Financial markets/All

March 11, 2010

Pakistan risks IMF's $1.2bn

Disagreement between President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani over who should be Pakistan's finance minister, more than two weeks after Shaukat Tarin resigned from the post, may force the International Monetary Fund to hold back US$1.2 billion the government desperately needs to plug widening deficits.

- Syed Fazl-e-Haider (Mar 10, '10)

MARKET RAP

Steady as they go

US jobs data and the prospect of a resolution to the Greek debt crisis encouraged strong and steady advances across Asia's stock markets last week. More gains, however, will be required before they break out of medium-term trading ranges, and risk appetite may yet prove fragile.

- Robert M Cutler (Mar 08, '10)

THE BEAR'S LAIR

US holds key to eurozone success

European proponents of a centralized finance minister for the eurozone should look instead to the United States for a lesson on how to avoid a repeat of the Greek market panic. Member countries should sign up to a balanced budget or quit the currency regime.

- Martin Hutchinson (Feb 23, '10)

Greece - the mutating financial crisis

The consequences of a decade of loose monetary policies in major reserve currency centers are now being felt in Greece. Other countries will tread Greece's path to the pain of durable economic stagnation and unemployment.

- Hossein Askari and Noureddine Krichene (Feb 17, '10)

Shanghai wishing on a fading Disney star

China's financial center, Shanghai, may be losing its warm, fuzzy feelings over getting the third Disneyland theme park in Asia, scheduled to open in 2014. As the city’s politicians look south to the magic kingdom in Hong Kong, where the reality of losses sank expectations of a bonanza for the economy, they see a warning of what their dreams may bring about.

- Olivia Chung (Feb 04, '10)

Temasek and Thaksin lost in space

A corruption case against exiled former Thai premier Thaksin Shinawatra is overshadowing Shin Satellite, which he sold before being ousted from power. Singapore's Temasek Holdings, the present owner, faced with the prospect of a canceled tax holiday, may find it best to get rid of its stake, but attracting a buyer for the debt-burdened, loss-making unit could be tough.

- Peter J Brown (Feb 02, '10)

MARKET RAP

Storm clouds burst

A late recovery was too little to mask the continued decline in Asian stocks - with Taiwan and Shanghai being particularly volatile - and the outlook remains pessimistic.

- Robert M Cutler (Jan 29, '10)

HENRY C K LIU

Volcker - time for real change

United States President Barack Obama's decision to lean more on ex-Fed chief Paul Volcker reflects the US economy's dismal state and the failure to halt the decline in jobs. Yet full employment is an achievable goal. In the longer term, Obama could attack financial sector corruption, starting with a look at his own White House.

- Henry C K Liu (Jan 28, '10)

Bangladesh breathes in hope

Bangladesh, its stock market surging and economy humming, is casting off its former "basket case" image so thoroughly that Goldman Sachs argues it could be a key economy in the years ahead. It is also being urged to pursue reforms while the opportunity lasts.

- Robert M Cutler (Jan 21, '10)

Crisis probe lacks Pecora edge

The parade of Wall Street's Masters of Finance - Lloyd Blankfein, Jamie Dimon et al - before the Financial Crisis Investigative Committee quite simply lacked the theatrical drawing power of its Great Depression equivalent, the Pecora Commission. For a start, this time round the bad guys kept winning.

- Julian Delasantellis (Jan 20, '10)

HENRY C K LIU

China trapped in surplus cul-de-sac

With United States sovereign debt no longer the obvious safe place as a store of value, China's continued purchase of US Treasuries with its trade surplus dollars is open to question. Yet the answer is that China has no other options.

- Henry C K Liu (Jan 07, '10)

CHAN AKYA

What's in a name?

Renaming the world's tallest building to honor Dubai's financial rescuer may mark the death of a non-resource-based model of development in the Arab world. It could also serve to encourage other similar changes - RBS could be renamed the People's Bank of Britain, or California (given the right terms with China) could become Xinjiang (West).

- Chan Akya (Jan 06, '10)

Baton of competition passes to Asia

The financial crisis has tightened the grip of a few lenders over the global financial system, instead of opening the door for new institutions. The lesson for Asian economies emerging from the shadow of the West is that genuine competition must be revived in the market place.

- Joergen Oerstroem Moeller (Jan 06, '10)

CHAN AKYA

It's who you know

Perhaps the best way to summarize 2009 would be to look at the obvious winners, such as Wall Street and Big Government, against less obvious losers, such as taxpayers, the unemployed and small businessmen globally. With the Japanese way of capitalism well established, the year could be remembered as sowing the seeds of the longest depression the world has seen. While that may be an awful thought, think what will need to happen to end such a depression.

- Chan Akya (Dec 23, '09)

Obama's green shoots all too frail

United States President Barack Obama is touting his first few months in office as a period of rescue and recovery from the abyss of financial crisis. Yet as he boasts of each green shoot he can find, his administration has failed to address the economic, financial and social problems only too evident on the horizon.

- Hossein Askari and Noureddine Krichene (Dec 23, '09)

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Pakistan risks IMF's $1.2bn

MARKET RAP

Steady as they go

THE BEAR'S LAIR

US holds key to eurozone success

Greece - the mutating financial crisis

Shanghai wishing on a fading Disney star

Temasek and Thaksin lost in space

MARKET RAP

Storm clouds burst

HENRY C K LIU

Volcker - time for real change

Bangladesh breathes in hope

Crisis probe lacks Pecora edge

HENRY C K LIU

China trapped in surplus cul-de-sac

CHAN AKYA

What's in a name?

Baton of competition passes to Asia

CHAN AKYA

It's who you know

Obama's green shoots all too frail

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