Florida is experiencing its very own fun and games with nuclear power station shutdown, blackouts and unhappy Dwarves and Princesses.  Ok, so apparently the Dwarves and Princesses were mostly unaffected. Without wishing the hardship on  the Floridians, I’m pleased to hear the news in that it shows that systemic risk in electricity grids is a global operational risk and not…
Jérôme Kerviel, a 31 year-old banker at Soc Gen is blamed for losses of €4.9 billion incurred through rogue trades spanning over a period of some months. The story has a remarkable similarity to Nick Leeson, the Original Rogue Trader who is blamed for the demise of Barings Bank in 1995. Unfortunately for Soc Gen,…
Business Report has an interesting article where Eskom recommends shelving new infrastructure projects due to lack of electricity until at least 2013. A few important quotes form the piece: Bongani Nqwababa, Eskom’s finance director, said yesterday that the parastatal had advised the government that it wanted South Africa marketed only from 2013 for both local…
Apparently the results for QIS3 are now available. Â QIS3 (“Quiz 3”) is the third Quantitative Impact Study along the path to rolling out Sovlency II for insurance companies between 2010 and 2012. It provides further light on what capital requirements will actually be when Sovlency II comes into effect. Perhaps a warning is required for…
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…
Moneyweb falls into the same trap that many others have stumbled over time and again. David Carte mis-titles SAA loses as oil price falls and makes the mistake worse with the subtitle “A hedge goes the wrong way”. Mr Carte doesn’t belabour the point in the article, but his perspective on hedging is clear. I’ll…
