows as they'll be good for growth.'' HSBC sees Bank Indonesia reducing its benchmark by another 25 basis points this year from the 9.25 percent rate set yesterday, spurring economic growth.... | |
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| | | Index funds: dull but dependable | | Posted Wednesday, January 17, 2007 1:00:25 PM by Blog57 Team | | I made my very first stock-market purchase in 1998, in the midst of the dot-com madness. But instead of buying shares of a company that used a sock puppet to peddle pet food, I bought an index fund. An index fund owns shares of companies that are tracked by a stock market index, such as the Standard & Poor's 500 or the Wilshire 5000. Unlike a mutual fund manager, who hopes his stock picks will beat the market, an index fund just wants to match it. While index funds are dull, they are a good bet, especially in a bull market when many stocks are doing well. In 2006, nearly two-thirds of mutual fund managers failed to beat their benchmark index, according to Morningstar. Yet even in a down period, like when the tech stock bubble burst in 2000, only 50 percent of funds beat their index.... | |
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| | | Galvin reviewing UBS ties to funds | | Posted Tuesday, January 02, 2007 2:55:31 PM by Blog57 Team | | Massachusetts Secretary of State William F. Galvin has subpoenaed records from investment bank UBS in a probe of its relationship with hedge funds, Galvin's spokesman said late yesterday. Galvin is reviewing whether close ties between the Swiss bank and hedge fund traders who lease space in a UBS facility in Boston might hurt investors by leading to higher undisclosed fees, said the spokesman, Brian McNiff. McNiff was confirming details of an investigation by Galvin's office first reported in The New York Times in Tuesday's editions. The Times reported Galvin is investigating other investment banks with offices in Boston as well, a matter with which McNiff said he was unfamiliar. Galvin did not immediately return messages last night, and UBS spokespeople could not be reached for comment.... | |
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| | | Worbus to tie up $1bn funds for India investments | | Posted Thursday, November 23, 2006 12:54:37 PM by Blog57 Team | | KOLKATA: Gobal management consultant Worbus International expects to divert $1 bn by way of foreign funds into India over the next one year. Worbus, which already has a separate $500-m fund targeted at small and medium enterprises (SME) in India's northern and eastern parts, is exploring opportunities to set up private equity funds in real estate and infrastructure. "Global investors are ready with funds to invest in India. Some $33bn can be diverted from Europe, which is still lying largely untapped," said George Molakal, international director of Worbus. Mr Molakal was speaking to newsmen in Kolkata on Tuesday. Worbus has tied up with Kolkata-based India Trade Center to set up associate offices in Kolkata and Delhi and to canalise funds into the SME sector in northern and eastern parts.... | |
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| | | New legislation in 2007 Democratic Congress will bring oversight into hedge funds positive or negative for stocks, | | Posted Tuesday, November 14, 2006 2:58:47 AM by Blog57 Team | | 2007 Democratic Congress plans to closely look at the hedge funds oversight process and how they are regulated. Contrary to common belief that it will dampen the hedge fund returns, it may just act the opposite way. The hedge funds oversight and control can actually increase the returns. The biggest problem of the hedge funds is their sticking to their own financial investment models. The managers are human and they tend to be carried as billions are made and lost. Overall, controlled environment always get rid of psychological mistakes or excesses in market operators. That is healthy according to some experts. The stocks may get hurt a little initially. The bonds will gain because of better fiscal management. The wild card lies with the commodities. The commodity boom can correct big time if hedge funds are asked to operate in a more transparent environment.... | |
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| | | School board invests $16M in bond funds | | Posted Saturday, November 11, 2006 11:08:13 PM by Blog57 Team | | Texas Term and TexStar will be helping the Celina school district invest $16 million of bond funds. The board of trustees approved the two investment tools along with TexPool for investing the bond funds until they are spent.The board approved the Bienestar Health curriculum program for kindergarten through sixth grade health and physical education curriculum.Curriculum Director Debbie Kelly said the district needs more science and math classes. She plans to send a survey to parents to determine what they think of the district's curriculums. She is also considering distance learning.The board approved the Texas Association of School Board Policy Update 78 and the 2006-2007 appraisal calendar. The calendar outlines when and how CISD teachers will be appraised.Board trustees met in a short closed session to discuss personnel issues.... | |
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| | | China Urges Large Holders To Repay Misused Funds By End-06 | | Posted Thursday, November 09, 2006 11:12:28 PM by Blog57 Team | | BEIJING -(Dow Jones)- China's regulators Thursday called on large shareholders in listed firms to reimburse any misused company funds by the end of this year. "The large amount of misused funds by large shareholders is a major reason for continuing losses at some listed companies and has even led to some of them delisting," eight of China's regulators said in a joint statement published on the China Securities Regulatory Commission's Web site. The other regulators include the People's Bank of China and the China Banking Regulatory Commission. The reimbursements should be given priority in improving the quality of listed companies, the statement said. China's stock exchanges said earlier that major shareholders of 139 listed companies had been found to have misused CNY30.5 billion of company funds by the end of July.... | |
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| | | Ups and downs in index funds | | Posted Tuesday, November 07, 2006 2:59:47 PM by Blog57 Team | | International index funds, a favourite long- term investment of mine, don't look good to one reader. "I bought about $2000 worth of WiNZ in 2000," he writes. "They are now 27 per cent lower (have been for quite a while). Fortunately for me it was not a huge amount. "Twenty years is a long time to wait for the fund to claw its way back up. Hopefully all the investors in index funds can wait that long!" Index funds invest in the shares in a sharemarket index. For WiNZ, which is run by AMP Capital Investors, the index covers 985 of the world's largest companies. That index ? and any other international share index expressed in New Zealand dollars ? had an extraordinarily bad run from August 2000 till February 2003. In that period: Global share prices plunged, sending the WiNZ index, including dividends and expressed in the local currencies of the shares, down about 47 per cent.... | |
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| | | Wakayama chief took funds from bid-winning firm | | Posted Sunday, November 05, 2006 12:52:41 PM by Blog57 Team | | OSAKA (Kyodo) A company in the joint venture that won a contract for a Wakayama sewage system project under suspicious circumstances donated 1.46 million yen to two support groups for Gov. Yoshiki Kimura between 2001 and 2005, investigative sources said Saturday. The prefecture's former chief treasurer, Satoaki Mizutani, 60, was served a fresh arrest warrant Thursday for allegedly playing a part in determining successful bidders for the project in the city of Iwade in November 2004. The police also learned that the building that Kimura used as his office in Kainan during a gubernatorial race was leased by the same contractor. The Osaka District Public Prosecutor's Office, focusing on the fact that the contractor was a strong backer of Kimura, plans to investigate the background of the donation and whether the governor was involved in the bid-rigging.... | |
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| | | Funds that take a stand | | Posted Sunday, November 05, 2006 11:00:26 AM by Blog57 Team | | (Editors' note: Vicki Lee Parker's Savvy Consumer column will return next week. Amy Baldwin writes "Out of the Red," a column about personal finance for 20- and 30-somethings, for our sister paper The Charlotte Observer.)There's value investing and then there's values investing.The former, according to investorwords.com (one of my favorite online reference sites), has to do with selecting "good stocks at great prices." The latter -- today's Out of the Red topic -- is about investing according to your values.With midterm elections two days away, values are hot-button issues. If you have social or religious principles you try to live by, not only can you vote accordingly but chances are you can invest by them, too. Socially responsible mutual funds ("SRI funds" for short) let investors put their money where their hearts are.Last month, one such fund with a political twist opened: The Blue Fund.Opened Oct.... | |
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