節目主持：馬鼎盛、文潔華、劉天賜
Wednesday, October 31, 2012
Tuesday, October 30, 2012
Monday, October 29, 2012
董事局擬踢走鄭經翰不果 DBC會議聲帶外泄 官極不滿 (原載《明報》)
【明報專訊】香港數碼廣播（DBC）風波演變至董事局奪權，該台昨召開股東兼董事會，多次無親身出席會議的股東黃楚標現身，會議一度要求解除鄭經翰及何國輝的董事職務，結果遭二人反對，需再開會討論，但雙方達共識願支付約200萬元的10月薪金。另外，目前鄭經翰被禁制談論DBC事務，但披露「中聯辦反感」的董事局會議聲帶卻外泄，法官對此表示「極為不滿」。
至於並非註冊為慈善基金的「支持鄭經翰何國輝訴訟基金」，至昨籌得5,194,373元，基金現由周啓邦律師樓監察，並由朱耀明牧師及立法會議員李卓人任信託人。
願支付200多萬元薪金
數碼廣播昨日上午舉行了股東會兼董事會，鄭經翰、何國輝及黃楚標均有出席，李國寶、李國章及黃子欣則無現身。據悉，雙方對電台發展存分歧，只達成共識願支付10月薪金，按接管人德勤資料約需200多萬元。
DBC大股東黃楚標的代表、資深大律師馮華健昨在聆訊透露，電台董事局昨晨開會討論成員去留，並解除鄭經翰及何國輝的董事職務。惟鄭何二人指時間倉卒而反對，會議陷僵局。有關動議將再次在董事局提出，法官夏利士要求黃按照早前承諾，在下月14日前完成董事局成員調動。
目前黃楚標陣營現佔五成股權，鄭經翰陣營則佔四成。據悉，該台股東協議，每擁有10％股份可委任一名董事，現有4名董事分別是鄭經翰、何國輝、黃楚標，以及屬黃陣營的彭玉榮。
黃楚標現身會議
另外，法官提及董事局會議聲帶外泄，分別在YouTube網站及公開廣播，引起社會關注。法庭早前頒布禁制令阻止「大班」鄭經翰泄密，法官認為事件已違令，「法庭對情况極為不滿，會嚴肅看待」，敦促鄭何的律師提醒二人。
DBC早前被高院委任德勤會計師事務所為臨時接管人，鄭何昨表明反對，要求取消「託管」。高院昨批准鄭何二人與黃楚標一方各自存入證供，擇日聆訊。
【案件編號：HCA1611/12】
至於並非註冊為慈善基金的「支持鄭經翰何國輝訴訟基金」，至昨籌得5,194,373元，基金現由周啓邦律師樓監察，並由朱耀明牧師及立法會議員李卓人任信託人。
願支付200多萬元薪金
數碼廣播昨日上午舉行了股東會兼董事會，鄭經翰、何國輝及黃楚標均有出席，李國寶、李國章及黃子欣則無現身。據悉，雙方對電台發展存分歧，只達成共識願支付10月薪金，按接管人德勤資料約需200多萬元。
DBC大股東黃楚標的代表、資深大律師馮華健昨在聆訊透露，電台董事局昨晨開會討論成員去留，並解除鄭經翰及何國輝的董事職務。惟鄭何二人指時間倉卒而反對，會議陷僵局。有關動議將再次在董事局提出，法官夏利士要求黃按照早前承諾，在下月14日前完成董事局成員調動。
目前黃楚標陣營現佔五成股權，鄭經翰陣營則佔四成。據悉，該台股東協議，每擁有10％股份可委任一名董事，現有4名董事分別是鄭經翰、何國輝、黃楚標，以及屬黃陣營的彭玉榮。
黃楚標現身會議
另外，法官提及董事局會議聲帶外泄，分別在YouTube網站及公開廣播，引起社會關注。法庭早前頒布禁制令阻止「大班」鄭經翰泄密，法官認為事件已違令，「法庭對情况極為不滿，會嚴肅看待」，敦促鄭何的律師提醒二人。
DBC早前被高院委任德勤會計師事務所為臨時接管人，鄭何昨表明反對，要求取消「託管」。高院昨批准鄭何二人與黃楚標一方各自存入證供，擇日聆訊。
【案件編號：HCA1611/12】
大姐大手記﹕Psy演出酬勞200萬天價 熱爆全球成搶手貨 (原載《明報》)
【明報專訊】最近大姐大發現有個搞笑新現象，就是在酒樓茶餐廳吃飯時，鄰桌的大叔們（絕對不假，是50多歲的阿叔們），竟然可以連續個多兩個小時不停用iPad播着Psy的《江南Style》，更有人手舞足蹈即席表演跳騎馬舞，同樣情况已遇過不止一次；現在終於明白為何該曲的音樂錄影全球的點擊率，可以在3個月內破5億。
身價翻幾翻
Psy全球風頭一時無兩，他亦自稱入行12年終於覺得自己真的走紅，個多月內一口氣出席美國多個高收視率的節目做宣傳，像名嘴愛倫狄珍妮絲（Ellen DeGeneres）及長壽綜藝節目《Saturday Night Live》（SNL）等，無疑把韓樂在全世界愈推愈勁。據聞，今年本港聖誕及新年的黃金檔期，不少商場及大型慶祝活動都會邀韓星做嘉賓，當中以Psy最搶手；因為一首《江南Style》已夠歡樂，音樂上腦之餘還可全場一齊跳舞，跟普世歡騰的節目氣氛簡直襯到絕！不過，想邀請Psy擔任嘉賓絕不容易，全球各地都爭着他表演做嘉賓，最近他的身價已翻幾翻，全世界除了韓國外，他演出一場的酬勞是超過26萬美元（約202萬港元）一場。
兩個月袋1億
今年夏天短短兩個月內，Psy只用一首歌，保守估計已有純利150億韓圜（約1.05億港元），尤其《江南Style》是他親自作曲作詞，單是版權費都有排收。
Psy的所屬公司YG Entertainment的分紅為7：3，Psy是七成，公司抽三成，其他藝人多數為4（YG）：6（藝人），算是對藝人不薄，難怪BIGBANG隊長G—Dragon跟老闆楊賢碩都在首爾江南區同一大廈居住，但G—Dragon是自資物業，老闆則是租的。
韓國經理人公司抽佣制不同
11月底會與Psy同在港出席頒獎禮的Super Junior，其所屬的S.M. Entertainment，最近被指在韓國3大經理人公司中出手最低，在韓國的唱片收入分配為9（S.M.）：1（藝人），就算為宣傳唱片等出席節目都完全沒有酬勞；拍廣告及固定演出劇集、節目等則為4（S.M.）：6（藝人）；海外演出及唱片收入則為3（S.M.）：7（藝人），難怪前H.O.T及東方神起成員等都曾投訴酬勞分配嚴重不均，更指合約為「奴隸合約」。而擁有2PM及2AM、missA等的JYP則平分，5比5。
Market Pullback Reaches Bottom
Equity stock market continues to decline from previous week. However it appears that selling is contained amongst traders whether professional or amateur. There is no symptom that institutional and individual investors are dumping shares for cash as in the panic selling during the US debt rating downgrade in last year. Market manipulators so far have not successfully created panic selling to move market in one direction to make profit. Nevertheless, smart traders if riding on market waves correctly can benefit from the trading range.
Market participants are very cautious. However since there is plenty of liquidity in the market, investors are reluctant to sell the remaining stocks in the portfolio which is already rich in cash. Therefore despite the week's loss in broad market, investors are not following the herd to sell stocks.
While market is consolidating, market participants are watching closely for further development. Long term investors attitude is critical to market movement since they may be the major sellers if confidence is weakened and decide to take profit. If market can hold on for longer time, speculators may begin to accumulate stocks on hope of improving economic condition and buying interest from surplus capital.
After QE3, Can Fed Excite Markets This Week?
Just because last month's Federal Reserve meeting came with some punch with the announcement of aggressive stimulus measures to boost the U.S. economy, does not mean this month's meeting is any less important, Fed watchers say.
"There's positive data, but the reality of the matter is - data has been very volatile. I think the Fed knows it's not a firm recovery and that doesn't provide the Fed with a lot of comfort," he said. "They will likely say they will continue with the easy monetary policy and monitor developments."
The December meeting will also follow the November 6 presidential election and that may pave the way for more clarity on how the U.S. Congress plans to deal with the 'fiscal cliff' of tax hikes and spending cuts that are due to kick in in January.
The U.S. Congressional Budget Office and the IMF have said that if the fiscal tightening that is due to take place goes ahead without action from Congress, the U.S. economy will probably fall into recession. Economists peg the damage from the impending fiscal tightening as high as $720 billion, which will wipe off 4.6 percent from gross domestic product (GDP), effectively pushing the U.S into recession.
"The December (Fed) meeting may be more interesting, given the fiscal cliff," AMP's Oliver.
On Wall Street, Selling Fear Is Good Business
Years of financial tumult have given brokers a new and resonant sales message: "Be afraid." Whether it's good investment advice is almost beside the point — the financial-services industry has determined that fear sells:
There's nothing mysterious about how things arrived at this point. By their words and actions, individuals have shown an abiding disdain for the stock market.
Easily the most successful new class of tradable instruments in recent years has been exchange-listed notes tied to the options market's S&P 500 Volatility Index, or VIX. Such products have attracted billions in assets from investors seeking a way to profit from violent, dangerous market action despite a generally steady decline in actual market volatility since the 2008-'09 crescendo of the financial crisis.
For a broker, addressing investors who are scared and perfectly willing to let the market go up without them is a pretty nice business proposition, especially when inherently unknowable political shifts, monetary policy and macroeconomic shocks can be cited in support of continued caution.
It's easy to sell sobriety to people who have already sworn off the hard stuff -- especially when the potential customers aren't even aware the market has been rising without them aboard.
In a fascinating pattern revealed in annual surveys by mutual-fund giant Franklin Templeton Investments, two-thirds of individual investors in 2010 answered that the stock market had fallen the prior year, when in fact it was up more than 25% in 2009. In both 2011 and 2012, half or more of respondents similarly claimed stocks were down the year before, when indeed the indexes had finished higher.
With the perceived riskiness of stocks embedded securely in the public mind, perhaps the stealth danger is that investors unintentionally assume more risk than they mean to, through something that seems to offer safety. For instance, bonds and dividend-paying stocks are widely being used as "cash substitutes," a role they are not nearly qualified to fill.
High-yield bonds are quite popular even as equities are disdained, yet both would be hurt by a U.S. recession. Slow economic growth is correctly touted as a healthy environment for high-grade corporate bonds. But current rock-bottom yield levels offer little buffer for even the passing shadow of an inflationary threat.
Indeed, stocks are popularly considered dangerous at current levels, yet they don't appear particularly misvalued relative to the rest of the asset-class chain, stretching from Treasuries to corporate debt to real estate investment trusts and beyond. All are being floated by central banks' money creation and their efforts, not yet entirely successful, to penalize risk aversion.
Market participants are very cautious. However since there is plenty of liquidity in the market, investors are reluctant to sell the remaining stocks in the portfolio which is already rich in cash. Therefore despite the week's loss in broad market, investors are not following the herd to sell stocks.
While market is consolidating, market participants are watching closely for further development. Long term investors attitude is critical to market movement since they may be the major sellers if confidence is weakened and decide to take profit. If market can hold on for longer time, speculators may begin to accumulate stocks on hope of improving economic condition and buying interest from surplus capital.
After QE3, Can Fed Excite Markets This Week?
Just because last month's Federal Reserve meeting came with some punch with the announcement of aggressive stimulus measures to boost the U.S. economy, does not mean this month's meeting is any less important, Fed watchers say.
"There's positive data, but the reality of the matter is - data has been very volatile. I think the Fed knows it's not a firm recovery and that doesn't provide the Fed with a lot of comfort," he said. "They will likely say they will continue with the easy monetary policy and monitor developments."
The December meeting will also follow the November 6 presidential election and that may pave the way for more clarity on how the U.S. Congress plans to deal with the 'fiscal cliff' of tax hikes and spending cuts that are due to kick in in January.
The U.S. Congressional Budget Office and the IMF have said that if the fiscal tightening that is due to take place goes ahead without action from Congress, the U.S. economy will probably fall into recession. Economists peg the damage from the impending fiscal tightening as high as $720 billion, which will wipe off 4.6 percent from gross domestic product (GDP), effectively pushing the U.S into recession.
"The December (Fed) meeting may be more interesting, given the fiscal cliff," AMP's Oliver.
On Wall Street, Selling Fear Is Good Business
Years of financial tumult have given brokers a new and resonant sales message: "Be afraid." Whether it's good investment advice is almost beside the point — the financial-services industry has determined that fear sells:
There's nothing mysterious about how things arrived at this point. By their words and actions, individuals have shown an abiding disdain for the stock market.
Easily the most successful new class of tradable instruments in recent years has been exchange-listed notes tied to the options market's S&P 500 Volatility Index, or VIX. Such products have attracted billions in assets from investors seeking a way to profit from violent, dangerous market action despite a generally steady decline in actual market volatility since the 2008-'09 crescendo of the financial crisis.
For a broker, addressing investors who are scared and perfectly willing to let the market go up without them is a pretty nice business proposition, especially when inherently unknowable political shifts, monetary policy and macroeconomic shocks can be cited in support of continued caution.
It's easy to sell sobriety to people who have already sworn off the hard stuff -- especially when the potential customers aren't even aware the market has been rising without them aboard.
In a fascinating pattern revealed in annual surveys by mutual-fund giant Franklin Templeton Investments, two-thirds of individual investors in 2010 answered that the stock market had fallen the prior year, when in fact it was up more than 25% in 2009. In both 2011 and 2012, half or more of respondents similarly claimed stocks were down the year before, when indeed the indexes had finished higher.
With the perceived riskiness of stocks embedded securely in the public mind, perhaps the stealth danger is that investors unintentionally assume more risk than they mean to, through something that seems to offer safety. For instance, bonds and dividend-paying stocks are widely being used as "cash substitutes," a role they are not nearly qualified to fill.
High-yield bonds are quite popular even as equities are disdained, yet both would be hurt by a U.S. recession. Slow economic growth is correctly touted as a healthy environment for high-grade corporate bonds. But current rock-bottom yield levels offer little buffer for even the passing shadow of an inflationary threat.
Indeed, stocks are popularly considered dangerous at current levels, yet they don't appear particularly misvalued relative to the rest of the asset-class chain, stretching from Treasuries to corporate debt to real estate investment trusts and beyond. All are being floated by central banks' money creation and their efforts, not yet entirely successful, to penalize risk aversion.
Saturday, October 27, 2012
Friday, October 26, 2012
Thursday, October 25, 2012
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
Monday, October 22, 2012
Sunday, October 21, 2012
Saturday, October 20, 2012
dbc黃楚標李國寶絕密錄音震撼流出 (YouTube)
香港數碼廣播員工, 第二日喺政府總部集會。籌辦活動的「爭取DBC復播活動行動委員會」，在傍晚播放一條錄音聲帶，強調黃楚標一方的股東，不注資予電台，亦不將股份賣俾台長鄭經翰和行政總裁何國輝，是受中聯辦指示。
播出的聲帶是鄭經翰、黃楚標及李國章等的對話，在第一段錄音中，黃楚標一方的股東，指中聯辦不喜歡李慧玲的言論為由，拒絕僱請她擔任主持。鄭經翰堅持電台不能夠持政治立場，並不能夠做官方喉舌。又堅持電台要有編輯自主，但會確保主持根據事實來批評政府，有甚麼是非都由他承擔。
第二段錄音是黃楚標向鄭經翰表示，相信鄭知道他為甚麼不注資。就算鄭經翰找到買家，亦要得到黃楚標一方股東的同意才能購買。
委員會召集人林旭華強調，知道播放片段會引發很多問題。但有很多傳媒人接觸過片段，都無提及事件，所以堅持要播出，他會承擔一切責任。他又相信，商務及經濟發展局局長蘇錦樑，聽過有關聲帶，但不予理會。而鄭經翰在同一晚，收到由代表黃楚標一方的律師發出禁制令，禁止他發言，所以確信事件是政治打壓。
播出的聲帶是鄭經翰、黃楚標及李國章等的對話，在第一段錄音中，黃楚標一方的股東，指中聯辦不喜歡李慧玲的言論為由，拒絕僱請她擔任主持。鄭經翰堅持電台不能夠持政治立場，並不能夠做官方喉舌。又堅持電台要有編輯自主，但會確保主持根據事實來批評政府，有甚麼是非都由他承擔。
第二段錄音是黃楚標向鄭經翰表示，相信鄭知道他為甚麼不注資。就算鄭經翰找到買家，亦要得到黃楚標一方股東的同意才能購買。
委員會召集人林旭華強調，知道播放片段會引發很多問題。但有很多傳媒人接觸過片段，都無提及事件，所以堅持要播出，他會承擔一切責任。他又相信，商務及經濟發展局局長蘇錦樑，聽過有關聲帶，但不予理會。而鄭經翰在同一晚，收到由代表黃楚標一方的律師發出禁制令，禁止他發言，所以確信事件是政治打壓。
Friday, October 19, 2012
大班擬借錢購「數碼」股份 (原載《星島日報》)
【星島日報報道】數碼廣播電台（DBC）員工昨天起在政府總部集會，爭取公司復播，吸引逾千名市民撐場。數碼廣播創辦人兼台長鄭經翰表示，會爭取到最後一分鐘，或不惜借錢，想辦法購回股份。集會將持續至周日。
政總集會 千人撐場
DBC員工昨在政府總部外搭建講台集會，吸引超過一千名市民到場，包括逾百長者，警方封閉對開添美道。數碼廣播創辦人兼台長鄭經翰在現場強調，不會出售自己的股份，會與DBC爭取到最後一分鐘，即使要向人借錢，亦會想辦法購回股份，若不成功，才會關閉DBC。至於回購股份的詳情，他指屬於禁制令範圍，不便透露。
「爭取DBC復播運動行動委員會」召集人林旭華表示，希望政府介入事件及展開調查，責成股東履行承諾和董事會決議，恢復電台正常運作，不應坐視不理。至於公開籌款給鄭經翰的訴訟基金，至今籌得約二百七十萬元。
「生日願望是身體健康，可以繼續聽DBC！」家住青衣的婆婆，昨於政府總部度過六十六歲生辰，其兒子及孫即席送上玫瑰花。八十歲的李婆婆從馬鞍山遠道而來，得知電台即將停播忍不住哭泣，其女兒上周在商務及經濟發展局局長蘇錦樑網上專頁留言卻未獲回覆，認為DBC是很多長者精神食糧，政府應介入事件。
場內亦有大批學生，十六歲的劉宛昌指停播事件反映言論自由被扼殺。
立法會資訊科技及廣播事務委員會在主席黃毓民同意下，將於本月二十六日召開特別會議，討論數碼廣播停播事宜。
記者 羅嘉凝
Market Correction On Earnings Miss
Equity stock market suffers pullback in the recent rally. Earning miss in some of the index component companies reported in this week drags down the market. Traders move quickly on earnings announcement. At the end of the week, profit taking from market participants takes down broad market back to the level before earning announcement.
Although market declines on earning miss, market participants do not run into panic selling. Selling mostly comes from day traders who are making quick profit on swift market movement. Market manipulators remain cautious to participate in the selling. Therefore this market pullback may be opportunity for risk takers. Selling may not last long as there are few sellers dumping shares for cash and few speculators short selling stocks.
Long term investors confidence has not been shaken by the market glitch. With plenty of cash on hand, institutional and individual investors do not participate in the selling but are waiting patiently on the sideline. Since institutional investors are trying to catch up in investment return, the pullback appeals to some aggressive investors. But market participants confidence in the market is still weak. The pullback may extend longer until it becomes attractive to buyers. The amount of surplus capital circulating in the financial system is tremendous. Once the bottom is reached, the rebound would cause market participants to buy in a herd. Market participants should wait with patience for the buying signal.
Stocks Are Down But Not Out Says Simon Baker
After ripping 14% higher from June until the first week of October, stocks ran headfirst into a wall of worry seemingly too large to climb. Europe, China, the fiscal cliff, etc aren't new concerns but that doesn't mean they aren't real. Investors suddenly care and are behaving accordingly, selling some of their more aggressive names and rotating into defensives.
"It's a good time if you've got some cash on the sidelines to be selectively getting in," says Simon Baker, CEO of Baker Ave Advisors, about the dark mood on Wall Street.
"In this type of market I don't want to be too contrarian," he says. It's a market for the nimble and the bold. He's not getting paid to wait; he's making money getting long ahead of the masses. Right now the environment is one of building fear; Baker wants the other side of the trade before traders reach back to the old familiar tech winners.
One last catch. Baker isn't betting on hunches ahead of earnings. He's staying nimble but not rushing. Wait for earnings, listen to the executives, then take your shot. As America gets more fearful into the election and the New Year, making money will require just a dash of prudent bravery.
High-Speed Trading No Longer Hurtling Forward
High-frequency trading firms — the lightning-quick, computerized companies that have risen in the last decade to dominate the nation’s stock market — are now struggling to hold onto their gains.
It is a swift reversal for trading firms that have often looked to other investors like profit machines, thanks to high-powered software and superfast data connections that can take advantage of small changes in the price of a stock.
High-speed trading is far from disappearing from the market, but the struggles facing these firms have been greeted with enthusiasm by some traditional traders and investors who have viewed the firms as formidable adversaries, or worse, market manipulators that create sudden spikes and drops in share prices. Peter Costa, a longtime trader on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, said the fading presence of the firms could “restore some order to stock markets.”
The challenges facing speed-focused firms are many, the biggest being the drop in trading volume on stock markets around the world in each of the last four years. This has made it harder to make profits for traders who quickly buy and sell shares offered by slower investors. In addition, traditional investors like mutual funds have adopted the high-speed industry’s automated strategies and moved some of their business away from the exchanges that are popular with high-speed traders. Meanwhile, the technological costs of shaving further milliseconds off trade times has become a bigger drain on many companies.
The diminishing presence of these traders in the markets has not hurt the overall performance of stock prices. Leading indexes have been on a steady climb for the last few years. For high-speed traders, rising prices are actually a part of the problem: climbing stock markets tend to be calmer stock markets, providing fewer trading opportunities for high-speed firms.
Earnings Look Better, but Market May Not CareEarnings Look Better, but Market May Not Care
Earnings season may not be as weak as analysts had initially projected, but the bad news is that may not be good enough to cheer investors.
In the big picture, the market both may be unimpressed with the future earnings outlook and unconvinced of the initial numbers to get much optimism from early beats.
"Even if we are wrong about a turn in the earnings cycle and the profit share continues to rise, the stock market may still fall if investors become averse to risk," Higgins said. He compares the current economic recession to the climate following the second leg of the Great Depression in 1937-38 when the winds of World War II "trumped an improvement in profits at home."
"Company outlooks for the coming year will be of utmost interest, and we believe that estimates for the fourth quarter and 2013 should come down, which could cause volatility in the near term," strategists at Charles Schwab said in a report Monday.
"We believe that the earnings estimate revisions will have a significant impact on financial stocks for the remainder of the year," Cannon said. "Overall, stock prices have fared better than estimate revisions but have had a close directional impact."
Full Speed Ahead: Stocks May Top 2012 Highs
Technicians see an uptrend in place that could easily take stocks back to their 2012 highs.
Stocks in the past two days have been lifted by better-than-expected U.S. economic reports and earnings news, after last week's sell off.
The rally has confounded some analysts, who expected a bigger correction. "It has been a market with continued question marks, but we'll take the rally. We'll take the rally defensively," said Louise Yamada, managing director with Louise Yamada Technical Research Advisors.
"You read about traders that aren't trading. So who's making the volume? Is it the plunge protection team? The government's manipulating it? We don't have any answers to that," said Yamada. "We do have enough confirmation to think it could continue and we watch. You don't have as many stocks above the 200-day moving average as you did two weeks ago, but that doesn't mean it doesn't' improve. We could go higher."
Maxim Group technical analyst Paul LaRosa said he's cautiously optimistic the market will go higher, but he's also a little perplexed.
"It doesn't make any sense, but sometimes the market doesn't make sense and you have to listen to what the market's telling you and position yourself that way. If you did you would have been accumulating stocks all summer, and you'd be in good shape now. The questions is what do you do now," he said.
Risk Is Back: Fund Managers Bullish on Stocks
While bonds have been the asset class of choice this year, equities are quickly gaining favor among global asset managers as central banks pump liquidity into the financial system and investors grow less fearful of the euro zone debt crisis.
Roman Scott, chairman of investment management firm Calamander Group, said the investment case for equities is getting stronger given the liquidity boost provided by policymakers in the West.
"This very blunt tool of monetary policy to effectively keep money very cheap, in fact almost free, is designed to force all of us into risk assets. (Federal Reserve Chairman Ben) Bernanke wants everybody to buy equities and risk assets; the European Central Bank wants the same thing. I do think there's a good case that the risk-on position is looking more attractive," Scott told CNBC.
Roman Scott, chairman of investment management firm Calamander Group, said the investment case for equities is getting stronger given the liquidity boost provided by policymakers in the West.
"This very blunt tool of monetary policy to effectively keep money very cheap, in fact almost free, is designed to force all of us into risk assets. (Federal Reserve Chairman Ben) Bernanke wants everybody to buy equities and risk assets; the European Central Bank wants the same thing. I do think there's a good case that the risk-on position is looking more attractive," Scott told CNBC.
Meantime, optimism around U.S. equities fell for the fourth straight month, with just 10 percent of investment managers overweight the country's stocks, compared to 13 percent in September.
While U.S stocks have outperformed this year, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average hitting a near five-year high earlier this month, experts say future gains could be limited due to investor nervousness about upcoming third-quarter corporate earnings and profit-taking.
Although market declines on earning miss, market participants do not run into panic selling. Selling mostly comes from day traders who are making quick profit on swift market movement. Market manipulators remain cautious to participate in the selling. Therefore this market pullback may be opportunity for risk takers. Selling may not last long as there are few sellers dumping shares for cash and few speculators short selling stocks.
Long term investors confidence has not been shaken by the market glitch. With plenty of cash on hand, institutional and individual investors do not participate in the selling but are waiting patiently on the sideline. Since institutional investors are trying to catch up in investment return, the pullback appeals to some aggressive investors. But market participants confidence in the market is still weak. The pullback may extend longer until it becomes attractive to buyers. The amount of surplus capital circulating in the financial system is tremendous. Once the bottom is reached, the rebound would cause market participants to buy in a herd. Market participants should wait with patience for the buying signal.
Stocks Are Down But Not Out Says Simon Baker
After ripping 14% higher from June until the first week of October, stocks ran headfirst into a wall of worry seemingly too large to climb. Europe, China, the fiscal cliff, etc aren't new concerns but that doesn't mean they aren't real. Investors suddenly care and are behaving accordingly, selling some of their more aggressive names and rotating into defensives.
"It's a good time if you've got some cash on the sidelines to be selectively getting in," says Simon Baker, CEO of Baker Ave Advisors, about the dark mood on Wall Street.
"In this type of market I don't want to be too contrarian," he says. It's a market for the nimble and the bold. He's not getting paid to wait; he's making money getting long ahead of the masses. Right now the environment is one of building fear; Baker wants the other side of the trade before traders reach back to the old familiar tech winners.
One last catch. Baker isn't betting on hunches ahead of earnings. He's staying nimble but not rushing. Wait for earnings, listen to the executives, then take your shot. As America gets more fearful into the election and the New Year, making money will require just a dash of prudent bravery.
High-Speed Trading No Longer Hurtling Forward
High-frequency trading firms — the lightning-quick, computerized companies that have risen in the last decade to dominate the nation’s stock market — are now struggling to hold onto their gains.
It is a swift reversal for trading firms that have often looked to other investors like profit machines, thanks to high-powered software and superfast data connections that can take advantage of small changes in the price of a stock.
High-speed trading is far from disappearing from the market, but the struggles facing these firms have been greeted with enthusiasm by some traditional traders and investors who have viewed the firms as formidable adversaries, or worse, market manipulators that create sudden spikes and drops in share prices. Peter Costa, a longtime trader on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, said the fading presence of the firms could “restore some order to stock markets.”
The challenges facing speed-focused firms are many, the biggest being the drop in trading volume on stock markets around the world in each of the last four years. This has made it harder to make profits for traders who quickly buy and sell shares offered by slower investors. In addition, traditional investors like mutual funds have adopted the high-speed industry’s automated strategies and moved some of their business away from the exchanges that are popular with high-speed traders. Meanwhile, the technological costs of shaving further milliseconds off trade times has become a bigger drain on many companies.
The diminishing presence of these traders in the markets has not hurt the overall performance of stock prices. Leading indexes have been on a steady climb for the last few years. For high-speed traders, rising prices are actually a part of the problem: climbing stock markets tend to be calmer stock markets, providing fewer trading opportunities for high-speed firms.
Earnings Look Better, but Market May Not CareEarnings Look Better, but Market May Not Care
Earnings season may not be as weak as analysts had initially projected, but the bad news is that may not be good enough to cheer investors.
In the big picture, the market both may be unimpressed with the future earnings outlook and unconvinced of the initial numbers to get much optimism from early beats.
"Even if we are wrong about a turn in the earnings cycle and the profit share continues to rise, the stock market may still fall if investors become averse to risk," Higgins said. He compares the current economic recession to the climate following the second leg of the Great Depression in 1937-38 when the winds of World War II "trumped an improvement in profits at home."
"Company outlooks for the coming year will be of utmost interest, and we believe that estimates for the fourth quarter and 2013 should come down, which could cause volatility in the near term," strategists at Charles Schwab said in a report Monday.
"We believe that the earnings estimate revisions will have a significant impact on financial stocks for the remainder of the year," Cannon said. "Overall, stock prices have fared better than estimate revisions but have had a close directional impact."
Full Speed Ahead: Stocks May Top 2012 Highs
Technicians see an uptrend in place that could easily take stocks back to their 2012 highs.
Stocks in the past two days have been lifted by better-than-expected U.S. economic reports and earnings news, after last week's sell off.
The rally has confounded some analysts, who expected a bigger correction. "It has been a market with continued question marks, but we'll take the rally. We'll take the rally defensively," said Louise Yamada, managing director with Louise Yamada Technical Research Advisors.
"You read about traders that aren't trading. So who's making the volume? Is it the plunge protection team? The government's manipulating it? We don't have any answers to that," said Yamada. "We do have enough confirmation to think it could continue and we watch. You don't have as many stocks above the 200-day moving average as you did two weeks ago, but that doesn't mean it doesn't' improve. We could go higher."
Maxim Group technical analyst Paul LaRosa said he's cautiously optimistic the market will go higher, but he's also a little perplexed.
"It doesn't make any sense, but sometimes the market doesn't make sense and you have to listen to what the market's telling you and position yourself that way. If you did you would have been accumulating stocks all summer, and you'd be in good shape now. The questions is what do you do now," he said.
Risk Is Back: Fund Managers Bullish on Stocks
While bonds have been the asset class of choice this year, equities are quickly gaining favor among global asset managers as central banks pump liquidity into the financial system and investors grow less fearful of the euro zone debt crisis.
Roman Scott, chairman of investment management firm Calamander Group, said the investment case for equities is getting stronger given the liquidity boost provided by policymakers in the West.
"This very blunt tool of monetary policy to effectively keep money very cheap, in fact almost free, is designed to force all of us into risk assets. (Federal Reserve Chairman Ben) Bernanke wants everybody to buy equities and risk assets; the European Central Bank wants the same thing. I do think there's a good case that the risk-on position is looking more attractive," Scott told CNBC.
Roman Scott, chairman of investment management firm Calamander Group, said the investment case for equities is getting stronger given the liquidity boost provided by policymakers in the West.
"This very blunt tool of monetary policy to effectively keep money very cheap, in fact almost free, is designed to force all of us into risk assets. (Federal Reserve Chairman Ben) Bernanke wants everybody to buy equities and risk assets; the European Central Bank wants the same thing. I do think there's a good case that the risk-on position is looking more attractive," Scott told CNBC.
Meantime, optimism around U.S. equities fell for the fourth straight month, with just 10 percent of investment managers overweight the country's stocks, compared to 13 percent in September.
While U.S stocks have outperformed this year, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average hitting a near five-year high earlier this month, experts say future gains could be limited due to investor nervousness about upcoming third-quarter corporate earnings and profit-taking.
Thursday, October 18, 2012
德勤今接管DBC 政總義播恐遭阻撓 (原載《信報》)
數碼廣播電台（DBC）表面鬧出股東間的糾紛，實際疑似被滅聲，令電台於上周末被迫走上停播之路，然而一班有心的主持，包括林旭華、鄭家富、李錦洪、黎則奮等，就發起「義播雲天七日情」行動，不收分文進行為期七天的義播，以爭取DBC能早日復播。
「義播雲天七日情」今日開始踏入行動高潮，一群主持大舉進駐政府總部內的公民廣場，然後連續三天進行義播直播，並廣邀各界人士到場支持甚至一同「開咪」，與到場聽眾一起做節目。老紀昨日就曾撰文，指DBC現時的最後一着，正是變身公民電台，把事件發展至社運層面，讓公眾明白言論自由受打壓之害，但一如老紀昨天所言，因股東黃楚標成功向高等法院申請接管令，公民廣場的義播隨時橫生變數，甚至可能胎死腹中。
由於法庭昨天裁定黃楚標勝訴，並委託德勤會計師行成為臨時接管人，按法例現時DBC的管理人，已不再是電台的創辦人兼大股東鄭經翰或行政總裁何國輝，亦由於義播行動是需要DBC的管理層批准，正因如此，義播行動可能會被粗暴阻撓，一群主持更隨時會被忽然「滅聲」。
關於DBC的股東爭拗，拖延多月，黃楚標一方與鄭經翰一方多次談判亦談不攏。本來，黃楚標等人大可一早入稟法庭申請清盤，但最終卻在義播後才正式動手，表面上只是巧合，卻其實目的更似是透過由第三方接管電台，徹底封殺義播。
參與義播的主持，昨天就召開記者會，宣布組成「反對滅聲、還聲於民、爭取DBC復播運動」行動委員會，成員之一的黎則奮直言，公民廣場的義播將會如期進行，且不會動用DBC的器材，「搵人借同租番來啦！」對於今日的義播節目隨時被封殺，他就透露已有後備方案。總之，「義播雲天」將會堅持到底。
老紀曾聯絡黃楚標作查詢，他以身在外地為由，表示不清楚DBC的接管安排，並透露將在下周回港後，再召開股東會商討事件。
紀曉風 獨眼香江
「義播雲天七日情」今日開始踏入行動高潮，一群主持大舉進駐政府總部內的公民廣場，然後連續三天進行義播直播，並廣邀各界人士到場支持甚至一同「開咪」，與到場聽眾一起做節目。老紀昨日就曾撰文，指DBC現時的最後一着，正是變身公民電台，把事件發展至社運層面，讓公眾明白言論自由受打壓之害，但一如老紀昨天所言，因股東黃楚標成功向高等法院申請接管令，公民廣場的義播隨時橫生變數，甚至可能胎死腹中。
由於法庭昨天裁定黃楚標勝訴，並委託德勤會計師行成為臨時接管人，按法例現時DBC的管理人，已不再是電台的創辦人兼大股東鄭經翰或行政總裁何國輝，亦由於義播行動是需要DBC的管理層批准，正因如此，義播行動可能會被粗暴阻撓，一群主持更隨時會被忽然「滅聲」。
關於DBC的股東爭拗，拖延多月，黃楚標一方與鄭經翰一方多次談判亦談不攏。本來，黃楚標等人大可一早入稟法庭申請清盤，但最終卻在義播後才正式動手，表面上只是巧合，卻其實目的更似是透過由第三方接管電台，徹底封殺義播。
參與義播的主持，昨天就召開記者會，宣布組成「反對滅聲、還聲於民、爭取DBC復播運動」行動委員會，成員之一的黎則奮直言，公民廣場的義播將會如期進行，且不會動用DBC的器材，「搵人借同租番來啦！」對於今日的義播節目隨時被封殺，他就透露已有後備方案。總之，「義播雲天」將會堅持到底。
老紀曾聯絡黃楚標作查詢，他以身在外地為由，表示不清楚DBC的接管安排，並透露將在下周回港後，再召開股東會商討事件。
紀曉風 獨眼香江
Wednesday, October 17, 2012
黃楚標出招以防牌照被沒收，數碼電台會計師接管 (原載《新報》)
剛進行7天「義播」的香港數碼廣播電台，其內部紛爭仍未平息，公司主席黃楚標及幾名股東以董事局無法管理公司為由，要求高院批准兩名德勤會計師臨時接管數碼電台，直至下月14日公司召開股東大會當日為止，要求昨日獲法官接納。黃楚標及台長鄭經翰昨日均無到庭。 採訪：法庭組
高院法官夏利士昨在庭上聽取黃楚標一方的單方面申請，代表黃的資深大律師馮華健向法官解釋，除了「大班」鄭經翰外，其他股東均同意委任臨時接管人，處理公司的帳目和日常運作。黃楚標事先探得鄭經翰及何國輝可能不同意上述安排，但直到昨日上午，鄭經翰一方仍未正式作出回應。
股東之間缺乏溝通
馮華健謂，由於股東之間的爭拗已變得失控，彼此缺乏溝通，董事給人蒙在鼓裏，對許多內部事情一無所知，黃擔心會違反電台的牌照條款，如果公司如不能如常運作，有可能會遭政府沒收電台牌照。
法官夏利士語帶感慨道：「電台只係面對無人肯再注資，咁為何大家不能好好坐低再傾，一定要嘥大筆錢打官司？」馮華健回答，香港數碼廣播並非一般私人公司，而是經發牌才可經營的數碼電台，節目內容受到監管，如果股東間無法共事，某一方又採取敵對態度，對股東並無好處；考慮到電台要向通訊管理局和發牌部門負責，持牌人應該做點補救措施。
馮華健指，已過世的一名股東蒙民偉，生前佔香港數碼廣播公司一成股權，其遺產管理人李國寶表明不會反對委任臨時接管人，還有可能會加入近日的訴訟。
案件編號：HCA1611/2012
主審：夏利士法官
高院法官夏利士昨在庭上聽取黃楚標一方的單方面申請，代表黃的資深大律師馮華健向法官解釋，除了「大班」鄭經翰外，其他股東均同意委任臨時接管人，處理公司的帳目和日常運作。黃楚標事先探得鄭經翰及何國輝可能不同意上述安排，但直到昨日上午，鄭經翰一方仍未正式作出回應。
股東之間缺乏溝通
馮華健謂，由於股東之間的爭拗已變得失控，彼此缺乏溝通，董事給人蒙在鼓裏，對許多內部事情一無所知，黃擔心會違反電台的牌照條款，如果公司如不能如常運作，有可能會遭政府沒收電台牌照。
法官夏利士語帶感慨道：「電台只係面對無人肯再注資，咁為何大家不能好好坐低再傾，一定要嘥大筆錢打官司？」馮華健回答，香港數碼廣播並非一般私人公司，而是經發牌才可經營的數碼電台，節目內容受到監管，如果股東間無法共事，某一方又採取敵對態度，對股東並無好處；考慮到電台要向通訊管理局和發牌部門負責，持牌人應該做點補救措施。
馮華健指，已過世的一名股東蒙民偉，生前佔香港數碼廣播公司一成股權，其遺產管理人李國寶表明不會反對委任臨時接管人，還有可能會加入近日的訴訟。
案件編號：HCA1611/2012
主審：夏利士法官
德勤被委任為香港數碼廣播有限公司的接管人及管理人
中國香港，2012年10月17日──德勤‧關黃陳方會計師行財務諮詢服務合夥人黎嘉恩先生和何國樑先生今天(2012年10月17日)獲香港高等法院委任為香港數碼廣播有限公司(「香港數碼廣播」或「該電台」)的共同和各別接管人及管理人。香港數碼廣播為香港其中一間數碼音頻廣播服務供應商。
接管人和管理人作為法院的專員，將按照法院命令授予的權力獨立行事。
香港數碼廣播於8月開始推出數碼電台服務，其兩條頻道播放與時事新聞和最新生活優閒資訊相關的節目。
接管人和管理人作為法院的專員，將按照法院命令授予的權力獨立行事。
香港數碼廣播於8月開始推出數碼電台服務，其兩條頻道播放與時事新聞和最新生活優閒資訊相關的節目。
Tuesday, October 16, 2012
數碼台或被會計師行接管 (原載《東方日報》)
【本報訊】風波不絕的香港數碼廣播有限公司，在完結為期七日的「義播」後，可能會被會計師行接管。香港數碼主席黃楚標向本報表示，「義播」一事從未經過董事局拍板同意，前日已去信台長鄭經翰，要求他解釋「義播」的法律責任，但到昨午二時正限期前仍未有回覆，會與律師團隊研究下一步行動。消息指有股東認為電台已陷入失控狀態，建議由會計師行暫時接管，直至公司股東紛爭告一段落為止。
「義播」恐構成法律責任
鄭經翰上周單方面宣布香港數碼廣播停播後，已遣散電台所有員工，但在本周一開始又推行為期七日的「義播」。通訊事務管理局辦公室前日發稿指出，香港數碼日前停播四日，可能已違反了相關牌照條款，會按既定程序處理，最嚴重可予以罰款甚至暫時吊銷牌照。
黃楚標昨日表示，自己從報章得悉鄭經翰的「義播」決定後，已發律師信要求對方解釋，「義播」會否對電台股東、董事構成法律責任：「唔止我一個，有董事都覺得咁樣好有問題，所以先出律師信要佢哋解釋。」
黃楚標指出，鄭經翰一方於限期前未有答覆，現正與律師團隊研究有何法律行動跟進，不希望「義播」一事持續下去。
他說：「一間公司，點可以畀非員工行入去咁搞法，總之我唔想非公司員工喺電台亂講嘢！」
「義播」恐構成法律責任
鄭經翰上周單方面宣布香港數碼廣播停播後，已遣散電台所有員工，但在本周一開始又推行為期七日的「義播」。通訊事務管理局辦公室前日發稿指出，香港數碼日前停播四日，可能已違反了相關牌照條款，會按既定程序處理，最嚴重可予以罰款甚至暫時吊銷牌照。
黃楚標昨日表示，自己從報章得悉鄭經翰的「義播」決定後，已發律師信要求對方解釋，「義播」會否對電台股東、董事構成法律責任：「唔止我一個，有董事都覺得咁樣好有問題，所以先出律師信要佢哋解釋。」
黃楚標指出，鄭經翰一方於限期前未有答覆，現正與律師團隊研究有何法律行動跟進，不希望「義播」一事持續下去。
他說：「一間公司，點可以畀非員工行入去咁搞法，總之我唔想非公司員工喺電台亂講嘢！」
Sunday, October 14, 2012
All Blogger Pageviews Lost! (A Must Read For Blogspot Owners)
Original Post
Yes! You heard me right! Editor's Article has of Right now has lost all of its 17,000 Pageviews.
Why you ask?
Well! I assume blogger has had some sort of "glitch" that somehow caused many if not all blogs to Lose their Pageviews.
If you haven't Lost any of your pageviews, I suggest you double-check your hit counter, This is a very new event that might take time to thoroughly take effect. Perhaps your blog could be saved.....
In the meanwhile, I suggest you got to the official blogger product forum and complain. (As I am doing right now)
http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!category-topic/blogger/something-is-broken/dSFrwW2SWgE%5B1-25%5D
Months, and perhaps even years of cold hard work, has instantly vanished in the small lapse of an hour.
Every second this goes on I get more and more inclined to switch to Wordpress. So Who else want their pageviews back?
Yes! You heard me right! Editor's Article has of Right now has lost all of its 17,000 Pageviews.
Why you ask?
Well! I assume blogger has had some sort of "glitch" that somehow caused many if not all blogs to Lose their Pageviews.
If you haven't Lost any of your pageviews, I suggest you double-check your hit counter, This is a very new event that might take time to thoroughly take effect. Perhaps your blog could be saved.....
In the meanwhile, I suggest you got to the official blogger product forum and complain. (As I am doing right now)
http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!category-topic/blogger/something-is-broken/dSFrwW2SWgE%5B1-25%5D
Months, and perhaps even years of cold hard work, has instantly vanished in the small lapse of an hour.
Every second this goes on I get more and more inclined to switch to Wordpress. So Who else want their pageviews back?
破在世藝術家作品紀錄 《抽象畫》2.65億天價成交 (原載《星島日報》)
【星島日報】德國當代藝術大師里希特（Gerhard Richter）一幅抽象名畫，上周五在倫敦蘇富比拍賣，以高達二千一百三十二萬英鎊（約二億六千五百萬港元）的天價成交，創下現時仍在世藝術家的最貴作品紀錄。
這幅名叫《抽象畫（809-4）》（Abstraktes Bild）的紅、藍及黃色油畫，兩名買家在電話經過五分鐘激烈競投後，最終由一名匿名買家以二千一百三十二萬英鎊投得，引發一輪熱烈掌聲。
原被Eric Clapton擁有
這幅畫繪於一九九四年，蘇富比形容它是抽象畫傑作，亦是里希特藝術成就最成熟的代表作。該畫原本由英國著名搖滾樂結他手Eric Clapton所擁有，他於二○○一年在紐約以三百四十萬美元購入。該畫最初估計只可拍賣得九百萬至一千二百萬英鎊，不料竟在周四拍出天價。十一年間，這幅名畫升值近七倍，最終成交價不但超出原先估價，也打破了里希特另一幅作品《抽象畫（7938-3）》在今年五月在紐約創下的二千一百九十萬美元（約一億七千萬港元）的紀錄。
已屆八十高齡的里希特是全球最暢銷的在世藝術家，他在德雷斯頓出生，在前東德長大，他設於科隆的工作室既創作抽象畫，也創作寫實主義畫及攝影圖片。此前，在世藝術家的最貴作品是二○一○年佳士得在紐約拍出的瓊斯（Jasper John）畫作《Flag》，成交價為二千八百六十萬美元（約二億二千萬港元）。
這幅名叫《抽象畫（809-4）》（Abstraktes Bild）的紅、藍及黃色油畫，兩名買家在電話經過五分鐘激烈競投後，最終由一名匿名買家以二千一百三十二萬英鎊投得，引發一輪熱烈掌聲。
原被Eric Clapton擁有
這幅畫繪於一九九四年，蘇富比形容它是抽象畫傑作，亦是里希特藝術成就最成熟的代表作。該畫原本由英國著名搖滾樂結他手Eric Clapton所擁有，他於二○○一年在紐約以三百四十萬美元購入。該畫最初估計只可拍賣得九百萬至一千二百萬英鎊，不料竟在周四拍出天價。十一年間，這幅名畫升值近七倍，最終成交價不但超出原先估價，也打破了里希特另一幅作品《抽象畫（7938-3）》在今年五月在紐約創下的二千一百九十萬美元（約一億七千萬港元）的紀錄。
已屆八十高齡的里希特是全球最暢銷的在世藝術家，他在德雷斯頓出生，在前東德長大，他設於科隆的工作室既創作抽象畫，也創作寫實主義畫及攝影圖片。此前，在世藝術家的最貴作品是二○一○年佳士得在紐約拍出的瓊斯（Jasper John）畫作《Flag》，成交價為二千八百六十萬美元（約二億二千萬港元）。
「牛下女車神」世盃分站賽封后 (原載《星島日報》)
【星島日報】「牛下女車神」李慧詩再次為港爭光，繼倫敦奧運摘走場地單車凱林賽銅牌後，昨於場地單車世界盃哥倫比亞站，個人首度問鼎爭先賽冠軍。本地單車名宿洪松蔭指，李慧詩勢不可擋，正好乘勢吸收更多世界賽經驗，劍指明年二月的場地單車世界錦標賽，爭取代表世界冠軍的「彩虹戰衣」。
乘倫奧摘銅餘威，李慧詩昨於場地單車世界盃哥倫比亞站女子爭先賽封后。由於英國傳奇女將彭妮頓退役，倫奧爭先賽金牌得主、澳洲好手美雅絲正處調整期，中國名將郭爽又未參賽，香港「女車神」實力在今站可謂一枝獨秀，以勢如破竹的姿態連過四關打入爭先賽決賽，與英國「九十後」車手安夏特爭金。
洪松蔭：可劍指世界冠軍
決賽採取三場兩勝制，雙方在二百五十米的場地中比賽三圈，以最快衝綫者為勝。結果，李慧詩在首、尾兩戰均在最後直路發揮驚人爆炸力，總場數贏二比一，首度穿上世界盃分站冠軍的白色戰衣。
倫奧後，李慧詩上月中先於全國場地單車錦標賽贏得兩銀一銅，昨參戰世盃分站再傳喜訊。本地單車名宿兼倫奧香港單車隊領隊洪松蔭指出，今次勝利意義深遠：「總教練沈金康不停為李慧詩安排高水準的世界盃賽事，就是讓她吸收寶貴的經驗，為來年二月的場地單車世界錦標賽提早準備。」
洪松蔭直言如果一切順利，李慧詩在白俄羅斯上演的世錦賽有力爭霸。「若與澳洲單車名將美雅絲等強敵相比，李慧詩現時的技術、戰術及經驗仍有所不及。不過，她若在沈教練的精心安排下繼續進步，有力衝擊世界冠軍的『彩虹戰衣』。」
洪又指，李慧詩近期接拍商業廣告，知名度急升，有助向外界推廣單車熱潮：「希望她在賽場屢創佳績，令單車熱浪在香港廣泛傳揚。」
李慧詩戰罷爭先賽後，今晨會與港隊隊友刁小娟聯手出戰煞科日的凱林賽，力圖再為港爭光。另外，同樣參與本站的港將郭灝霆，於男子全能賽獲第八名，刁小娟於捕捉賽奪第十一名，首度轉戰成人賽的年輕小將梁俊榮，則在男子一公里計時賽得十六名。\
體育組記者 吳家祺
Market Pullback Attracts Buyers
This week marks the beginning of earning announcement for major blue chip stocks. Although it is expected that market may experience turbulence, overall trading volume remains low. Since broad market index is very close to all-time-high, market participants are worry of a pullback and have little desire to trade.
Traders are waiting for the signals to move forward. However, although market sentiment is pessimistic, market participants have plenty of cash to pick up bargains in case of a sizable market pullback or even crash. But while everybody is waiting, there are no sellers to execute the anticipated sell-off. Long-term investors seem to have no further intention to liquidate stock holdings since last market pullback before the rally triggered by the Federal Reserve open-ended mortgage backed securities buying program. Market manipulators cannot create panic selling since investors have learned from the panic selling in last year. It is now much more expensive to buy back the shares dumped in last year. And the investment return from dividend of stock holding is much more than the return from cash or equivalent holding. Investors have a low proportion of portfolio in equity stocks.
Looking forward, market will remain quiet and individual news may cause jitter. The risk of market crash is low. The large pool of capital waiting for market entry point can provide support if market retreats. So far market movement in the year indicates a rising market because corporations are making profits and have access to cheap financing due to flooding of cash in the capital market. Traders can buy stocks when market retreats and take profit when market surges. Investors can buy at current level although it may appear expensive in comparison to the fire sale price one year ago. If investors can tolerate short term turbulence, equity stocks can provide appreciable return in the long run when investor confidence is restored.
IMF offers bleak assessment of stalled recovery
Plagued by uncertainty and fresh setbacks, the world economy has weakened further and will grow more slowly over the next year, the International Monetary Fund says in its latest forecast.
Global efforts to ease credit and increase the amount of money available for lending are helping, but appear to be yielding diminishing returns, as are fiscal stimulus policies, the IMF warned.
"Because uncertainty is high, confidence is low, and financial sectors are weak, the significant fiscal achievements have been accompanied by disappointing growth or recessions," it said.
Among other things, it says governments need to do more to relieve the burden of household debt that is constraining spending power and thus crippling demand.
While large corporations pay record low rates for credit, households and small companies struggle to obtain bank loans, it said.
As usual, the bright spots are developing economies that were less affected by the global financial crisis, where rising employment and strong demand will help support growth, the IMF said.
20% of Corporate America Cooks Their Books for Earnings Season: Report
It's earnings time again and Wall Street is chomping at the bit for more information about the health of Corporate America.
But a new report by finance professors at Emory and Duke University raises questions about the quality of these earnings.
In an anonymous survey of CFOs last year, the study found that at least 20% of companies are "managing" earnings and using aggressive accounting methods to legally alter the outcome of their earnings reports.
What may surprise you is that these accounting methods used by CFOs to "manage" the numbers are completely legal.
Of the 20% of companies that manipulated their earnings to hit a target, Graham says, a surprising 40% did so to the downside, not the upside.
Why would companies downplay their numbers? To pad and improve future quarters' earnings.
He says investors should not put too much faith in one individual earnings report and suggests looking at companies over the long term. Graham argues that cash flows are a better baromoter than earnings.
The CFOs surveyed in separate report by Graham said they expect earnings to increase 6% over the next year.
Marc Faber: Market Setting Up for 'Serious Setback'
Faber discounted the role of government intervention as a way to improve economic conditions.
Global markets have been weakening technically and are poised to head sharply downward, "Gloom, Boom & Doom Report" editor Marc Faber told CNBC on late Tuesday.
"We need less policies, not more policies," he said.
"I would love to see everywhere in the world, certainly in the Western world, government expenditures and government bureaucrats cut by minimum 50 percent," he added. "That would turn me very bullish."
Cramer: No Logic to the Selloff
"Five years ago today the market hit its all-time top. Here we are closing in on it again."
It seems that line of thinking caused many people to be sellers of Tuesday's market, Jim Cramer said on CNBC's "Mad Money." Cramer admitted that there are some similarities between then and now. Five years ago, the markets bore witness to the mortgage crisis coming to the fore and the burst of the housing bubble. Today, he noted the market faces the uncertainly in Washington surrounding the "fiscal cliff" and a sluggish U.S. economy.
To Cramer, it's "a little silly" that just because stocks were expensive at a certain level five years ago, they must be expensive at that same level today. What really matters, he said, is what stocks will be worth three months or three years from now.
So while the pundits continue to scare investors, Cramer said he plans on analyzing which stocks have the best prospects, so he can figure if they dropped to a level worth buying.
Why The Smart Money Is Underperforming the Market: WSJ’s Zuckerman
Hedge funds are having one of their worst performing years in over a decade. Bank of America Merrill Lynch reports that hedge funds are posting their smallest gains since 1997, and through the third quarter this year advanced just over 3% while the S&P 500 gained 13%.
The Wall Street Journal's Greg Zuckerman tells The Daily Ticker the underperformance is nothing new. Hedge funds and private equity funds have lagged the past few years but not to this extent, and both are now trying different strategies to reverse that trend, he says.
The problem, says Zuckerman, is that "hedge funds have grown too big and too bearish."
Assets have been pouring into hedge funds over the past few years from pension funds and other sinstitutional investors, and the funds are having a hard time putting all that money to work.
Contrary to popular belief hedge funds are not necessarily designed to make big, aggressive bets on investments.
"They're suppposed to be more cautious and underperform in a market up 15%," says Zuckerman, but not by so much. Hedge funds have been "a little too skeptical, a little too suspicious of this rally."
Private equity funds are also having problems this year. Cambridge Associates says the biggest buyout funds launched in 2006 and managing $3.5 billion or more have gained just 4%.
Zuckerman says private equity funds are stitting on close to one trillion dollars cash. That's not what investors had planned on, but Zuckerman says investors have been patient.
Traders are waiting for the signals to move forward. However, although market sentiment is pessimistic, market participants have plenty of cash to pick up bargains in case of a sizable market pullback or even crash. But while everybody is waiting, there are no sellers to execute the anticipated sell-off. Long-term investors seem to have no further intention to liquidate stock holdings since last market pullback before the rally triggered by the Federal Reserve open-ended mortgage backed securities buying program. Market manipulators cannot create panic selling since investors have learned from the panic selling in last year. It is now much more expensive to buy back the shares dumped in last year. And the investment return from dividend of stock holding is much more than the return from cash or equivalent holding. Investors have a low proportion of portfolio in equity stocks.
Looking forward, market will remain quiet and individual news may cause jitter. The risk of market crash is low. The large pool of capital waiting for market entry point can provide support if market retreats. So far market movement in the year indicates a rising market because corporations are making profits and have access to cheap financing due to flooding of cash in the capital market. Traders can buy stocks when market retreats and take profit when market surges. Investors can buy at current level although it may appear expensive in comparison to the fire sale price one year ago. If investors can tolerate short term turbulence, equity stocks can provide appreciable return in the long run when investor confidence is restored.
IMF offers bleak assessment of stalled recovery
Plagued by uncertainty and fresh setbacks, the world economy has weakened further and will grow more slowly over the next year, the International Monetary Fund says in its latest forecast.
Global efforts to ease credit and increase the amount of money available for lending are helping, but appear to be yielding diminishing returns, as are fiscal stimulus policies, the IMF warned.
"Because uncertainty is high, confidence is low, and financial sectors are weak, the significant fiscal achievements have been accompanied by disappointing growth or recessions," it said.
Among other things, it says governments need to do more to relieve the burden of household debt that is constraining spending power and thus crippling demand.
While large corporations pay record low rates for credit, households and small companies struggle to obtain bank loans, it said.
As usual, the bright spots are developing economies that were less affected by the global financial crisis, where rising employment and strong demand will help support growth, the IMF said.
20% of Corporate America Cooks Their Books for Earnings Season: Report
It's earnings time again and Wall Street is chomping at the bit for more information about the health of Corporate America.
But a new report by finance professors at Emory and Duke University raises questions about the quality of these earnings.
In an anonymous survey of CFOs last year, the study found that at least 20% of companies are "managing" earnings and using aggressive accounting methods to legally alter the outcome of their earnings reports.
What may surprise you is that these accounting methods used by CFOs to "manage" the numbers are completely legal.
Of the 20% of companies that manipulated their earnings to hit a target, Graham says, a surprising 40% did so to the downside, not the upside.
Why would companies downplay their numbers? To pad and improve future quarters' earnings.
He says investors should not put too much faith in one individual earnings report and suggests looking at companies over the long term. Graham argues that cash flows are a better baromoter than earnings.
The CFOs surveyed in separate report by Graham said they expect earnings to increase 6% over the next year.
Marc Faber: Market Setting Up for 'Serious Setback'
Faber discounted the role of government intervention as a way to improve economic conditions.
Global markets have been weakening technically and are poised to head sharply downward, "Gloom, Boom & Doom Report" editor Marc Faber told CNBC on late Tuesday.
"We need less policies, not more policies," he said.
"I would love to see everywhere in the world, certainly in the Western world, government expenditures and government bureaucrats cut by minimum 50 percent," he added. "That would turn me very bullish."
Cramer: No Logic to the Selloff
"Five years ago today the market hit its all-time top. Here we are closing in on it again."
It seems that line of thinking caused many people to be sellers of Tuesday's market, Jim Cramer said on CNBC's "Mad Money." Cramer admitted that there are some similarities between then and now. Five years ago, the markets bore witness to the mortgage crisis coming to the fore and the burst of the housing bubble. Today, he noted the market faces the uncertainly in Washington surrounding the "fiscal cliff" and a sluggish U.S. economy.
To Cramer, it's "a little silly" that just because stocks were expensive at a certain level five years ago, they must be expensive at that same level today. What really matters, he said, is what stocks will be worth three months or three years from now.
So while the pundits continue to scare investors, Cramer said he plans on analyzing which stocks have the best prospects, so he can figure if they dropped to a level worth buying.
Why The Smart Money Is Underperforming the Market: WSJ’s Zuckerman
Hedge funds are having one of their worst performing years in over a decade. Bank of America Merrill Lynch reports that hedge funds are posting their smallest gains since 1997, and through the third quarter this year advanced just over 3% while the S&P 500 gained 13%.
The Wall Street Journal's Greg Zuckerman tells The Daily Ticker the underperformance is nothing new. Hedge funds and private equity funds have lagged the past few years but not to this extent, and both are now trying different strategies to reverse that trend, he says.
The problem, says Zuckerman, is that "hedge funds have grown too big and too bearish."
Assets have been pouring into hedge funds over the past few years from pension funds and other sinstitutional investors, and the funds are having a hard time putting all that money to work.
Contrary to popular belief hedge funds are not necessarily designed to make big, aggressive bets on investments.
"They're suppposed to be more cautious and underperform in a market up 15%," says Zuckerman, but not by so much. Hedge funds have been "a little too skeptical, a little too suspicious of this rally."
Private equity funds are also having problems this year. Cambridge Associates says the biggest buyout funds launched in 2006 and managing $3.5 billion or more have gained just 4%.
Zuckerman says private equity funds are stitting on close to one trillion dollars cash. That's not what investors had planned on, but Zuckerman says investors have been patient.
Friday, October 12, 2012
短命數碼廣播「收檔」(原載《大公網》圖片《東方互動》)
香港數碼廣播（dbc）昨晚八時正，結束短短十四個月的營運，創辦人兼台長鄭經翰承諾，會與兩名股東承擔員工本月涉及三百萬元的薪金。而為不讓當局收回廣播牌照，將設立訴訟基金，呼籲市民捐款資助打官司爭取牌照，另亦有部分主持人自發由下星期一起義播七天，希望藉此爭取復播。商務及經濟發展局表示，昨日已收到該公司書面通知停止運作，並展開跟進。
香港數碼廣播昨日下午五時起停播所有常規節目，其後三小時讓假日開咪的主持參與特備節目，八時正結束一年多的首個數碼廣播電台運作。
主持人之一的鄭家富在特備節目中表示，打算連同李錦洪、麥潤壽、陳海琪等主持，由下星期一（十五日）早上七時起「義播」七天，直至本月二十一日，試圖藉此取回即將被政府收回的廣播牌照。
黃楚標感無奈可惜
鄭經翰表示，對義播有保留，但會給予支持和尊重，而昨晚八時起至下周一早上七時前，將不會有節目廣播。被問到會否因此違反發牌條件而被禁播，他表示，要待政府回應。至於涉及三百萬元的員工本月薪金，他與行政總裁何國輝及股東夏佳理，願意以個人名義承擔。同時，他說，電台員工全部都支持他，他亦支持員工向公司追討欠薪。
節目主持麥潤壽表示，他與另外兩位主持梁思浩和顏聯武均簽署三年合約，因此停播後會繼續上班。而會否有下一步行動，他認為，要跟鄭經翰和其他股東商量再作決定，但不排除會控告公司毀約。同為節目主持的樓南光稱，如果沒有禁制令，會在停播之後繼續開咪。
香港數碼廣播第二大股東黃楚標對於電台停播感到無奈和可惜，他說，上月的員工薪金是由他支付，至於會否再注資，他表示，公司的負債頗大，未清楚帳目前很難作投資決定。
政府按牌照條款跟進
商務及經濟發展局發言人證實，通訊事務管理局辦公室昨午已接獲數碼廣播有限公司書面通知停止運作，並已去信對方了解詳情，會根據牌照條款和《電訊條例》處理有關事宜。而對於商經局局長蘇錦樑認為事件屬於內部股東爭拗、政府並無角色介入，鄭家富則持相反意見。他說，打算透過立法會資訊科技界議員莫乃光引線，嘗試與局方會面，希望對方介入事件。
同時，dbc已設立訴訟基金，呼籲市民捐款資助鄭經翰展開訴訟，爭取電台復牌。另外，昨日約有三十名市民及電台支持者，到dbc數碼港的直播室外拉起橫額以示支持。市民蕭小姐對停播感到可惜及失望，她表示，已登記為電台義工，必要時協助電台發起集會活動。
香港數碼廣播昨日下午五時起停播所有常規節目，其後三小時讓假日開咪的主持參與特備節目，八時正結束一年多的首個數碼廣播電台運作。
主持人之一的鄭家富在特備節目中表示，打算連同李錦洪、麥潤壽、陳海琪等主持，由下星期一（十五日）早上七時起「義播」七天，直至本月二十一日，試圖藉此取回即將被政府收回的廣播牌照。
黃楚標感無奈可惜
鄭經翰表示，對義播有保留，但會給予支持和尊重，而昨晚八時起至下周一早上七時前，將不會有節目廣播。被問到會否因此違反發牌條件而被禁播，他表示，要待政府回應。至於涉及三百萬元的員工本月薪金，他與行政總裁何國輝及股東夏佳理，願意以個人名義承擔。同時，他說，電台員工全部都支持他，他亦支持員工向公司追討欠薪。
節目主持麥潤壽表示，他與另外兩位主持梁思浩和顏聯武均簽署三年合約，因此停播後會繼續上班。而會否有下一步行動，他認為，要跟鄭經翰和其他股東商量再作決定，但不排除會控告公司毀約。同為節目主持的樓南光稱，如果沒有禁制令，會在停播之後繼續開咪。
香港數碼廣播第二大股東黃楚標對於電台停播感到無奈和可惜，他說，上月的員工薪金是由他支付，至於會否再注資，他表示，公司的負債頗大，未清楚帳目前很難作投資決定。
政府按牌照條款跟進
商務及經濟發展局發言人證實，通訊事務管理局辦公室昨午已接獲數碼廣播有限公司書面通知停止運作，並已去信對方了解詳情，會根據牌照條款和《電訊條例》處理有關事宜。而對於商經局局長蘇錦樑認為事件屬於內部股東爭拗、政府並無角色介入，鄭家富則持相反意見。他說，打算透過立法會資訊科技界議員莫乃光引線，嘗試與局方會面，希望對方介入事件。
同時，dbc已設立訴訟基金，呼籲市民捐款資助鄭經翰展開訴訟，爭取電台復牌。另外，昨日約有三十名市民及電台支持者，到dbc數碼港的直播室外拉起橫額以示支持。市民蕭小姐對停播感到可惜及失望，她表示，已登記為電台義工，必要時協助電台發起集會活動。
Thursday, October 11, 2012
還押小欖等報告 龍心非禮罪成 (原載《東周網》圖片《蘋果日報》)
「維園霆鋒」龍心（原名林克霖），日前就涉胸襲非禮女星仙樂都案件到東區法院應訊，但因第一天遲到一小時兼在法院門外燒陰司紙，昨日又繼續遲到十五分鐘，而被還柙等候今日下午二時半裁決。今日下午龍心初時披頭散髮地出庭，之後在法官到來前，束好頭髮，神色凝重地等待。沒有律師代表的龍心，表示父親和祖父都有精神問題，父親更曾經試過以暴力對待母親，故他由小至大都憎恨使用暴力。另外，他又強調醫生評估過他精神已沒有問題，不需要定期到醫院覆診，故他亦沒有打算以精神問題而脫罪。對於非禮女星仙樂都，他就指單看這一片段而定他罪，對他是不公平的。而今日除了仙樂都到庭聽審外，龍心的父親亦有到場支持兒子，並為兒子寫了一封求情信，最後龍心非禮罪成，還押小欖精神病院，等待精神報告和背景報告，十月二十五日下午四時再作量刑。
龍心父親今日亦有來聽審。
龍心非禮罪成，即時還柙小欖精神病治療中心。(資料圖片)
龍心父親今日亦有來聽審。
龍心非禮罪成，即時還柙小欖精神病治療中心。(資料圖片)
Wednesday, October 10, 2012
Tuesday, October 9, 2012
香港數碼廣播明日8時停止廣播，員工10月將不獲發薪
香港數碼廣播(DBC)大股東兼台長鄭經翰剛宣布電台停播，所有節目將在明日下午8時終止播放。據消息人士向《財華社》表示，鄭經翰在員工大會中稱，原有周三節目將於5時停止廣播，而5時至8時將會交由周末和周日的主持向聽眾告別。換言之，所有DBC的節目廣播將於8時完結。
與此同時，據鄭經翰在今日5時左右在員工大會所言，由於資金不足，10月份員工將不獲發薪，亦不會有遣散費，他建議員工通過勞工署向DBC追討欠薪。
DBC原訂於今日上午舉行之緊急股東大會，決定電台生死，但今早已宣佈流會，消息稱，5時前鄭經翰和行政總裁何國輝已獲得另一方股東、全國政協黃楚標陣營的信息，將不會繼續注資電台或買入股份，因此DBC在缺乏資金下只有關門，成為史上最短命的持牌廣播機構，
DBC 去年7條頻道陸續啟播以來，經營僅僅逾一年，9月21日才向廣管局確認正式啟播。
過去史上最快倒閉的持牌廣播機構是佳藝電視，由1975年9月7日開台至78年8月22日倒閉止，前後不到三年。與DBC一樣，佳視股東星光熠熠，其中包括商台。
Monday, October 8, 2012
Saturday, October 6, 2012
【Dodo's Guide To Surviving Extinction】BBC Four (YouTube)
Broadcast 2007. In light of the extinction crisis facing the Earth and using the dodo's story as a cautionary tale, this documentary looks at the different causes of species extinction and asks whether there is anything we can do to stop them.
Market Staying Near Record High
Equity stock market continues to advance towards record high. But market participants do not have much confidence in stock market performance. Since market shows strong support, investors prefer to wait for market pullback before any stock purchase.
Investors lose interest in buying due to fear of market crash. Trading volume remains low. Day traders contribute to a large proportion of daily volume. Although individual investors have a growing portfolio value, only a small portion is allocated to equity stocks. Institutional investors and hedge funds see a lag in performance to broad market and are struggling to catch up. In this strong market, market manipulators cannot find opportunity to make profit from market collapse as in last year. Market is performing well in the year but the majority of market participants under-perform due to low exposure to equity stocks while the return from money market is low.
Although market cycle repeats, each cycle may have different behavior. Last year, market manipulators executed a very successful strategy to make profit from market crash which is not anticipated by many market participants. The surprise created panic selling from investors with little confidence. Today, investors are flooded with cash or equivalent. It is unlikely to have panic investors dumping stocks for cash because investors are already seeing trouble to find investment opportunities for the cash.
In this highly manipulative market, events may be unimaginable. In last year, it is expected that the end of Federal Reserve bond buying program would not cause market collapse because the demand for treasuries is high as investors are staying away from stocks and moving capital into fixed income market. Therefore despite market manipulators' continual liquidation of stock holding, equity stock market dropped only slightly in the few months around program expiration. But market participants was shocked when market manipulators used the insiders information of US debt rating downgrade and short selling to create market panic. Investors stock holding was trimmed to current low level despite swelling in overall portfolio value.
Currently investors are holding the core portfolio of stocks because of the attractive dividend and potential for further appreciation. But the desire for purchasing stocks is low especially among individual investors because the purchase price would be a lot higher than the price when stocks were dumped last year, not to mention the bottom in 2009. Therefore although market participants are sitting on mountain of cash and waiting for market crash, there are not enough sellers to drag down market. Long term investors would be the potential sellers in future sell-off for profit taking. But currently there is no sign of heavy selling yet. Market would move slowly higher and maybe set new all-time high as corporate earnings are improving. However, market manipulators may come up with surprise to shock the market again. Thus investors remain cautious despite the extended market rally since beginning of the year.
Why Stocks Might Go Higher After the Election
The U.S. is the best house on a bad block, and investors should stick with U.S.-focused stocks, Alec Young, S&P Capital IQ strategist, told CNBC on Friday.
"The overriding theme is that we want to be more domestic," Young said. "We think most of the risks out there are global."
He also said investors should hedge against more bad news from overseas by going long on the consumer discretionary sector while shorting materials.
With pent-up demand and ongoing corporate productivity enhancements, S&P is "less worried about a negative surprise within tech," the strategist said.
S&P 500 Will Finish the Year Near All-Time High: Schoenberger
With the first 3 quarters in the books, 2012 has been much stronger than expected for U.S. equity markets. Despite a soft finish, the S&P500 is up more than 14% YTD and the Dow Jones Industrial Average clocking in with slightly less than a 10% gain.
Schoenberger only has two real concerns for the next 10 weeks. The first is the familiar Fiscal Cliff. No one's thinking much about it now but it's "out there" and could become a more acute concern in the likely event that no progress is made by politicians before the new year.
The other rally stopper would be Mitt Romney winning the Presidential election. While a long shot according to the polls, there's still more than a month before the election. If Romney wins, he's said he'll get rid of Bernanke in January 2014 when the Fed Chairman's term ends. A new Fed head would have to be tighter on monetary policy, if only because it would be impossible to be looser.
Hedge Funds Lagging: Is 'Enormous Unraveling' Near?
The more stocks rise, the further behind hedge funds fall-with the industry now lagging market returns by double-digit percentage points.
Though hedges actually have attracted more investor cash this year, the bulk has gone to bond funds and away from equities, even though the Standard & Poor's 500 (.SPX) is up a robust 14 percent so far in 2012.
As a result, hedge funds have returned just 3 percent year to date, though assets under management have swelled to $2.56 trillion, according to eVestment, a data firm that tracks the industry.
Nevertheless, fixed income-based hedge funds have seen inflows of $38.8 billion this year, while equity funds have watched $7.4 billion come out.
That risk aversion during an aggressive stock market run-up may be what is holding back fund performance more than anything else.
Hedge fund manager and author James Altucher predicts more trouble ahead, in which there will be "an enormous unraveling of hedge fund assets at end of year when hedge funds open their doors and this will lead to a bad Q1 in 2013."
Moreover, industry insiders say managers have struggled to meet benchmark returns as the market has become far less fundamentally driven and more influenced by headline events such as the European debt crisis and fiscal peril in the U.S.
Aggressive monetary easing from global central banks also has made it more difficult for fund managers to anticipate market movements, with active fund managers overall suffering what could turn into their worst year ever against benchmark returns.
'We're Heading for Recession,' Says Sam Zell
A compounding lack of confidence in the future has kept American companies from investing in their businesses and is leading the country back into recession, real estate mogul Sam Zell told CNBC.
"Nobody wants to make commitments beyond tomorrow," Zell said during a"Squawk Box" interview. "One of these (recession) triggers is when enterprise projects start getting delayed. We're heading for a recession and that's exactly what you're looking at now. You're looking at capital expenditures across the board being deferred for a reason: There's no confidence."
The Great Disconnect: Awful Earnings vs. a Hot Stock Market
A week from today, when Alcoa officially kicks off third-quarter earnings season, analysts who know the company best are expecting the aluminum producer to report a penny per share in earnings on $5.6 billion in sales. That's down sharply from $0.15 per share and over $6.4 billion in revenues that it delivered in the Q3 last year.
But there's only one problem: Alcoa's projected plunge is not an island of strife, it's part of a bigger crisis. All totaled, more than 80% of Q3 earnings pre-announcements have been negative, a rate that Jeff Kleintop, chief market strategist at LPL Financial, says is not only running at more than double the historic norm, but is a key factor in why he thinks we're looking at the start of a "global profit recession" that is going to see estimates come down.
Kleintop is also on watch for any erosion in profit margins, pointing out that "companies have already cut costs to the bone." As he sees it, there is a limit to the amount of time that corporate America can deliver double-digit profit growth while revenues are barely moving.
As he sees it, traders may be focused on policy events like the easing authorized by the Federal Reserve and ECB, but "what matters most to investors" is long-term earnings growth.
Wall Street Equities Traders Face Worst Year Since 2006
Wall Street banks' equities-trading units aren't getting much relief from the strongest stock rally since 2009, as sinking volume and already thin margins threaten to make their annual performance the worst in six years.
The rally isn't enough to stem the decline in volume. Average daily volume for U.S. equities was 6 billion shares in the third quarter, the lowest since at least 2008 and about half the 10.9 billion average in the first quarter of 2009. The figure has dropped year-on-year for 12 of the past 13 quarters. Volume on the London Stock Exchange fell 11 percent from the second quarter and is up 2.6 percent from a year earlier, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Outflows from equity mutual funds and lower volatility have helped depress volumes. Money has exited U.S. equity funds in 2012, the sixth consecutive year of outflows, Richard Ramsden, a Goldman Sachs analyst, wrote in a report last month. The Chicago Board Options Exchange Volatility Index, or VIX, has averaged 18.13 so far this year, down from 22.09 for the same period in 2011 and 23.65 in 2010.
"It's going to be a continued environment of risk-aversion and really quick trigger fingers on the part of portfolio managers to protect gains," said Davis, who is based in Washington. "It will be quite some time before there are money flows into hedge funds and you have aggressive money going after aggressive returns like the old days."
Earnings Season May Decide Market's Next Direction
Stocks have been moving sideways since the Federal Reserve announced QE3 in mid-September, and investors are now awaiting the next big market catalyst: third-quarter earnings.
"The market's swinging around and there's no conviction-people are nervous about a lot of things," said Yu-Dee Chang, chief trader at ACE Investment Strategists. "For the time being, I expect more weakness."
"[Investors] don't want to miss the rally if the earnings season is positive," said Trunow. "Stocks might stay up or go higher if we see an overall positive surprise, but I see more risk on the downside at this point over the next quarter or two. But once we're done with the election and get clarity on the 'fiscal cliff,' I think we can go up from there."
It's Not the Economy, Stupid
I've written hundreds of articles about the economy in the last two years. But I think I can reduce those thousands of words to one sentence. Things got better, slowly.
Of course, there were peaks and valleys along the way. We tip-toed toward recession last summer. We flirted with a capital-R Recovery in the winter. We returned to the sad new normal in the spring. But basically: Things got better, slowly.
Despite Gains, Many Flee Stock Market
The stock market is reaching toward new highs on the fourth anniversary of the financial crisis, but many people refuse to be lured back.
Even as stock indexes have doubled in value since the market low in March 2009, investors have yanked a net $138 billion from mutual funds and exchange-traded funds that invest in U.S. stocks, according to the Investment Company Institute, a mutual-fund trade group. Investors over the same period put $1 trillion into bond funds, a traditionally lower yielding but safer investment.
"The fear in the mind and heart of the investor is more acute now than it was in the '70s, because the investor class today doesn't know what to do, doesn't see an option," said David Kotok, president of Cumberland Advisors, which manages about $2 billion in Sarasota, Fla.
Many investors are afraid of the real-estate market and are unhappy with bonds. "People don't want to be in cash at a zero interest rate and have a growing fear of longer-term bonds because the yield is so low and the price risk is now high," Mr. Kotok said.
Demand for bonds, together with central bank policies aimed at stimulating the economy, has pushed interest rates and bond prices to extremes. Prices and yields will eventually return to more normal territory, and people invested in bond funds could see future declines.
Still, Mr. Kotok said, clients call him asking to get out of stocks. "The conversation will go something like this: 'The market is up enough, I don't like the way things are, take me out and put me in bonds.' I get that every few months. I rarely get a call telling me to go the other way," Mr. Kotok said.
Mutual-fund firms are seeing another exit today. Demand for U.S.-stock funds peaked in 2000, after technology stocks collapsed and the market began a 2½ year decline.
Some optimism returned in 2003, but flows into U.S. stock funds never reached 2000 levels.
People began taking substantial money out of U.S.-stock funds in 2008, the year Lehman Brothers Holdings declared bankruptcy, big banks sought a government rescue and the global economy teetered on a precipice.
The decade's two financial calamities cost the stock market many long-term, stable investors who helped support the double-digit annual stock gains that created vast wealth in the 1990s.
"People are scared stiff to go through an '08 again," said Mark Pollard, a financial adviser in Princeton, N.J., with Merrill Lynch Wealth Management. "People do talk about that: 'Whatever you do, I don't want to go through an '08 again.' "
The Fiscal Cliff: So Bad it May Be Good
"What we really need is to come up with a credible long term plan to reduce the debt level," North says. "It's weighing on the economy and needs to be cleared up."
Investors lose interest in buying due to fear of market crash. Trading volume remains low. Day traders contribute to a large proportion of daily volume. Although individual investors have a growing portfolio value, only a small portion is allocated to equity stocks. Institutional investors and hedge funds see a lag in performance to broad market and are struggling to catch up. In this strong market, market manipulators cannot find opportunity to make profit from market collapse as in last year. Market is performing well in the year but the majority of market participants under-perform due to low exposure to equity stocks while the return from money market is low.
Although market cycle repeats, each cycle may have different behavior. Last year, market manipulators executed a very successful strategy to make profit from market crash which is not anticipated by many market participants. The surprise created panic selling from investors with little confidence. Today, investors are flooded with cash or equivalent. It is unlikely to have panic investors dumping stocks for cash because investors are already seeing trouble to find investment opportunities for the cash.
In this highly manipulative market, events may be unimaginable. In last year, it is expected that the end of Federal Reserve bond buying program would not cause market collapse because the demand for treasuries is high as investors are staying away from stocks and moving capital into fixed income market. Therefore despite market manipulators' continual liquidation of stock holding, equity stock market dropped only slightly in the few months around program expiration. But market participants was shocked when market manipulators used the insiders information of US debt rating downgrade and short selling to create market panic. Investors stock holding was trimmed to current low level despite swelling in overall portfolio value.
Currently investors are holding the core portfolio of stocks because of the attractive dividend and potential for further appreciation. But the desire for purchasing stocks is low especially among individual investors because the purchase price would be a lot higher than the price when stocks were dumped last year, not to mention the bottom in 2009. Therefore although market participants are sitting on mountain of cash and waiting for market crash, there are not enough sellers to drag down market. Long term investors would be the potential sellers in future sell-off for profit taking. But currently there is no sign of heavy selling yet. Market would move slowly higher and maybe set new all-time high as corporate earnings are improving. However, market manipulators may come up with surprise to shock the market again. Thus investors remain cautious despite the extended market rally since beginning of the year.
Why Stocks Might Go Higher After the Election
The U.S. is the best house on a bad block, and investors should stick with U.S.-focused stocks, Alec Young, S&P Capital IQ strategist, told CNBC on Friday.
"The overriding theme is that we want to be more domestic," Young said. "We think most of the risks out there are global."
He also said investors should hedge against more bad news from overseas by going long on the consumer discretionary sector while shorting materials.
With pent-up demand and ongoing corporate productivity enhancements, S&P is "less worried about a negative surprise within tech," the strategist said.
S&P 500 Will Finish the Year Near All-Time High: Schoenberger
With the first 3 quarters in the books, 2012 has been much stronger than expected for U.S. equity markets. Despite a soft finish, the S&P500 is up more than 14% YTD and the Dow Jones Industrial Average clocking in with slightly less than a 10% gain.
Schoenberger only has two real concerns for the next 10 weeks. The first is the familiar Fiscal Cliff. No one's thinking much about it now but it's "out there" and could become a more acute concern in the likely event that no progress is made by politicians before the new year.
The other rally stopper would be Mitt Romney winning the Presidential election. While a long shot according to the polls, there's still more than a month before the election. If Romney wins, he's said he'll get rid of Bernanke in January 2014 when the Fed Chairman's term ends. A new Fed head would have to be tighter on monetary policy, if only because it would be impossible to be looser.
Hedge Funds Lagging: Is 'Enormous Unraveling' Near?
The more stocks rise, the further behind hedge funds fall-with the industry now lagging market returns by double-digit percentage points.
Though hedges actually have attracted more investor cash this year, the bulk has gone to bond funds and away from equities, even though the Standard & Poor's 500 (.SPX) is up a robust 14 percent so far in 2012.
As a result, hedge funds have returned just 3 percent year to date, though assets under management have swelled to $2.56 trillion, according to eVestment, a data firm that tracks the industry.
Nevertheless, fixed income-based hedge funds have seen inflows of $38.8 billion this year, while equity funds have watched $7.4 billion come out.
That risk aversion during an aggressive stock market run-up may be what is holding back fund performance more than anything else.
Hedge fund manager and author James Altucher predicts more trouble ahead, in which there will be "an enormous unraveling of hedge fund assets at end of year when hedge funds open their doors and this will lead to a bad Q1 in 2013."
Moreover, industry insiders say managers have struggled to meet benchmark returns as the market has become far less fundamentally driven and more influenced by headline events such as the European debt crisis and fiscal peril in the U.S.
Aggressive monetary easing from global central banks also has made it more difficult for fund managers to anticipate market movements, with active fund managers overall suffering what could turn into their worst year ever against benchmark returns.
'We're Heading for Recession,' Says Sam Zell
A compounding lack of confidence in the future has kept American companies from investing in their businesses and is leading the country back into recession, real estate mogul Sam Zell told CNBC.
"Nobody wants to make commitments beyond tomorrow," Zell said during a"Squawk Box" interview. "One of these (recession) triggers is when enterprise projects start getting delayed. We're heading for a recession and that's exactly what you're looking at now. You're looking at capital expenditures across the board being deferred for a reason: There's no confidence."
The Great Disconnect: Awful Earnings vs. a Hot Stock Market
A week from today, when Alcoa officially kicks off third-quarter earnings season, analysts who know the company best are expecting the aluminum producer to report a penny per share in earnings on $5.6 billion in sales. That's down sharply from $0.15 per share and over $6.4 billion in revenues that it delivered in the Q3 last year.
But there's only one problem: Alcoa's projected plunge is not an island of strife, it's part of a bigger crisis. All totaled, more than 80% of Q3 earnings pre-announcements have been negative, a rate that Jeff Kleintop, chief market strategist at LPL Financial, says is not only running at more than double the historic norm, but is a key factor in why he thinks we're looking at the start of a "global profit recession" that is going to see estimates come down.
Kleintop is also on watch for any erosion in profit margins, pointing out that "companies have already cut costs to the bone." As he sees it, there is a limit to the amount of time that corporate America can deliver double-digit profit growth while revenues are barely moving.
As he sees it, traders may be focused on policy events like the easing authorized by the Federal Reserve and ECB, but "what matters most to investors" is long-term earnings growth.
Wall Street Equities Traders Face Worst Year Since 2006
Wall Street banks' equities-trading units aren't getting much relief from the strongest stock rally since 2009, as sinking volume and already thin margins threaten to make their annual performance the worst in six years.
The rally isn't enough to stem the decline in volume. Average daily volume for U.S. equities was 6 billion shares in the third quarter, the lowest since at least 2008 and about half the 10.9 billion average in the first quarter of 2009. The figure has dropped year-on-year for 12 of the past 13 quarters. Volume on the London Stock Exchange fell 11 percent from the second quarter and is up 2.6 percent from a year earlier, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Outflows from equity mutual funds and lower volatility have helped depress volumes. Money has exited U.S. equity funds in 2012, the sixth consecutive year of outflows, Richard Ramsden, a Goldman Sachs analyst, wrote in a report last month. The Chicago Board Options Exchange Volatility Index, or VIX, has averaged 18.13 so far this year, down from 22.09 for the same period in 2011 and 23.65 in 2010.
"It's going to be a continued environment of risk-aversion and really quick trigger fingers on the part of portfolio managers to protect gains," said Davis, who is based in Washington. "It will be quite some time before there are money flows into hedge funds and you have aggressive money going after aggressive returns like the old days."
Earnings Season May Decide Market's Next Direction
Stocks have been moving sideways since the Federal Reserve announced QE3 in mid-September, and investors are now awaiting the next big market catalyst: third-quarter earnings.
"The market's swinging around and there's no conviction-people are nervous about a lot of things," said Yu-Dee Chang, chief trader at ACE Investment Strategists. "For the time being, I expect more weakness."
"[Investors] don't want to miss the rally if the earnings season is positive," said Trunow. "Stocks might stay up or go higher if we see an overall positive surprise, but I see more risk on the downside at this point over the next quarter or two. But once we're done with the election and get clarity on the 'fiscal cliff,' I think we can go up from there."
It's Not the Economy, Stupid
I've written hundreds of articles about the economy in the last two years. But I think I can reduce those thousands of words to one sentence. Things got better, slowly.
Of course, there were peaks and valleys along the way. We tip-toed toward recession last summer. We flirted with a capital-R Recovery in the winter. We returned to the sad new normal in the spring. But basically: Things got better, slowly.
Despite Gains, Many Flee Stock Market
The stock market is reaching toward new highs on the fourth anniversary of the financial crisis, but many people refuse to be lured back.
Even as stock indexes have doubled in value since the market low in March 2009, investors have yanked a net $138 billion from mutual funds and exchange-traded funds that invest in U.S. stocks, according to the Investment Company Institute, a mutual-fund trade group. Investors over the same period put $1 trillion into bond funds, a traditionally lower yielding but safer investment.
"The fear in the mind and heart of the investor is more acute now than it was in the '70s, because the investor class today doesn't know what to do, doesn't see an option," said David Kotok, president of Cumberland Advisors, which manages about $2 billion in Sarasota, Fla.
Many investors are afraid of the real-estate market and are unhappy with bonds. "People don't want to be in cash at a zero interest rate and have a growing fear of longer-term bonds because the yield is so low and the price risk is now high," Mr. Kotok said.
Demand for bonds, together with central bank policies aimed at stimulating the economy, has pushed interest rates and bond prices to extremes. Prices and yields will eventually return to more normal territory, and people invested in bond funds could see future declines.
Still, Mr. Kotok said, clients call him asking to get out of stocks. "The conversation will go something like this: 'The market is up enough, I don't like the way things are, take me out and put me in bonds.' I get that every few months. I rarely get a call telling me to go the other way," Mr. Kotok said.
Mutual-fund firms are seeing another exit today. Demand for U.S.-stock funds peaked in 2000, after technology stocks collapsed and the market began a 2½ year decline.
Some optimism returned in 2003, but flows into U.S. stock funds never reached 2000 levels.
People began taking substantial money out of U.S.-stock funds in 2008, the year Lehman Brothers Holdings declared bankruptcy, big banks sought a government rescue and the global economy teetered on a precipice.
The decade's two financial calamities cost the stock market many long-term, stable investors who helped support the double-digit annual stock gains that created vast wealth in the 1990s.
"People are scared stiff to go through an '08 again," said Mark Pollard, a financial adviser in Princeton, N.J., with Merrill Lynch Wealth Management. "People do talk about that: 'Whatever you do, I don't want to go through an '08 again.' "
The Fiscal Cliff: So Bad it May Be Good
"What we really need is to come up with a credible long term plan to reduce the debt level," North says. "It's weighing on the economy and needs to be cleared up."
Wednesday, October 3, 2012
楊采妮結婚無定期 與邱韶智復合享受愛情 (原載《明報》)
【明報專訊】眨眼20年，當年18歲的青春玉女楊采妮（Charlie），今日搖身一變成為38歲事業型女性，即使她身邊的好姊妹梁詠琪、李心潔都相繼出嫁變了人妻，不過Charlie與大馬男友邱韶智復合之後，仍然吹無定向風，未有結婚組家計劃；她覺得人生在世，最緊要開心，不想受世俗規限，為結婚而結婚，若然他朝想生而不能生，會選擇收養小孩子。
圈中不少女星最近趕上結婚生仔潮，楊采妮（Charlie）則樂於做單身麗人，穩守於影壇作戰；今年她的電影作品一部接一部。除了事業豐收，愛情也同樣得意。
幸福不一定結婚一向感情低調的Charlie，最近漏口風說已有着落，原來2003年她與大馬男友邱韶智合資的形象公司倒閉，且宣布分手之後，兩人仍是要好的朋友，日子久了，大家都沒有新戀情下舊情復熾。到底這段情何時才能修成正果？Charlie認為談戀愛是快樂的事，應順其自然，不會刻意定下結婚時間表。她說﹕「我不是經常去想結婚生仔的人。因為有太多人問我，令我坐下來靜靜地思考過；我不想有壓力，多少歲結婚生仔從來無定義， 只不過一般人覺得要結婚生仔才是幸福家庭，但我識太多朋友無結婚、無生仔，兩個人都好快樂。小時候我的確有憧憬，以為自己像童話式，20幾歲就結婚；後來發現，原來現實不是這樣，沒準則去量度。適合別人的，未必適合自己，既然各人都有自己一個生活方式，我現在會順心，不作太長遠計劃，只計劃一、兩年內決定要做的事。」
將來或收養小朋友
Charlie的短期計劃中，可有包括40歲前圓婚，展開新階段？她搖頭道﹕「真的不知道，真的講不到，可能突然會，可能唔會。（如果男友求婚？）要看那刻想不想。總之一定要到我想才結，但此刻還未想，人生仲有好多事要做。以前不少人以為我不做藝人轉做生意，是為愛情；其實世界不只愛情，我都有理想， 我講100次，別人都不信，但沒所謂 了。（但女人生仔有限期？）我不覺得要趕，如到時想生但不能生，我會收養小朋友，都是小生命。」Charlie指身邊好友梁詠琪和李心潔、長輩、家人都無催婚， 所有人都尊重她尋找快樂方式，不會給予壓力。
40歲關口不可怕
女人邁向40歲關口，均有不同反應，但對於Charlie而言，這關口並不可怕。她說﹕「我很早已調整了，人有生老病死，好正常，抗拒只會自尋煩惱，每個年紀感受事物都不同，我現在懂得去享受人生，想到每日的經歷永遠不會重複，人會變得開心。 」
場地﹕Steik World Meats
服裝﹕GERMAIN
化妝﹕Dephine Chan
髮型﹕Lianne Wai
記者﹕鍾一虹
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