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Archive | May, 2011
WORLD’S LARGEST FLOATING OFFSHORE LNG FACILITY: Shell approves $11bn Prelude
29 MayShell approves the $11bn Prelude LNG offshore project avoiding the need to pipe deep and remote gas onshore. This project will allow the capture and transportation of stranded gas utilising new breakthrough technologies.
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UBS’ DONOVAN – Expect more mediocre growth and the G8 will accomplish nothing
29 MayDonovan sees the G8 meetings as being essentially irrelevant and useless. He believes as usual the meetings will achieve nothing. Donovan expects Euro growth to remain tepid and even mediocre. He calls for a rational approach to appointing the next IMF Head based on their candidacy rather than their nationality. However, he does not believe Greece can withdraw from the Euro and does not see emerging markets having a real impact, but will become relevant in 15 years. These last two points regarding Greece and emerging markets I disagree with but the rest of the video summarises the current European market dynamics quite well. Again I cannot subscribe to the institutional groupthink around the non-viability of a Greek Euro exit and the non-relevance of emerging markets.
Vodpod videos no longer available.CARL ICAHN: Wall Street – you can’t teach an old dog new tricks
28 MayCarl Icahn is concerned that little has changed over at Wall St. His bearish stance has already led him to return capital to outside investors in his hedge fund.
Commenting on Wall St. behaviour Icahn stated in a CNBC interview:
“I do think though that there could be another major problem. Now, will it happen next week, next year, I don’t know? Certainly nobody knows, but I don’t think that the system is working properly. I really find it amazing that we’re almost back to where it was, where there’s so much leverage going on in the investment banks today. There’s just way too much leverage and way too much risk-taking, with other people’s money.
I know a lot of my friends on Wall Street will hate my saying this, but the Glass-Steagall thing or something like it wasn’t a bad thing. In other words, a bank should be a bank. Investment bankers should be an investment banker. Investment bankers serve a purpose, raising capital and whatever, but I think today, and I know a lot of people won’t like hearing this, what’s going on today, I think we’re going back in the same trap, and I will tell you that very few people understood how toxic and how risky those derivatives were. CDS were extremely risky the way they were used, and you look at Wall Street and you say, hey, they did it, but then you can’t really blame the Wall Street guys. You can’t blame a tiger. If you take a fierce man-eating tiger and put him in with a lot of sheep, you can’t blame the tiger for eating the sheep. That is his nature. And that’s the nature of Wall Street guys and I’m not saying their bad but that’s their nature. And the government should regulate finance.”
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What’s Written vs. What’s Meant!
28 MayIT HAS LONG BEEN KNOWN… – I haven’t bothered to look up the original reference.
IT IS NOT UNREASONABLE TO ASSUME… – If you believe this, you’ll believe anything.
OF GREAT THEORETICAL AND PRACTICAL IMPORTANCE – Interesting to me.
TYPICAL RESULTS ARE SHOWN – The best results are shown.
PRESUMABLY AT LONGER TIMES… – I didn’t take the time to find out.
THESE RESULTS WILL BE REPORTED AT A LATER DATE – I might get around to this sometime.
IT IS BELIEVED THAT… – I think.
IT IS GENERALLY ACCEPTED THAT… – A guy in a bar once agreed with me.
IT IS WIDESPREAD KNOWLEDGE THAT… – Two guys in a bar agreed with me.
IT IS UNIVERSALLY ACCEPTED THAT... – The bartender agreed too.
IT IS CLEAR THAT MUCH ADDITIONAL WORK WILL BE REQUIRED BEFORE A COMPLETE UNDERSTANDING… – I don’t understand.
DATA HAS BEEN NORMALISED… – You wouldn’t believe the numbers I got.
STATISTICAL ANALYSIS REVEALS… – I had to lie a bit.
DATA PROCESSING PROCEDURES WERE IMPLEMENTED… – I had to lie a lot.
Via Geekswithblogs
Why Bloomberg TV is getting killed by CNBC
28 May
I prefer reading. Not because it’s mind stimulating or that it insulates me from watching Ben Bernanke, this is not an academic issue. People are very pessimistic about watching CNBC or Bloomberg and there are good examples of why this is. In order to develop independent thinking one needs to make investments in their own growth and intellectual infrastructure. The style is clearly different between the two networks. Bloomberg TV is more like a newswire, reporting facts and figures with the odd nugget of real financial opinion. The presenters are robotic, institutionalised, lacking personality and insight. A significant amount of time is spent bouncing theories and ideas between presenters rather than key industry participants. CEO’s are lauded, rarely challenged, and it takes excessively long to delve into the key issues. Presenters nearly fall over each other and apologise profusely if they challenge consensus and that is a rare feature anyway. Viewers don’t have time for CEO teasers and long run-ups, they will switch and they have been. Charlie Rose, however, is electric.
CNBC is the prominent channel for business news. The criticisms are well publicised so there is no need to exhaust myself further in that direction. As a long-term investor short-term news is more noise rather than insight. It may validate and enhance an existing thesis or challenge it. The goal is to reduce cognitive dissonance, that being, the extent to which one harbours conflicting ideas around a particular hypothesis and the high degree to which one seeks to validate their decision despite a wide range of evidence that may disprove it, and the individual’s ignorance of that, nonetheless being aware of it. Okay, not a Webster’s definition but it can be erringly difficult to transfer thoughts from my brain to electronic paper on an early weekend morning.
CNBC gathers individuals from all spectrums, it’s pro-active and reactive and they do not procrastinate. Please bear in mind that these thoughts are generalisations, it is not an individual dissection of every facet of the two networks; humans are fickle and approach things with haste, unfortunately in some ways we need to respond to that need. The presenters on CNBC are more combative, challenging and are more educated generally in financial matters or at least more cognizant of the current financial questions and arguments. Again a generalisation. Furthermore, CNBC takes guests to task, they recall prior investment ideas and state how accurate they have been. Howard Marks’ recent investment letter ‘How Quickly They Forget’ also reminds us about the shortcomings and importance of investment memory. One of the most memorable quotes from letter was “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme” by Mark Twain. The full investment letter can be read here.
To reflect these points further a tribute below to Mark Haines and his combative style. As many have already noted, he didn’t take to fools lightly. I will miss the randomness, his complete way-with-all with CEO’s and his upbeat attitude and clever wit which made almost any static and slightly embarrassing television moments so easy to move on from.
Some of the key highlights:
Exchange with Barney Frank
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Exchange with Martin Feldstein
The Cognitive Dissonance.com 