I was reading the recent news about ICBC’s large investment in Standard Bank and had a thought. If Standard Bank’s shares are suspended from trading, why not plunge into Satrix Fini? If you really wanted to get fancy, you could probably find SSFs on most of the other large players within the Satrix Fini (a…
Amongst the stormy seas of markets recently (off the back of a credit and liquidity crunch apparently initiated by ongoing and deepening problems with sub-prime loans in the US and the related CDOs), bobs the grey and bloated bodies of a clichéd failure. Unwavering belief in trends, normal market conditions and trading rules developed out…
Is your organisation one black swan away from disaster? Are you taking hidden risks in the quest for success, and using hope as your only risk management tool? Nassim Taleb’s books should be required reading for life Nassim Taleb is one of my new favourite authors. I’m actually a little slow on the uptake here…
Quick update – thanks to Moneyweb for this update on the Rudco story. Seems Rudco is to be probed by the National Credit Regulator (NCR) for their business practices. Too soon to get too excited, because the NCR is forced to investigate once it has received complaints (or so I understand). Will be very interesting…
Slightly different subject matter today. I’m not a news reported or a champion on the downtrodden. However, this story outline some useful concepts of arbitrage, borrowing and lending rates and how not to build a brand, market your company or do business. First let me say that I don’t know all the details, and I…
Zimbabwe’s economic problems have been long related to inflation and the exchange rate. While it is difficult to determine the extent to which the one leads the other in this case, it is clear that both the volatility and dramatic change in prices and exchange rates are the results of a real economic meltdown. Risk…
President Thabo Mbeki made reference to the adverse affect that volatility of the South African Rand has had on South Africa’s export manufacturers. I’ve posted quite a bit about hedging recently, but it seems that the issues just won’t go away. Volatility hurts planning capabilities. Hedging can restrict the impact of volatility for certain durations.…
David Maister’s blog has an interesting post about the pricing and promotion strategy for a small home-based business. In this case, it’s a pre-school looking for a pricing and promotion strategy. As always, David Maister has some useful suggestions and no doubt his wealth of readers will add some real gold in terms of suggestions…
