The last month hasn’t been pretty for economic performance, credit or retail sales. Everyone from Richemont to Mr Price has taken a beating. Woolies is down about 13% in the last month. And now both Capitec and African Bank are reporting worse default experience (respectively through temporary strike-blips or through a cyclical downwards trend) and…
The Technical Provisions Task Group and KPMG ran a workshop for industry participation on risk-free rates recently. The idea was to see whether we could improve the extent and quality of industry comment on key, controversial areas of the proposed SAM regime. Turnout was good, but not great, but the discussion and points raised were…
All I can say is financial reinsurance that is just smoke and mirrors is just smoke and mirrors. More small insurers should take advice from someone other than their reinsurers when evaluating financial reinsurance in terms of its financial, regulatory and capital implications. Financial reinsurance doesn’t typically cause financial problems but it can gloss over…
Lots on this topic to come over the next few months. IAIS chair Peter Braumüller acknowledged that traditional insurance does not “generate or amplify systemic risk† within the financial system or in the real economy. Although non-traditional risks do (derivatives exposures, CDS etc.) Meanwhile, the IAIS has released it’s proposals for identification and assessment of…
For every complex problem, there is a solution that is clear, simple and wrong. Greece is a complex problem. Paul Krugman points to this Choose Your Own Adventure on the Greek crisis. Much like the original books, there are many, many nasty ends. Read it, try it, explore a few paths. This is the best…
Some serious research, pointed out to me by FT Alphaville, showing that the 2010 Soccer World Cup had a marked impact on JSE trading volumes, patterns and correlation with global markets. I’m not sure what to do with this information, but it’s remarkable all the same.
The Make a Million competition, as I’ve mentioned before, is an awful idea. It doesn’t promote investing or even “normal” trading, but rather massive, speculative risk-taking trading because the prize for performing well is nothing and the prize for performing best is significant. I’m continually disappointed that Moneyweb continues to partner with this distraction. As…
