Aviva in France is still dealing with having written the worst insurance policy in the world. From the sounds of things, they weren’t alone in this foible. It’s also hard to say as an outsider what the right or reasonable resolution to their current problem is, but here is the policy that they wrote. Buy …
Category archives: market risk
Banking failures in South Africa
South Africa has a pretty rich history of banking failures. This paper, part of a masters, by Sipho Makhubela, provides an interesting over of banking failures since 1994. I haven’t read the entire paper yet, but Section 4 (starting on page 72) outlines the background behind banking failures in South Africa and is fascinating reading …
Credit Suisse annual update on market performance
Credit Suisse has for several years now put out an annual Credit Suisse Global Investment Returns Yearbook 2013 is out now. It’s worth reading in its entirety for the insights. I don’t agree with everything there, and I certainly don’t agree with the widely held view (not among the authors) that the universe of countries included …
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Different types of predictions
As part of the run-up to my overview of my own predictions for 2012, I thought i should highlight why I bother at all. Most predictions, most of the time, will be wrong. Crystal balls aside, it is nearly impossible to reliably, accurately predict future complex events. However, the process of rigorously considering what might …
SAM Risk-free Rate Workshop
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 …
Up up and away
Ok, up up, down, up, down down down, up up and away. I’ve been away furiously recruiting staff and working on QIS2 while completing a house move, so not much blogging recently. Should pick up again shortly. The other news is of course Spanish bond yields, which were heading for the stratosphere before the latest …
World Cup attention getter
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.
Lose a Million
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 …