Month: December 2012

Buffett on US Debt Problem: ‘We’ll get it solved’

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Despite the intense political fighting over just the “fiscal cliff,” Warren Buffett is optimistic the nation’s overall debt problem will eventually be fixed.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Will 2013 be the ‘break-out’ year for China stocks?

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Chinese stocks have staged a remarkable comeback in the final weeks of the year, gaining more than 11 percent in December after languishing in negative territory for most of 2012, prompting analysts to say 2013 may finally be the year Chinese stocks break out of the doldrums.

The Shanghai Composite Index hit a five-month high earlier this week on Christmas day and was trading 0.4 percent higher on Friday as investors bet that the worst is over for Chinese stocks.

According to Jack Bouroudjian, CEO of fund manager Bull and Bear Partners, money is waiting to return to the Chinese stock market now that the dust has settled on the once-in-a-decade leadership transition in November.

“During an election or transition of power, usually you get that type of dysfunction and disruption. It’s one of the reasons people avoided China over the course of this last year,” Bouroudjian told CNBC Asia’s “Squawk Box” on Friday.

“Guess what? The dust has now settled. We are going to see capital go back to China,” he added.

(Read more: Changing China special)

Low valuations, economic stimulus and several rounds of monetary easing were all supposed to bring about a long-awaited turnaround in China’s languishing stock market, but for most of the year, Chinese stocks have failed to live up to their promise. China’s stock market has made losses for three years from 2009 to 2011 and fell a whopping 20 percent between May and December this year.

While the Chinese market has seen a few rallies this year, they have been short-lived. For example, from late September to the middle of October the market gained about 6 percent in 4 weeks, only to reverse direction.

The Shanghai index has also treaded below the 2,000-point level several times this year.

But as the key index recovers this month on more signs that the worst could be over for the Chinese economy, analysts are becoming more optimistic that 2013 could be the year Chinese stocks rebound.

(Read More: Coming Soon: China’s Growth Resurgence?)

Data on Thursday showed annual growth of China’s industrial profits quickened 22.8 percent in November from October’s 20.5 percent, reinforcing signs of a steady economic recovery thanks to pro-growth policies.

“Economic fundamentals are definitely improving, and that should underpin the rally,” said Norman Chan, head of investment with Caliber Asset Management in Hong Kong. “We think that the rebound can continue into 2013.”

Despite this month’s gains, the Shanghai Composite is still the worst performer among the major indices this year, having gained about 1.5 percent. The S&P 500 is up 12.8 percent in the year to date, Japan’s Nikkei 225 and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng have both gained about 23 percent.

According to the charts, the Shanghai index could climb to the 2,400-2,500 range in the first half of 2013, implying an upside of about 8.5 percent to 13 percent from current levels, Chan added.

Alan Lam, analyst with Julius Baer in Hong Kong, agrees that the market is near a bottom.

“We have always said that the market would see a bottom in the fourth quarter, and I think that’s what’s happening,” Lam said. “We think there will be short-term corrections on the way up, depending on how the economy performs, but I do think in 2013, the Shanghai Composite will be in positive territory.”

Next year, most economists are expecting the Chinese economy to expand more than the 7.5 percent forecast for 2012, the slowest annual growth since 1999.

–By CNBC’s Jean Chua

Copyright 2011 cnbc.com

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Why politics could spring a nasty surprise in 2013

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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This has been “an exceptionally political year” in the words of one analyst, starting with the problems of the euro zone and concluding with all eyes on Washington as the US teetered atop the “fiscal cliff.”

While there aren’t as many major elections scheduled for 2013 (2012 saw the US, Russia and France go to the polls and China anoint its new leader), there is plenty of potential for international politics to deliver market-moving surprises, according to analysts.

“Whether newly elected or once popular, elected leaders are finding their approval ratings steadily declining,” Tina Fordham,senior political analyst at Citi, pointed out, citing plunging ratings for France’s President Francois Hollande and Russia’s Vladimir Putin.

(Read More: Game-Changing Elections in Europe 2012)

The threat of popular uprising has not abated, and could be fueled by wider information access in countries like China, Fordham warned.

“Global political elites currently face a combination of challenges almost unprecedented in the modern era during peacetime, and a greater level of public scrutiny, thanks to wider access to information, than at any time in history,” she added.

Two of the world’s potential trouble spots – Israel and Iran – are holding elections next year, Israel in January and Iran in June.

Whatever way you look at it and whoever wins, the probability of a strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities is going up, Alistair Newton, senior political analyst at Nomura, told CNBC, though he added the odds were still pretty low.

“Markets are going to continue to put a political risk premium on political turmoil in the Middle East.”

(Read More: How Changing Middle East Will Affect Oil Price)

The Israeli election is likely to result in a victory for Benjamin Netanyahu’s hawkish government, according to Newton. He warned that this could lead to more unrest, although Netanyahu is likely to be sensitive to international pressure too.

China is viewed as stable after the leadership transition – but so was the Middle East before the Arab Spring. There is rising popular awareness of corruption in the world’s second-biggest economy, as Fordham pointed out, with data from the Pew Global Attitudes Project suggesting half of all Chinese now state that corrupt officials are a “very big problem,” an increase from 39 percent in 2008.

(Read More: China’s New Leaders)

And of course the euro zone crisis still has plenty of potential to disturb, despite a year of apparent progress by its policymakers and the promise of the European Central Bank President Mario Draghi to do”whatever it takes” to save the single currency.

“The one thing that really concerns me is the social tension. If you look at disposable incomes for the middle class and earnings for lower earners in Europe, they’ve never been worse off. This crisis has really benefited the one percent at the expense of the rest,” Steen Jakobsen, chief economist at Saxo Bank, told CNBC.

“People naively think that being inside the club of Europe is protecting them for some reason.”

Elections in Germany, the euro zone’s paymaster, in September and in Italy, one of its most worrying states, in March are likely to be key pivots for where Europe goes next year.

Germany’s election will be particularly anxiously watched. Greece will be kept in the euro zone at least until the German election because of Merkel, according to Newton, who says there is a 65 percent chance of a grand coalition led by Angela Merkel to emerge from the polls. He downplayed the risks of a surprise, and added that a grand coalition led by the rival SPD is likely to also want to keep Greece in the euro and be even more pro-European than the current regime.

“The euro zone scenario is it just grinds on and nothing really dramatic happens,” Newton said. He believes that politics won’t dominate the market landscape in the same way as last year.

(Read More: If Germany Sneezes, Does Euro Zone Catch Cold?)

On the other hand, Jakobsen warned of growing support for “more extremes” in Germany “because finally the crisis moves through its front door,” and the same in Italy.

“People become socially dissatisfied and then more radical,” he said. “We have ignored the unemployment rate. It’s socially a disaster.”

(Read More: Why Greeks Vote For Extremist Parties)

Copyright 2011 cnbc.com

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

As market optimism grows, is it time to get out?

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Mom-and-pop investors may be coming off the sidelines just as the pros are ready to take a breather, setting up a dicey start for 2013.

Sentiment surveys indicate a frothy level of enthusiasm for a stock market that weathered a series of storms this year, and the Standard & Poor’s 500 looks set to close with gains of better than 12 percent.

Also read: Businesses Brace for ‘Fiscal Cliff’ Impact

But when regular investors get excited, bad things often follow.

Retail investors are notoriously late to the market party, buying high and selling low. They stay on the sidelines until the storms pass, and by then it’s usually too late to reap the gains of a market rally.

“That’s definitely a concern. Sentiment polls are starting to reach high levels of excitement toward equities,” said Ryan Detrick, senior technical strategist at Schaeffer’s Investment Research in Cincinnati. “From a contrarian point of view, that’s clearly piqued my interest.”

Among a slew of other strongly bullish indicators, the National Association of Active Investment Managers’ survey this week showed a stunning 88 percent allocation to equities, a 33 percentage point increase just since the end of November.

Active managers have been faring poorly for the past few years amid rising correlations across the financial markets. About 40 percent continue to underperform their benchmarks as the year draws to a close.

Their excitement about stocks, then, could give pause about where the market is really heading. (This report in September, The Great Investing Dilemma: ‘Always Late to the Party,'” also warned about retail investors coming in late. The market has fallen nearly 4 percent since.)

“We continue to think it prudent for investors to consider taking at least some profits in positions with outsized gains,” John Stoltzfus, Oppenheimer’s chief market strategist, said in a cautionary note to clients. He recommended that investors hold onto those gains and use them to buy dips in “equities, particularly high-quality, dividend-paying stocks with cyclical exposure that have the potential to produce capital gains.”

Indeed, pulling some money off the table as retail investors change course seems to make some sense.

After all, Wall Street’s earlier optimism that the “fiscal cliff” negotiations in Washington would yield some palatable deal now seems misplaced, keeping the market in a tight trading range for December and causing a precipitous fall Thursday.

“It is prudent now to wait. The issues are far deeper when it gets down to the nuts and bolts of the plan to go in at this point and be complacent,” said Quincy Krosby, chief market strategist at Prudential Annuities in Newark, N.J. “The uncertainty is weighing on investment decision-making. It isn’t as if investors don’t want to go in and invest. But they need clarity on the backdrop.”

Some investors, though, have chosen to jump in regardless.

Exchange-traded funds with stock exposure saw inflows of about USD 25 billion over the past month, the highest in two years, according to TrimTabs. While ETFs often are thought of as the realm of institutional investors — 401(k) retirement programs, for instance, do not include them — more on the retail side are getting involved.

Bullishness on the American Association of Individual Investors survey has hit a 10-month high, and TrimTabs said money is coming out of short ETFs that bet against the market.

Thomas Lee, chief market strategist at JPMorgan, advises a short-term beta chase — looking for beaten-down stocks that have fallen below their 200-day moving average and have low price-to-earnings ratios. Among his picks are FedEx, Dell, Boeing and Staples.

“Ultimately, we see the S&P 500 finishing the year strongly. And, arguably, this should carry into January/February of 2013,” Lee said in a report. “However, we caution that this is also the cause of potential downside risk in (the first half). That is, we see the beta chase turning into a beta ‘beat-down’ in the Spring.”

Krosby said it’s worth noting that the market’s strongest performers recently have been cyclical rather than defensive names, which she said is probably indicative of longer-term strength despite the near-term worries over sentiment.

“There’s a growing sense that if there is no (fiscal cliff) deal, or if the deal is not enough to assuage market fears, then you are going to see a big amount of selling,” she said. “If that happens, the market will provide bargains.”

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

As clock ticks, Obama calls ‘fiscal cliff’ meeting

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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President Barack Obama and lawmakers are launching a last-chance round of budget talks just days before a New Year’s deadline to reach a deal or watch the economy go off a “fiscal cliff.”

Obama will meet congressional leaders from both parties at the White House on Friday at 3 p.m. EST (2000 GMT) to try to revive negotiations to avoid tax hikes and spending cuts – together worth USD 600 billion – that will begin to take effect on January.

Also read: Businesses Brace for ‘Fiscal Cliff’ Impact

Members were divided on the odds of success, with a few expressing hope, some talking as if they had abandoned it and a small but growing number suggesting Congress might try to stretch the deadline into the first two days of January.

In order to be ready to legislate if an agreement takes shape, the Republican-dominated House of Representatives convened a session for Sunday.

And House Majority Leader Eric Cantor advised members to be prepared to meet through Januarythe final day before the swearing-in of the new Congress elected on November

It “doesn’t feel like anything that’s very constructive is going to happen” as a result of the meeting with Obama, said Tennessee Republican Sen. Bob Corker. “It feels more like optics than anything that’s real.”

The two political parties remained far apart, particularly over plans to increase taxes on the wealthiest Americans to help close the US budget deficit. But one veteran Republican, Rep. Jeff Flake of Arizona, held out the prospect that if Obama came through with significant spending cuts, Republicans in the House might compromise on taxes.

The coming days are likely to see either intense bargaining over numbers, or political theater as each side attempts to avoid blame if a deal looks unlikely.

“Hopefully, there is still time for an agreement of some kind that saves the taxpayers from a wholly, wholly preventable economic crisis,” Mitch McConnell, the top Republican in the Democratic-controlled Senate, said on the Senate floor.

But the rhetoric was still harsh on Thursday after months of wrangling – much of it along ideological lines – over whether to raise taxes and by how much, as well as how to cut back on government spending.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, the top Democrat in Congress, accused Republican House Speaker John Boehner of running a “dictatorship” by refusing to allow bills he did not like onto the floor of the chamber.

Reid urged Republicans in the House to prevent the worst of the fiscal shock by getting behind a Senate bill to extend existing tax cuts for all except those households earning more than USD 000 a year.

Both Reid and Boehner, as well as McConnell and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, are to meet Obama on Friday.

Markets Ease

US stocks sharply cut losses after news of the House reconvening as investors clung to hopes of an 11th-hour deal. Even a partial agreement on taxes that would leave tougher issues like entitlement reform and the debt ceiling until later could be enough to keep markets calm.

“I’m not convinced it will result in a deal, but you could get enough concessions by both parties to at least avoid the immediacy of going over the cliff,” said Randy Bateman, chief investment officer of Huntington Asset Management, in Columbus, Ohio.

Obama arrived back at the White House on Thursday from a brief vacation in Hawaii that he cut short to restart stalled negotiations with Congress.

He is likely to meet the toughest resistance from Republicans in the House, where a group of several dozen fiscal conservatives have opposed any tax hikes at all.

But Flake of Arizona said his fellow Republicans in the House and Senate are resigned to seeing some sort of increase in top income tax rates. But they will push back if Obama does not offer spending cuts.

“There will be resistance from a lot of House conservatives to a deal that does that,” Flake said.

Strictly speaking, the fiscal cliff measures begin on January then tax rates go up but the House might stay in session until the following day if an agreement is being worked out.

“This January 1 deadline is a little artificial. We can do everything retroactively. We have to get it right, not get it quickly,” said Republican Representative Andy Harris.

Another component of the “fiscal cliff” – USD 109 billion in automatic spending cuts to military and domestic programs – is set to kick in on January 2.

The House and Senate passed bills months ago reflecting their own sharply divergent positions on the expiring low tax rates, which went into effect during the administration of former Republican President George W. Bush.

Democrats want to allow the tax cuts to expire on the wealthiest Americans and leave them in place for everyone else. Republicans want to extend the tax cuts for everyone.

In another sign that Americans are increasingly worrying about their finances as Washington fails to address the budget crisis, consumer confidence fell to a four-month low in December.

Americans blame Republicans in Congress more than congressional Democrats or Obama for the fiscal crisis, a Reuters/Ipsos poll showed.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Geithner warns: US hits debt ceiling on Dec 31

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Treasury secretary Timothy Geithner on Wednesday notified Congress that the US is going to hit the debt ceiling on New Year’s Eve.

“I am writing to inform you that the statutory debt limit will be reached on December 31, 2012,” he wrote in a letter to Congress, “and to notify you that the Treasury Department will shortly begin taking certain extraordinary measures authorized by law to temporarily postpone the date that the United States would otherwise default on its legal obligations.”

Also read:

Such measures, he said, can create some USD 200 billion in headroom under the debt limit, which would buy a couple months’ time under normal circumstances. However, because of the impending “fiscal cliff,” the effect of such measures can’t be certain, he wrote.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Why States may want to fall off the ‘cliff’

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Falling off the “fiscal cliff” is a bad thing, right? Not necessarily for some state governments that could begin collecting more in estate taxes on wealth left to heirs if the United States goes over the “cliff,” allowing sharp tax increases and federal spending cuts to take effect in January.

In an example of federal and state tax law interaction that gets little notice on Capitol Hill, 30 states next year could collect USD 3 billion more in estate taxes if Congress and President Barack Obama do not act soon, estimated the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, a Washington think tank.

The reason? The federal estate tax would return with a vengeance and so would a federal credit system that shares a portion of it with the 30 states. They had been getting their cut of this tax revenue stream until the early 2000s. That was when the credit system for payment of state estate tax went away due to tax cuts enacted under former President George W. Bush.

With the return of the credit system next year as part of the “cliff,” states such as Florida, Colorado and Texas — which have not collected estate tax since 2004 — could resume doing so. California Gov. Jerry Brown has already begun to add the anticipated estate tax revenue into his plans, including USD 45 million of it in his 2012-2013 revised budget.

Brown may or may not be jumping the gun.

CLOUDY CLIFF AHEAD

The outlook on the “fiscal cliff” coming up at year-end is uncertain. President Barack Obama has said he hopes for a last-minute deal to avert it. That would need to get done soon, with Congress just now coming back from its holiday break.

Chances of an agreement became more remote last week after Republicans in the House fumbled their own legislative attempt to prevent the fiscal jolt that economists say could trigger a recession.

House Speaker John Boehner abruptly adjourned the chamber for the holidays after failing to gather the votes from within his own party to pass legislation he and other Republicans had drafted, after walking out of negotiations with Obama.

Weeks of inconclusive political drama over the “cliff” have focused largely on individual income tax rates and spending on federal programs such Medicare and Social Security, but many tax issues are also involved, including the estate tax.

At the moment, under laws signed a decade ago by Bush, the estate tax is applied to inherited assets at a rate of 35 percent after a USD 5 million exemption. That means a deceased person can pass on an inheritance of up to USD 5 million before any tax applies. Inherited wealth passed to a spouse or a federally recognized charity is generally not taxed.

Obama wants to raise the rate to 45 percent after a USD 3.5 million exemption. Republicans have called for complete repeal of the estate tax, which they call the “death tax,” though Boehner earlier this month called for freezing the estate tax at its present level. It was difficult to determine what the Republicans want after last week’s events in the House.

STATES STAND TO GAIN

If Congress and Obama do not act by December 31, numerous Bush-era tax laws will expire, including the one on estate taxes. That would mean the estate tax rate will shoot up next year to the pre-Bush levels of 55 percent after a USD 1 million exemption.

It would also mean that for the first time in years, a portion of that estate tax would go to the states, through the return of the credit system.

Under that old law, estates paying the tax could get a credit against their federal tax bill for state estate tax payments of up to 16 percent of the estate’s value.

Also read:

If the fiscal cliff were allowed to take hold unaltered by Washington, 30 states would again automatically begin getting their share of federal estate taxes. The state laws are generally written so the state estate tax amounts are calculated under a formula based on the amount of the federal credit.

This would help states that have struggled with lower tax revenues since the 2007-2009 financial crisis and resulting recession, according to research by the Pew Center on the States, though painful federal spending cut backs would also hurt the states.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Why to expect more gains for Asia’s big banks in 2013

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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The negative sentiment that overshadowed China’s banks earlier this year is fading and the sector is poised for strong gains in 2013, while brighter economic prospects should fuel a rally in Japanese bank shares, analysts tell CNBC.

Better-than-expected third quarter earnings results have helped shares in big Chinese banks recover some ground from losses earlier this year amid worries that non-performing loans would balloon with a slowing economy and hurt profits.

Still, Chinese banks remain relatively cheap and they should be able to maintain their earnings into the New Year, said David Marshall, senior analyst of Asia-Pacific Financials with research firm CreditSights.

“When you look at how negative the sentiment has been towards the banks, it seems to me there`s some potential for uplift in terms of the valuations,” Marshall told CNBC Asia`s “Squawk Box” on Wednesday. “Relative to their earnings, multiples are still very low.”

Bank of China, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, China Construction Bank and Agricultural Bank of China are now 19.6 percent, 19.7 percent, 14.6 percent and 11.1 percent higher on the year respectively and are trading at multiples of under 8 times current year`s earnings. The Shanghai Composite Index in contrast has edged up half a percent.

And with the Chinese economic growth forecast by economists to rebound to 8 percent in 2013, after expanding an estimated 7.5 percent this year, which would mark the slowest pace since 1999, banks could perform “reasonably well,” Marshall said.

(Read more :China’s Economic Recovery Hopes Get a Huge Boost)

“I think we will see some profit growth and maybe some banks might have a bit of a spike in NPLs (non-performing loans) and that could pressure the earnings. But I think they’ll still be performing reasonably well in terms of profitability,” Marshall said.

As long as the Chinese government can make sure that the economy grows steadily, non-performing loans should not be a problem, said Song Seng Wun, regional economist with CIMB Research.

“The Chinese are aware of these key risks. So the whole game for the government is really about ensuring sustainable, steady growth, and that will have some impact on NPLs,” he added. “They want to keep that (growth) going, so that at least cash flow continues to be there and the companies are still ok.”

Positive economic data over the past two months have prompted many economists to sound more upbeat about China’s economic prospects. Industrial output grew by a higher-than-expected 10.1 percent in November from a year earlier, while the HSBC flash purchasing managers’ index, a snapshot of manufacturing activity, rose to 50.9 in December, a 14-month high.

Japan Outlook Brighter Too

Similarly, brighter economic prospects are expected to help Japanese bank shares, which have risen more than 50 percent this year and outperformed a 20 percent gain in the benchmark Nikkei stock index Nikkei even as the Japanese economy has struggled and slipped back into recession for the fifth time in 15 years.

Most of the gains for Japan`s big banks such as Mizuho and Mitsubishi UFJfollow comments on November 15 by incoming Prime Minister`s Shinzo Abe, who said he would press the Bank of Japan (BOJ) to be more aggressive in easing monetary policy so that Japan can escape a deflationary cycle and have a weaker yen.

(Read more:BOJ to Mull 2% Inflation Target as Abe Turns Up Heat)

The Nikkei has climbed nearly 17 percent since mid-November, while the yen has weakened about 7 percent and hit a 20-month low against the dollar on Wednesday.

An improving stock market will help Japanese banks report good results for the financial year to March as they have big equity holdings which means they perform well when the stock market does, Marshall said.

In the first half of the financial year, Japanese banks` earnings fell as on impairment losses on some of their equity investments, estimated at about 2 percent of total assets, according to BOJ data. Combined impairment charges for the three biggest lenders Mitsubishi UFJ, Mizuho and Sumitomo Mitsui were 535 billion yen (USD 6.7 billion), the biggest six-monthly toll since the aftermath of the Lehman crisis, the BOJ said.

But this should reverse in the second half of the financial year, Marshall said.

“Because of the peculiarities of Japanese accounting, if the market recovers by the end of March, some of those impairment charges will actually disappear. So in fact, the banks may report pretty good results for the year to March, if the stock market remains up,” he added.

Copyright 2011 cnbc.com

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

US stocks to see extreme volatility early 2013: Chartist

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

HIGH FIVE! We survived the apocalypse. Now what?

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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So the apocalypse was a no show — unless, of course, your name was Tim Tebow or John Boehner. (Oh, snap!) Hopefully you didn’t blow all your money on booze and Olympic hookers in an end-of-the-world bender. That would be awkward, right?

Well, it sure was fun rattling each other’s cages and planning end-of-the-world hookups, right? I’ll always have my commemorative apocalypse coin (pictured left) that I bought for 88 cents on the Internet to remember that time we survived the end together.

So, what happens now?

1. We High Five! We high five each other over for surviving something that was never really a threat anyway. HIGH FIVE! *SMACK*

2. We Watch “Gagnam Style” AGAIN. Doesn’t surviving the apocalypse make you feel like doing a little dance? Watch it again and then you can brag to your family over the holidays that you were the one billion, two million, forty-six thousand and fifthieth person to watch it. Opa, Gangnam Style …

3. We Complain. We take some time out of this first day of whatever to feel cheated out of some spectacular event that never was. “Not even one single Zombie. I’ll be honest, I feel a lit bit ripped off,” Matt McFarlane wrote on Twitter.

4. We Tweet. We can come up with clever hashtags to make us feel superior to the Apocalypse that never was such as #nopocalypse and #apocalypsefail.

5. We Feel Superior. We can look at all those people who bought lifetime supplies of food and spent their last hours rushing down to an undisclosed bunker and feel superior that we didn’t waste our time hunkering down. “LMAO – what is that woman with 35k jars of pickles do now??? LoLoL #fail,” @PoppaPri wrote on Twitter.

6. We Plot. We plot to one day make our kids or grandkids watch the movie 2012 and tell them we survived. Or, we go more instant gratification like Sahar J, who tweeted: “Still think the power companies should shut off the power today for 10 minutes just to make everyone freak out.” That’s cold, Sahar J. That’s cold.

7. We Confess. We can confess our darkest secrets on the Internet (#endoftheworldconfession) just to cleanse our souls for the next Mayan cycle. Look, Olympic runner Suzy Favor Hamilton didn’t get to be the No. 3 hooker in Vegas all by herself. Just sayin’.

8.We Reluctantly Buy Christmas Presents. Admit it! You thought you were going to get out of it on an apocalyptic technicality, amiright? “Well, I guess I gotta go buy my family Christmas presents now #apocalypsefail,” Carson Glass wrote on Twitter. That goes for the rest of you, apocaprocrastinators, too!

9.We Watch Zombie Movies. Seriously, we were promised zombies, were we not? Oh, all right. Then we’ll just have to watch “Shaun of the Dead,” “Dawn of the Dead” and “28 Days Later” in a weekend zombie fest. Mggggggggh …. Brains.

10. We Plan Our Next Freak Out. I don’t know about you but open-ended relief and happiness make me a little queasy. What should we freak out about next? Oh, right. The “fiscal cliff,” when tax increases and spending cuts kick in at the end of the year unless Washington gets its act together.

I don’t know about you but that’s scarier than the Apocalypse! How are real estate prices looking in Canada?

Copyright 2011 cnbc.com

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow