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The thing about useful stuff is

John Wilson is fascinated by the application of technology more so than technology itself. Having spent 15 years working in and around capital markets involved in systems, process and projects, he has too often seen "solutions looking for problems" - he derives great pleasure in finding those problems and marrying the two up.

Free Sugarsync is a sweet deal for Blackberry & iPhone users Sunday, May 10, 2009

I use a few auto back-up & sync tools in parallel including Live Mesh and Drop Box, supplemented by cloud storage services like ADrive, Live, Flickr, Google docs etc which I access via the excellent Gladinet application that makes them virtual drives within windows explorer.

So when I saw SugarSync had released a free service with 2gb online storage included I wasn't overly excited as it seemed to be a poor substitute for my existing services. However, I then spotted its' trump card - a native blackberry app which allows a user to access their files from their device AND to sync changes made using Documents to Go back to the PC. Likewise, photos taken on the Blackberry device can automatically be synched. Finally you can send files held within SugarSync from your device.

Multiple devices can be linked to a User's account and their files made accessible.

Since installing SugarSync on the Blackberry, I've had no problems and have been impressed with the features above, as well as its ease of use. Moreover, it has happily co-existed with my existing desktop sync services on the same folders and files, and now provides an additional layer of comfort.

Sugarsync has similar native apps for the iPhone amongst others.

Definitely worth installing.

posted by John Wilson @ 10:03 PM Permanent Link ,

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Anagram for Blackberry

Anagram is a free app for the Blackberry which simplifies the creation of contacts and diary appointment from emails on your device. Similar to desktop apps like grabit, by highlighting the relevant text in an email, Anagram creates and populates the fields in a new record which you can elect to discard, edit/save.

As someone who uses a blackberry extensively, I'm familiar with the inconvenience of creating a record manually from email signatures and so immediately recognise the benefit Anagram offers.

In my tests, I found it gave mixed results, having most trouble distinguishing between titles, companies & addresses. Yet even where it did slip up, it normally grabbed the phone & email details accurately and hence had saved some time/effort.

Happy to recommend it.

posted by John Wilson @ 12:59 PM Permanent Link ,

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Stars of adverts brainstorm for comic relief Thursday, March 12, 2009

Confess I did enjoy this first time I saw it.

Labels: humour

posted by John Wilson @ 7:53 PM Permanent Link ,

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Bank short-sellers deserve an apology Saturday, February 28, 2009

When UK bank shares began their torrid falls in October 2008, the baying hounds were calling for the heads of short sellers who had unjustly brought "strong and viable" banks to the brink of a collapse of confidence.

Yet as the details of the financial results emerged this week, with huge write-downs, the press coverage ironically seemed to chime with the views held by short sellers at the time - the bank balance sheets were stuffed with toxic debt. The only difference was the timing of their comprehension - short sellers realised long before and saw that it was not reflected in the over-inflated share price.

One might now justifiably argue that those who called the share price falls unwarranted were either incompetent or self-serving in attempting to maintain a bubble. As was often mentioned, market manipulation and trying to create a false market is illegal, but the guilty parties were those insisting higher prices were warranted and demanding measures to prevent price falls. Sadly, no prosecutions will occur.

This episode has re-enforced the importance of short selling. These investors put money behind the conviction that things aren't as great as some would have us believe. In doing so, they stand to lose a fortune if they are wrong, profiting only when hubris is dispelled and reality is restored. Unfortunately, it's only in the case of the Emperor's clothes that we admire the person that pricks the illusion.

posted by John Wilson @ 12:13 PM Permanent Link ,

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Save a lifestyle Sunday, February 08, 2009

It is an inevitable parody but will still amuse many.

Labels: humour

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Google Latitude - the what, why and where next? Thursday, February 05, 2009

Image by thms.nl via Flickr

Many of you will have read elsewhere, including via mainstream media about the launch of Google's Latitude offering, which introduces location based information that can be shared with nominated friends at your discretion.

It means that if you choose to expose your location, a decision over which you have constant control, then you can choose who you share that info with.

Your location can be set manually via your browser, which involves typing your location or moving a "pin" around over a google map. However, if you have Google maps on your phone then you can choose to automatically update your location using either the phone GPS or base station information, which is far easier, albeit it will continually consume data on your phone plan, not to mention gobble up your phone battery [I’d like the ability to configure how often phone updates occur for that latter reason].

You can also define how much detail those chosen contacts get since Latitude settings mean you can publish at city-level, general area or actual location.

So, using this service now means you and your chosen friends can share locations updates with each other most of the time [exceptions being when you/they turn off details].

This is not a new concept. Latitude is similar to services such as Loopt, Brightkite, Whrrl, Buddyping [now defunct it seems], RadiusIM and Buddy Beacon, most of which focus upon the intersection of "social mapping" and communication. However, all of those services don't could close to touching the might of the Google Brand and its reach.

So now comes the "why" anyone would choose to opt into this, given that it immediately throws up privacy concerns/fear in a "big brother is watching you" sense to many people.

Why?

Well, most obviously this increases the likelihood of chance meetups because you can now see which of your friends happens to be in the neighbourhood. Hence, seeing I am nearby you may choose to avoid the area or call me if you are nearby to arrange to meet, which is actually something likely to be of interest to a wide range of people for business and social reasons alike. To that point, I'd actually like to be able to group Latitude contacts into categories which would give me the option to tailor the information I share with others e.g. friends, business, which isn't possible in this first incarnation.

Of course, some parents may hope to use the service to keep track on their kids as the newspapers suggested, but given that kids can turn-off location sharing, it may prove ineffective unless they are so desperate for their friends to also see the information that their parents see it by default. Sadly I was immediately entrapped yesterday when my wife was immediately able to spot on Day One of this service that I was near a shop she wanted me to call into!

Where Next?

This being Google one can easily speculate on how this service could evolve i.e. where next. It's not a unique insight but there is a clear route to the three way intersection of mobile, social, and local. The last of these quite simply refer to location aware or based services. Hence, similar to the famous scene from the Tom Cruise movie, Minority Report, you could begin receive news, travel, announcements and adverts all related to your present location.

On its own, "local" probably isn't inspiring enough for large numbers of people to sign up to service which discloses one's location, since the benefits are less obvious. Hence, offering the social element first is a better "bait". Having attracted a large user base, it then becomes attractive for firms/services to participate in "local offerings" e.g. offering targeted ads and coupons to people in the vicinity of a store.

Here's a scenario that I put together with a business a couple of years ago, but have substituted Latitude's name

• A national coffee chain head office create a series of offers that are hosted by Latitude that may be used by their local shops when those stores are quiet to try to drum up business e.g. coffee half price for the next hour or "buy one and get one free". Local managers may activate these at their discretion perhaps via a text, phone, or web activation with Head Office able to possiblly control the times that offers may be used e.g. only offpeak. Head Office also agree the price that is paid to Google for distributing these "coupons" in a similar manner to Google Ad-words.
  
• Latitude's [future] ad service offers to either broadcast offers/coupons or be paid a higher price for redeemed coupons [assuming a mechanism to identify redemptions can be implemented easily].
  
• Latitude users would have the option to pre-set their profiles to indicate whether they are willing to receive offers and the types they will countenance. Likewise they may search for local offers on an ad-hoc basis e.g. bars offering deals now.
  
• Google Latitude broadcast the offers either as adverts or coupons to Latitude users who are in the local area, which drives custom to the stores. Google could choose to broadcast all ads or similar to Ad-words running a bidding process in given time slots which would allow them to extract the best price and ration/manage the number of offers issued so as to minimise the perception of spam.
  

In this scenario, all parts of the market are satisfied, namely

• consumers get alerted to cheap deals for relevant goods/services
• retailers increase traffic and revenue at slack times, whilst only incurring ad spend when relevant/appropriate, in a setting in whichcompanies can delegate authority within parameters for local stores to tune their offering based on conditions
• Google increases its' revenues by connecting the market paticipants, as a consequence of providing a social service
  

Obviously, in my example, the service being marketed has a time-expiry element - an empty coffee shop can't recoup that revenue opportunity. Hence this scenario equally applies to empty cinemas, theatres, pubs and restaurants, or any leisure facility. Yet it could have much wider application including competitive advertising - based on being near Starbucks, I receive an advert from a nearby competitor attempting to lure me away. There are many other applications one could list.

Timeframe for this to become reality? Well, there are no technical limitations to what I've described, albeit Google need to build the "ad-words like" infrastructure and tie this into the Latitude user data. So I think its' about Google choosing its' optimum moment to launch the "local" element once enough consumers are on-board or trend evidence of wide-spread adoption exists.

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• Google Latitude: Will it Kill your Phone's Battery? (jkontherun.com)
• Google Cell Phone Tracker Follows Peoples' Real-Time Locations (businesspundit.com)
• Check Google Maps to Find Your Kids (abcnews.go.com)
• Google Latitude: Friend Finding Maps on Smartphones and PCs [Google] (i.gizmodo.com)
• Google Gets into the Mobile Social Game, Launches Lattitude (domainmacher.com)
• Google Adds Location-Aware Social App to Google Maps (searchenginewatch.com)
• Google Latitude Broadcasts Your Location. Because You Want That, Right? (wired.com)
• Google Latitude Location Sharing Mobile App (ring-weekly.blogspot.com)
• Google Offers "Latitude" To Track People (cbsnews.com)
• Share Your Location (Or Lie About It) With Google Latitude (tsurch.com)
• Google will tell your mates where you are (theregister.co.uk)
• Google Latitude Broadcasts Your Location | Epicenter from Wired.com (tsurch.com)
• See where your friends are with Google Latitude (Vic Gundotra/The Official Google Blog) (techmeme.com)
• Google Latitude: Friend Finding Maps on Smartphones and PCs (Brian Lam/Gizmodo) (techmeme.com)
• Google Maps for Mobile v3.00 released (allaboutsymbian.com)
• Google Enters Mobile Social Networking with "Latitude" (thenextweb.com)
• Google Latitude keeps tabs on friends' locations (news.cnet.com)
• Google Latitude keeps tabs on friends' locations (news.cnet.com)

Labels: Google, Google Latitude, googlemaps, GPS, LBS, location based services, mobile

posted by John Wilson @ 11:09 AM Permanent Link ,

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US Caps on Compensation Wednesday, February 04, 2009

Today it was reported that President Obama and the US Government was expected to impose caps on "executive" pay at organisations that accepted Government bailout funds. It was suggested that these conditions are not expected to be retrospective on those firms that have already received bailout monies [which will be a great relief to those firms!]. However the cap is on cash compensation - it is specifically proposed that any compensation over $500,000 would have to be paid in company shares which could not vest until all bailout monies had been refunded to the Government.

The reports do seem to focus on the banking sector, albeit it would seem reasonable that such provisions apply to any firm that required Government money.

Salary caps are always highly contentious with arguments usually polarising into accusations of greedy bosses versus the importance of paying the "market rate" to attract the best talent. However the debate has strongly swung in favour of caps because the recent downfall/demise of many large institutions are being directly attributed to incumbent executives who are seen to be the cause or at some fault. Consequently, there is no public support for "rewarding" failure especially with taxpayer money, especially when the compensation sums involved are colossal in contrast to average earnings. Throw in envy, plus people losing their jobs through no fault of their own but as a consequence of an economic slump accompanied by a contraction in available bank credit, and you have an populist and moral tidal wave to sweep away counter-arguments.

Defenders of unconstrained pay, myself included, will now get to prove or lose their arguments which mainly revolve around the belief that locations/industries with caps will be disadvantaged as the best talent will be drawn to locations without such caps [assuming jobs still exist there].

An example often quoted to support this contention is football, highlighting that the English Premiership regularly wins out in the battle for global talent because of the rewards on offer to players, with the consequence that the teams in the league regularly compete at the top of European/World football.

However, is it probable that the World's biggest firms will fail to lure the best talent, since landing a senior role at these firms is still a considerable "prize"? Even in football, recent failed transfer events at Manchester City showed money doesn't always work in prising away talent from a "big club". Moreover executives still need jobs and there are far fewer firms around that can offer "big" jobs or who are willing to pay "over-the-top" compensation in a recessionary environment. Hence, supply may be growing whilst demand is reversing, thereby automatically pushing down pay, especially when those hiring are increasingly sceptical about anyone claiming superhuman management powers, given the rapid fall from grace of so many former business stars.

The worst outcome of introducing the caps would be that they deters executives from seeking the very help that may be right for their companies. Whilst board members have a duty to their companies and shareholders, they are clearly conflicted given the personal ramifications for their own wealth. Of course, they could choose to move on and perhaps should in circumstances that their company needs a bailout. Yet career choices like that are rarely made dispassionately.

Depending upon how "executive" is defined e.g. main board directors only, some executives may follow Bob Diamond's example, who for years refused a seat on the main board at Barclays to avoid having to disclose his earnings, or so it is widely believed. It was undeniable that he had a major role in running a core part of the Bank despite not being a main board member, but who was in effect a shadow director. Some companies may well look at such devices to circumvent rules, especially if main board directors find themselves underpaid relative to considerable numbers of their employees, as would probably be the case in a number of banks.

Of course, if "executive" is widened to any senior manager or employee, then things could really be shaken up, especially since those firms who took money early would be free of any such constraints and thus able to poach talent with offers of higher pay from those who arrived at the trough later. And yes, that would definitely happen.

Pay aside, executives are clearly deterred by the prospect of Government oversight and intervention in running the companies if they accept bailout funds. Barclays demonstrated that the executives were much happier paying a higher price for capital instead of accepting UK Government money. Yet, increasing numbers of companies who are struggling to refinance their operations are jumping on the emotional blackmail bandwagon and demanding Government aid. Perhaps imposing caps will restore some balance by inflicting some personal pain on the wealth of the executives making the demands.

However, perhaps the most interesting thing is that the proposal stops short of capping all forms of compensation and allows executives to be paid in shares. Given that bank shares are in the doldrums, a $500,000 bonus in shares buys you considerably more shares than it did up until recently. Assuming a bailout does ensure a company's survival, then the executives forced to forgo cash may get to make even bigger sums if their shares manage to recover even some of their lost glories, which won't make for pretty news headlines e.g Lloyds is trading at 95p today from a low of 44p only a couple of weeks ago which would have double an executives money, but several fold returns are not inconceivable. Of course, you could contend that executives who nurse a company back to health are deserving of this, but against a backdrop of Government funded survival and the possibility of an economic tide lifting all companies in due course, the public may well feel aggrieved with such an outcome.

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• Obama biffs bonuses (bbc.co.uk)
• Obama Calls for 'Common Sense' on Executive Pay (nytimes.com)
• Fulham owner Al Fayed calls for salary cap (soccernet.espn.go.com)
• Hughes dismisses salary cap (soccernet.espn.go.com)
• Key Obama officials reveal executive pay limits (cnn.com)
• Gravy Train Now Limited By Law (jossip.com)

Labels: Bank, Barclays plc, Financial Services Compensation Scheme, salary caps

posted by John Wilson @ 1:12 PM Permanent Link ,

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Stitching up panoramic views for free Monday, February 02, 2009

It's not uncommon to want to take a panoramic shot of scene / place / event only to believe that you're not carrying the right equipment or don't possess the right software to even try. Thankfully, the software to do the job is now freely available both as an online service and as a download, with clear guidance on how to take suitable shots.

Whilst housebound today thanks to London's heavy snowfall, I wanted to grab a panoramic shot of our snowy garden to send to my family in various locations in the UK and overseas. Having taken a sequence of overlapping shots whilst keeping the camera in roughly the same spot [height and position], I tried out two free services both of which gave excellent results.

The first was Clevr which is a downloaded application that utilises the Adobe AIR framework, which automatically installs itself if not already present. Shots are imported into the applications, re-ordered if necessary and stitched together within the application, from where the generated panorama can be both uploaded or saved as a new file. Uploaded versions may be shared or embedded in other websites with zooming and paning features as standard. It was amazingly easy to use which has encouraged me to consider taking more panoramic shots in future.

I also tried MagToo, which is an online service that not only assist with creating panoramic views, but can also create photo slide shows. Both facilities are free and are impressively integrated with a huge number of social networking and blogging sites to which results may be sent. Furthermore, there is neat Google map location tagging facility provided as standard to add "meta-location data" about your shots. The process to create a panoramic image was remarkably similar to Clevr, with automatic stitching of the photos and it was just as quick to use, with great results that could be embeded or downloaded.

I confess I found it difficult to choose a particular favourite between them but ably performing the required task easily, quickly and effectively. There are other similar packages out there, including the Microsoft Photosynth offering, but both of these apps are definitely worth bookmarking for future use.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Microsoft's Photosynth, the best thing to happen to photography since the digital camera. (slate.com)

Labels: Microsoft Live Labs Photosynth, Panorama, photography, photos

posted by John Wilson @ 9:12 PM Permanent Link ,

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City Banker rests as hell freezes over ahead of London meltdown

Brilliant effort and great photo from FT Alphaville.

Labels: humour, snow

posted by John Wilson @ 4:06 PM Permanent Link ,

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Continuity Plan is snowed in

Image via Wikipedia

I'm a Brit and so obviously I am going to talk about the weather! Today, most of the South East of England is snowed in with airports closed, trains cancelled and buses not running, whilst many roads are impassible. Of course, many countries would consider this a light covering of snow and will laugh at our helplessness, but at the same time one has to remember it is increasingly rare to get heavy snow in the South of the UK - this is the heaviest snow fall for 18 years.

However, the subject of this post is not to debate the weather per se but to make a couple of observations:

• the websites of transport operators crashed under the weight of enquiries: Whilst the conditions may have prompted new peaks in hits, it demonstrates that these firms don't have any or sufficient "on-demand" technology expansion facilities in place or if they do, they may be reliant on absent staff to activate them.
  
  
• Last year JP and I were discussing the lunacy of disaster recovery thinking amongst City firms which tends to fixate on having a replica site, normally located some distance outside of London. In our view, in the event of a disaster, most staff will more inclined to return to their families and homes than travel to a DR site, assuming that transport links are even operating. Instead we both felt that it was better to spend money on allowing staff to work from anywhere i.e. remote working facilities. This approach caters for DR situations as well as having day-to-day practical uses. As demonstrated today, with many City workers unable to travel to their offices or a DR site, those without remote working facilities will be at a disadvantage to those with staff able to seamlessly work from home.
  
  
• the fragility of our infrastructure and supply chains is exposed by a snow flurry, albeit we assume that this will be a temporary aberation with several days inconvenience followed by days of "recovery" as supply chains attempt to catch up. Yet it is a superficial foretaste of other probable natural disasters e.g. a flu pandemic which would force families into isolation and expose the complete dependency we have on things like supermarket supply chains, water and power services operations and health services - their staff would be similarly isolated and unable/unwilling to perform duties that we presently take for granted.

• Many companies will also find their customers aren't transacting with them today e.g. retail outlets whose customers will be unable/disclined to venture out to shop depriving them of sales. The minority that have failed to invest in adequate online facilities will find themselves at an disadvantage.

Sometimes it takes a snow flurry to make one question basic assumptions. Let's hope people use their time at home to do so "white sky" thinking.

Labels: Supply chain

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Henderson to buy New Star Friday, January 30, 2009

Henderson today announced a recommended offer for New Star Asset Management, the business founded by John Duffield in 2000 and who owned just under 6% of the company, prior to its' share restructuring agreed with the banks.

New Star has rapidly fallen from the sky in recent months to the extent that it is currently majority owned by its banks who converted their debt into equity.

The deal values New Star at £115m in a cash and share deal, but includes £20m of cash in New Star balance sheet. Henderson will add £10bn of assets under management to its existing £50bn and it hopes to manage the new funds at a marginal cost to income ratio of 40% - most fund managers operate at 70%+ cost to income ratio. Some of the incremental costs will come from taking on about 150 staff, including the retail "star" fund managers.

With integration costs amounting to £31m, Henderson will have a busy year in 2009 as they are apparently also going to switch back office outsource provider, moving from BNP Paribas Securities Services to JP Morgan.

There has been considerable coffee shop discussion about what any buyer would actually be getting for their money since

• New Star's brand is tarnished and so is regarded by many to have little or no value
• There has been a huge exodus of funds as IFAs have lost confidence in the New Star business and some business that remains will clearly have waited to see what would happen before making a decision. As such more funds may leave, but this is normally factored into the price offered by the buyer.
  
• A buyer will normally prefer to add funds onto their own platform and so the existing New Star infrastructure is unlikely to be of considerable interest to a buyer.
  
• "Star" Fund Managers are a little like premiership footballers and can be tempted away by competitor cheque books. Consequently, it is normally cheaper to hire the staff you want.
  

The price is relatively higher than some recent deals including the sales of Credit Suisse Asset Management to Aberdeeen which involved £46bn AUM for £250m. Likewise, using a more comparable deal from 2000, Insight Investment bought Rothschild Asset Management and its' £10bn of AUM for £61m. Whilst the product mix and related revenues aren't identical, it does suggest that this wasn't a fire sale.

I'm just waiting for the Henderson advertising campaign to see how they will position this acquisition with IFAs - "There's a New Star at Henderson" perhaps?

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• Henderson in pole position to buy New Star (telegraph.co.uk)
• New Star rapidly becoming a Death Star (telegraph.co.uk)

Labels: Henderson, John Duffield, New Star Asset Management

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Legg Mason's annus horribilis Thursday, January 29, 2009

Image via WikipediaLegg Mason has experienced an awful year. In 12months

- Its' money market funds had to be significantly propped up to prevent them "breaking the buck"
- Star manager Bill Miller had a collapse in performance after 15 years of consistent out-performance, albeit many of those gains have now been wiped out
- assets under management have fallen to less than $700bn, 30% lower than a year ago
- it has just reported a $1.5bn loss for the last quarter to produce the worst results in 25 years

Unsurprisingly, its' shares has fallen by about 70% over the year.

Legg aren't alone in being battered by market conditions, but being one of the largest fund management firms makes the impact looks much larger.

You have to have some sympathy for Mark Fetting, Legg's Chief Executive. He only took over in January 2008, inheriting the reins from "Chip" Mason, who had led the firm for the previous 46 years, and who also stepped down as Chairman in December 2008 in favour of Fetting. Yet, as Napolean said, "give me lucky Generals" and Mason will be known as the successful Patriarch whilst Fetting will be the CEO who oversaw the downturn in the firm's fortunes. Indeed, if it was a movie script, you can imagine Chip being called out of retirement in 18 months time to "save the day and rescue the firm".

I've commented on Legg previously here, here, here, and here.

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• Legg Mason undone by money funds (greatapps.blogspot.com)
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• Legg Mason Reduces SIV Exposure (newswire.ca)
• Legg Mason Names Mark R. Fetting Chairman (newswire.ca)
• Legg Mason to Cut Up to 200 Jobs as Assets Decline (nytimes.com)

Labels: Bill Miller, Legg Mason, Money fund, Raymond A. Mason

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John Thain quits Bank of America Thursday, January 22, 2009

Image via WikipediaWell it took a week from my asking the question "Can John Thain remain at Bank of America?" and concluding it seemed unlikely to his "mutually agreed" departure today following a meeting with his boss, Ken Lewis as reported here. Shares in Bank of America fell 16% on the news.

Perhaps the "icing" on the cake was the news that John Thain's new office had been lavishly re-furbished e.g. waste bin for $1,400 and a rug for $87,000, which isn't the sort of thing that goes well with tax payers or politicians who've just bailed out your company.

Merrill's staff should have cause to be thankful to Thain. He

• found them a safe-ish harbour in the storms and thus avoided the fate that befell Lehman
• negotiated a good deal with Bank of America despite Merrill's awful prospects, as borne out by their Q4 results
  
• paid their bonuses in December, totalling over $4bn despite the huge losses, which was some two months earlier than usual and days ahead of Bank of America taking over
  

Whilst some felt he had surrender their company too easily, its' fate was probably sealed before he arrived and the only option available was a quickly arranged deal following Lehman's demise.

Might John Thain follow his former colleague, Hank Paulson into academia and avoid the hassle of commercial life? Paulson has just stepped down as US Treasury Secretary and can easily afford not to work again. Similarly Thain is unlikely to be pressured by the need to work again, even without any payoff he may receive from Bank of America. However, his talents are widely recognised and it is probable that a number of firms are already weighing up the possibility of engaging him in some capacity after a short break, especially in the private equity sector where he could avoid much public scrutiny.

Any payoff he does receive will be a matter of public disclosure because Bank of America is listed. So it will be interesting to see whether he extracts one final huge "pound of flesh", despite the company having only just received a huge bailout. For Bank of America any sizeable payout will be a PR disaster since it will clearly be described as a payment for failure that has been funded by the taxpayer. However, John Thain probably has a pretty watertight employment contract under which he will inevitably be entitled to some pre-determined payoff. I also doubt that Ken Lewis will press any case that Thain was dismissed for misconduct or something similar, regardless of his personal feelings, since this would embroil the Bank in far too much unwelcome press over a protracted period, as each side makes disclosures helpful to their case.

Thain could, of course, choose to forego a payoff in recognition of the climate as he evidently decided to do with his bonus. Yet having conceded over his bonus to save face for Ken Lewis, he may be less inclined to do so given the manner of his departure. Watch this space.

Meanwhile, I hear his successor could be inheriting a nice new office.

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• John Thain Resigns [Wall Street]
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• How an $87,000 Rug Could Take Down Merrill's Boss [John Thain]
• The Murky Lewis-and-Thain Story
• Did Bank of America make the right deal?
• John Thain: $10 Million Man?
• Merril Lynch CEO Spent $1,220,000 On Office Rennovation [Merril Lynch]
• Three Months of Work, $25 Million [Bonus Season]
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Labels: Bank of America, Hank Paulson, John Thain, Ken Lewis, Merrill Lynch

posted by John Wilson @ 7:59 PM Permanent Link ,

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WeB@ank - Zopa and Social Lending

One of the 3 firms showcased at the WeB@nk event this week that was hosted by Nesta was Zopa. Nearly 4 years old, Zopa [which stands for "Zone of Possible Agreement"] describes itself as a market for money. Targeted at the retail market, the platform has executed £31m of unsecured loans to date across over 7000 loans, with £12.6m booked in 2008 for 2600 loans. Their maximum loan limit is £15k and typical loans have been for cars, weddings and medical expenses - the loan purpose has to be detailed as part of the information provider by a borrower.

In supplying offers of cash, lenders specify

• the total amount on offer up to a maximum of £25,000 beyond which a lender needs a Consumer Credit Licence
  
• the rate they are prepared to lend at, which can be set per borrower risk category
• the maximum amount per borrower they are willing to commit e.g. no more than £100 per borrower [Zopa sets a floor of £10 minimum per borrower]
  
• the loan term
  
• the category of risk they want to invest in [Zopa stratifies its' borrowers across 5 risk categories]
  

Borrowers

• Complete a loan application
• Make monthly repayments comprising capital and interest
• Can borrow over 36 or 60 months with the ability to repay early
• Pay a loan fee of £94.25 when taking a loan
• Can borrow between £1,000 and £15,000
  

Zopa's role is to

• provide the marketplace platform
• pool funds provided by lenders and distribute these amongst eligible borrowers
  
• vet lenders and borrowers against anti-money laundering criterion
  
• credit score borrowers
• undertake loan administration i.e. cash distribution and collection, oversee debt recovery via a third party arrangement
  

Apparently Zopa's average lender is male, 40 years old, living in SW London who lends £1300 whilst their average borrower is male, 40 years old in Birmingham and borrows £4300 for a car.

Zopa were at pains to stress that many people are attracted to Zopa because it puts a human face on money which they termed "Social lending", rather than the impersonal and institutionalised banking that traditionally operates. Yet as one member of the audience put it, "they made it sound like charitable work or lending for emotional/entertainment value".

Zopa did acknowledge that the flip side to social lending is that it can turn sour/personal when bad debts arise as people feel their "trust" has been betrayed. Overall Zopa has experienced 0.2% bad debts to date, and provides its' lenders with an estimate of bad debts per risk category as shown here.

One of the major selling points of Zopa is that borrowers and lenders reportedly get better rates than from banks by interacting directly. Lenders are presently getting an average of 8% after fees compared to high street savings ates of under 2%, whilst borrowers are receiving loans at 9% compared to 15%+ from a bank from unsecured loans.

I felt quite strongly that Zopa is disingenuous in making interest rates comparisons between themselves and banks for savers. When depositing with a bank you are transferring loan default risk to them and losses are borne by the bank's shareholders. Depositors also benefit from deposit protection schemes in the event of bank default. In Zopa you retain this risk. Hence an element of the rate differential has to compensate for that. In conversation after the event, their MD admitted to me that whilst the rate differential is about 6% following the sharp fall in bank deposit rates [Zopa lenders are averaging 9% less 1% Zopa fee versus average savings rates of 2%], back in the summer it was about a 2% differential.

What astounds me about this latter figure is that it indicates that Zopa lenders are clearly not making an allowance for borrower default. Whilst average historic loss rates may be only 0.2% across all lenders, those lenders who lent to defaulting borrowers will have been lost much more. More significantly, whilst Zopa claim that their credit screening process rejects a considerable percentage of borrower applicants and keeps them clear of sub-prime loans, I suspect that the deterioration in the economy is going to push up their default rates in line with the experiences of banks on similar tranches of unsecured personal debt.

My assertion regarding default risk being overlooked by lenders was further validated when I enquired about whether Zopa would consider offering credit protection insurance and Giles advised that it had been offered but there had been minimal interest in the product. Perhaps people are being overly seduced by the touchy-feely aspect of "social lending" and become too trusting or are ignorant of the risks.

Whilst savers are undoubtedly complaining about the pitiful rates currently offered on deposits, in the current environment I suspect that many people are most concerned about return of capital than return on capital, at least temporarily.

As James Gardner of Lloyds TSB (Bankervision) put it during the panel session, the real question is whether Zopa and its' kind represent a significant threat to banking and could disrupt the current model. He contended it did not and I have to concur. Whilst I believe Zopa has considerable growth potential from its' current low base and is not liable for losses on loans, I'm not convinced about its' business because

• despite having increased it's margin from 0.5% to 1%, this feels like insufficient gross margin on which to operate and develop the business. For example, at best Zopa is generating approximately £300,000 of interest revenue each year on £31m of loans, assuming all loans transacted on the platform were open, no capital repayments had been made and 1% was applicable to all of them. On top of this, Zopa will have generated just under £200,000 of borrower loan fees in 2008. Once costs are factored in e.g. staff, premises, insurances and technology, this doesn't leave much.
  
  
• Zopa isn't a regulated business at present, but were it to scale-up I believe that regulators would probably be forced to take a closer look. As James Gardner observes, were a major bank to enter the peer-to-peer lending space it would be inevitable that regulators would seek to include it as a regulated activity. At this point, its cost of operation would increase considerably putting further pressure on its' margins.
  
  
• Zopa claims that all elligible borrower applications have been funded to date, demonstrating that their supply of funds is sufficient. However this is represents a probable and material constraint on their business. The higher rates currently on offer may induce more savers to use the service but I believe that Zopa will also need to increase the average deposit several fold from the current average of £1,300, which translates into an average of 3 savers per borrower. Whilst banks have a similar situation, they can also supplement funds from wholesale markets, leverage and shareholders. None of these options are available in Zopa's current "peer to peer" model.
  
  
• Banks have considerably more experience in loan pricing than individuals and I question whether the rates presently on offer on Zopa may represent naive pricing on the part of lenders once bad debts/risk premium is taken into account. Obviously I acknowledge that bank lending rates will be higher simply to allow for bank profit and bad debt provisions, but stripping out such elements are likely to suggest higher rates should apply.
  

All that aside, I am a huge fan of such electronic markets and respect the ingenuity that has gone into Zopa. It is logical, will make a difference to its' users, and has a strong and easily understood sales message. Moreover, I recognise that that the supposided dramatic contraction in personal loan availability from the banking sector and collapse in savings rates will drive Zopa's borrower and lender numbers up [influx of former Icesave customers perhaps]. Hence, in this "perfect storm" I shall not be surprised if its' MD is able to report a doubling or trebling in business by next year, but disappointingly this will still leave it with a loan book of less than £100m.

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Labels: banks, Financial services, James Gardner, Lloyds TSB, Loan, markets, Peer-to-peer, Zopa

posted by John Wilson @ 3:50 PM Permanent Link ,

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WeB@ank - the case for peer to peer lending

The 150 or so people attended the Nesta run "WeB@ank" event last night on the subject of peer to peer finance models and businesses were treated to a lively and polarised panel debate involving Giles Andrews (MD, Zopa UK), James Gardner (Bankervision and LloydsTSB) and Umair Haque (Havas Media Lab).

Unfortunately Umair's contribution lacked any real relevance to the discussion and left him appearing as someone wanted to be a deep-thinking academic offering higher plane wisdom and insight, but who actually came across as someone out-of-touch with matters at hand. Of course, he may retort that I was simply not bright enough to understand his mutterings but it was evident I wasn't alone in my thinking speaking to others in the audience later.

Fortunately, James and Giles were excellent sparring partners on opposite sides of the debate. Indeed, it almost had a pantomime feel to it with the traditional banker ["the baddy"] questioning the upstart model ["the goody"] - Giles was even pulling exagerated faces to win over the audience when James was speaking.

Good contributions came from the audience, which further the discussion. Disappointingly, though Nesta's organiser decided to cut the debate short simply to fit into the closing time they had publish which sadly failed to reflect the momentum the evening had built up.

Congratulations to Nesta and Christian Alhert at Open Business for organising the event.

I intend to post separately about the presentations from three firms who were showcased, namely
- Zopa, a loans marketplace
- Kubera Money
- Midpoint

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• Prosper And Other P2P Lenders Get Squeezed By The Credit Crunch
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Labels: banks, Giles Andrews, James Gardner, Lloyds TSB, Nesta, Open Business, Peer-to-peer, Umair Haque, Webank, Zopa

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The deflating bank bubbles

FT Alphaville has published an excellent graphical representation of the decline in the market values of major banks that was created by JP Morgan analysts. Really brings home the answer to the question of how one gets to be CEO of a small bank - start as CEO of a large one and wait.

Labels: banks, humour

posted by John Wilson @ 11:43 AM Permanent Link ,

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When share prices fall, it's not always short selling

The dramatic falls in UK banking share prices in recent days have prompted people to immediately conclude it is directly related to the FSA's removal of the short selling ban on UK bank shares. The Chairman of the Treasury Select Committee has already contacted the FSA in this regard and prompted the Chair of the FSA to comment in a radio interview this morning that the ban could be re-introduced at any time and without warning, albeit conceding that there was no evidence that short selling was the cause.

The Short Stories blog, which monitors stock borrowing and short interest in stocks, highlights the relatively trivial levels of shorting that appears to be going on.

Clearly the timing suggests some causality between the declines and shorting but one other culprit exist - the Government recapitalisation and insurance plans revealed to the markets on Monday. That such action appears necessary has prompted increased jitters, with the consequence that existing investors appear to be dumping their stock in fear of what lies ahead. So perhaps those levelling criticism and anger should be actually focussing their comments on existing shareholders who are voting with their feet and heading for the exit.

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Labels: banks, Short selling

posted by John Wilson @ 11:28 AM Permanent Link ,

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Less pay or no job! What you should do.

Increasing numbers of firms are asking their employees to make a choice - take a pay cut or lose your job. Unpalatable as both options are, in the current climate with few job vacancies available as a report here highlights, it is understandable that most employees choose the former.

What's notable about this sort of offer is that they are not

• a request to defer an element of pay in an effort to conserve company cash, but which maintains your current entitlements
  
• a temporary reduction with a guarantee to revert to former levels when there is an upturn

As such, these measures represent permanent pay restructures, with knock-on effects for many years to come, including any future pay-rises being linked to a lower base and reducing pensions for final salary pension workers. Similarly, anyone who has moved jobs will have probably experience the situation whereby a prospective employer wants to know what you are currently earning, primarily to avoid "overpaying" you. Hence your revised salary baseline will persist for longer than you may anticipate.

Whilst not suggesting losing your job is a better options [unless you have another job to go to], if you do have any scope to discuss the terms then you may want to propose foregoing any benefits that form part of your compensation package as the first element of any cut instead e.g. car allowance or health care. These tend to be ignored for pension purposes and are often less significant in negotiations with subsequent employers.

As a minimum, you could suggest rephrasing the terms of the cut such that you will agree to "donate" a proportion of your salary to the company during these turbulent times but that your contractual salary remains unaltered. This enshrines an acknowledgement that the cut is temporary in nature. You may be unsuccessful but "don't ask, don't get."

Labels: Employment

posted by John Wilson @ 10:00 AM Permanent Link ,

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Barclays - the bitter pill for Abu Dhabi

Details have emerged that the Abu Dhabi Royal Family inserted an anti-dilution clause alongside their investment in Barclays, which would re-price the shares issued to them in the event that new capital was raised within 9 months at a lower share price. e.g. if £100m bought 100m shares at £1, then if shares were subsequently issued at 50p then they would automatically receive an additional 100m shares [£100m divided by 50p].

Such a clause is relatively common in private placings and Angel/VC rounds of fund raising. It's purpose is simply to protect the investor from subsequent investors being offered better terms, rather than being a device to deter further capital injections. However, the rapid deterioration in Barclays situation and market conditions, with corresponding slump in share price from 153p to under 70p, would prompt a significant repricing of the Abu Dhabi stake were new capital raised at such levels, with the consequence they would probably end up with a majority stake.

This now presents Barclays with a considerable problem - if they conclude that they do need more capital, new investors would face the prospect of automatically being a minority shareholder in the shadow of the Adu Dhabi control. This is likely to deter some sources of new capital and hence frustrate Barclays efforts to the extent that the only source of new funds may be the Abu Dhabi's themselves.

Whilst Abu Dhabi could sit back in the expectation that the UK Government would be obliged to bail out Barclays, I suspect that the UK Government would be forced to nationalise the bank rather than simply inject fresh capital, given that it would be political suicide to be seen to be using taxpayers money to hand control of the bank to another sovereign state.

Nationalisation would clearly be a dramatic step and materially damage relations with Abu Dhabi, given it would wipe out much, if not all, of their investment. However, the idea of nationalising a major UK bank is openly debated and advocated in some serious quarters, albeit RBS and Lloyds are most commonly the subjects of such discussion in this context.

Hence, Abu Dhabi may now find themselves having to consider the prospect of having to [unwillingly] provide more capital to prop up their ailing investment or else waive their anti-dilution rights.

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Labels: Abu Dhabi, Barclays, Barclays plc

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Hedge Funds assets dwindle considerably Wednesday, January 21, 2009

For the industry as a whole, [albeit starting from a lower estimate than I've seen elsewhere, which may reflect that their figures do not include assets invested in fund of hedge funds] Hennessee Group has estimated that hedge fund industry assets decreased by USD782bn in 2008 to USD1.21trn, a 39% fall. They divide this up as

• USD399bn redemptions
• USD383bn drop in valuation

Speaking with the boss of small [$100m] hedge fund yesterday, it was apparent that he is bewildered by the environment and uncertain about their survival prospects, something I suspect that is shared by many funds. Moreover, their plight is likely to be exacerbated given that one of the traditional sources of hedge fund capital, namely fund of hedge funds, are almost certain to suffer.

This is because the Madoff case has challenged the notion that the due diligence and monitoring is in any way adequate to warrant their fees. Furthermore, investors notice fees far more when performance is low or negative and will question the value added far more.

Hennessee Group Research says, fund of hedge funds were the largest single source of capital for hedge funds at 32 per cent of the total. Of direct investors in hedge funds, individuals and family offices accounted for 30 per cent, pension schemes 15 per cent, endowments and foundations 12 per cent and corporations 11 per cent.

The hit on fund of hedge funds will affect smaller and less well known funds hardest, since they tend to be weakest at marketing successfully to end investors. Whilst they may get seed money from some wealthy investors to put them in the barely viable $100m range, pushing beyond this without fund of hedge funds assistance is incredibly tough.

One firm in particular, RAB Capital, is having a bad time [not to mention investors in the company and its' funds]. Previously acclaimed, its assets under management fell 74% in 2008 to $1.9 billion at the end of December, compared to $7.2 billion a year earlier, according to Market Watch. As a result, revenues including management and performance fees fell to £51m, a drop of 59%.

Across the industry, there is also an investor backlash from hedge funds that have imposed a "gate" on investments i.e. refused to allow investors to make withdrawals, whilst still demanding their management fees on those same funds. This has been likened to being locked in a hotel room by staff and still being told you have to pay the room rate. In the good times, few investors seemed to care about their liquidity options on such investments. Now it has moved to the forefront of their mind and I anticipate more investors will demand considerably lower fees to lock their money up for long periods.

I confess to some bitterness on this matter of investor liquidity - I was involved in a venture that sought to develop a regulated secondary market for hedge funds that would enable investors to trade with each other, without necessitating redemptions from the funds. Many fund of funds firms we spoke to back in 2007 scoffed at the notion that such a mechanism was useful since "redemptions and liquidity would never be an issue" which is a genuine quote to me from the CIO at GAM. I am hoping to run into him again soon to remind him of those words.

Many hedge funds will also be quietly dying or considering exiting since the likelihood of them receiving performance fees for some years to come looks remote, given that they normally have to hit the high watermarks of past years before they qualify. Of course, management fees may tied them over, but drops in the value of assets will have also pushed these down.

If 2008 was bad for funds, my current guess is that 2009 will not be any better.

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Labels: Funds, Hedge fund, Hedge Funds, Investor, secondary markets

posted by John Wilson @ 11:30 AM Permanent Link ,

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The slow & thirsty Presidential Limo

Just saw this image of the new US Presidential Limo.



from the blog 2-Speed

Interesting highlights
- 8 miles per gallon [not so eco-friendly]
- top speed of 60 miles an hour and 0-60mph in 15 seconds [no high speed getaways ala "24" TV show with this tank]
- Driver's window opens by only 3 inches so he can pay a toll!
- Laptop with Wifi [and they're worried about the President having a Blackberry]

posted by John Wilson @ 8:52 AM Permanent Link ,

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Amazing footage of the Hudson Plane Landing Sunday, January 18, 2009

Real-time security camera video on the plane landing and the subsequent rescue efforts.

Astounding.

posted by John Wilson @ 2:01 PM Permanent Link ,

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Can John Thain remain at Bank of America? Friday, January 16, 2009

Image by Getty Images via DaylifeThe credit crunch has unravelled the reputations of some of the previously most respected investment banking bosses. Previously praised for their deal-making abilities, business savvy and genius, many have been undone by the collapse of their empires e.g. Dick Fuld. Yet of all of those in the spotlight I have perhaps been most astonished by the apparent fall from grace of two former Goldman Sachs senior figures, Hank Paulson and John Thain. Regarded in awe within and outside of the firm, they were credited with steering Goldman on an prosperous course for a number of years.

Hank Paulson, as the US Treasury Secretary, appeared to have the perfect CV to design and oversee the actions of the US administration given his extensive experience on Wall Street. Yet he has been widely derided for his handling of the situation and notably the hastily arranged TARP.

Meanwhile John Thain, who was only parachuted in Merrill Lynch at the end of 2007, and who appeared to have cleverly manoeuvred his "ship" into the safe harbour of Bank of America is now being castigated for the issues being uncovered in the Merrill Lynch balance sheet that weren't declared up front. The Bank of America has now received a further $20bn capital injection from the US Government to ensure it remain adequately capitalised. Trust in Thain by his boss, Ken Lewis, was already strained following the furore over bonus claims the Merrill executives were allegedly going to request, as well as the awful Q4 performance by Merrill.

When your current boss thinks you hoodwinked him, regardless of the fact you were acting for Merrill shareholders at the time in soliciting the best price, your position is surely shaky. Having been in charge of the "ship" for a year, Lewis may also question whether Thain has demonstrated he can turn things around quickly enough at Merrill, especially given the state they have now apparently inherited.

Separately, the FT are also raising the question of whether the bonuses paid to Merrill staff in Q408 could come under scrutiny if it turns out Merrill was technically insolvent at the time the BofA deal closed. If Merrill staff weren't already panicked by fear of layoffs, the prospect of having to repay bonuses should really make their day.

Labels: Bank of America, goldman sachs, Hank Paulson, John Thain, Merrill Lynch

posted by John Wilson @ 12:04 PM Permanent Link ,

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Anglo Irish Nationalised - so much for 100% deposit protection

Deposit protection schemes are supposed to re-assure savers that their deposits are [mostly] safe. In recent months, combined with actual interventions to demonstrate support, many national schemes have been improved to remove any risk for most depositors e.g. UK Govt protected 100% of Icesave Bank and Irish Govt guaranteed 100% of Irish bank deposits.

Yet even a 100% guarantee doesn't seem to have deterred savers from making large scale deposit withdrawals from Anglo Irish Bank if reports are to be believed. Ireland's third-largest lender, who were also offering some of the best sterling savings rates, was nationalised last night, following a dramatic decline in its' share prices as concerns mounted and ahead of an assumed "run on the bank" perhaps fuelled by comments of the Irish Opposition Leader.

This has considerable ramifications for deposit protection policy since if savers aren't assuaged by a 100% guarantee, preferring to grab their cash rather than "take any chances", what else can Governments do? I confess that I don't have a ready answer for those banks remaining in private ownership, since it appears savers will continue to have doubts unless a bank is actually Government owned, at least for now. As I wrote here, I thought the Irish scheme, would actually be sufficient to pull in savers from the UK given the "better protection" apparently offered. Evidently Irish savers didn't share my confidence.

Anglo Irish had recently hit the headlines when its' Chairman had been found to have received enormous loans from the bank which had not been declared because of window dressing transactions around the Bank's financial year end. It was also considered to be the Bank most exposed to Ireland's property market collapse and had appeared in Cazenove's most at risk league table here.

Labels: Anglo Irish Bank, Deposit Protection Scheme, Icesave

posted by John Wilson @ 11:30 AM Permanent Link ,

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Have London freesheets caused the demise of the Evening Standard

Image by adambowie via FlickrI confess that I haven't bought an Evening Standard for easily more than a year. I was never a regular buyer, mainly because my evening commute was often devoted to reading my weekly copy of the Economist. However, because of the availability of instant news online, I now feel even less need to buy a copy.

At one time on the evening commute, many people would have a copy of the Evening Standard. Now it's a rarity to see anyone with a copy, despite news that the Standard's sales were rising. In my experience, the vast majority are looking at freesheets such as the London Paper and London Lite. Likewise the street vendors of the Standard no longer have the busy crush of commuters trying to snatch a copy but appear somewhat forelorn relicts of a past era, outmuscled by pushy freesheet distributors standing on every street corner.

Whilst the paper isn't closing, annual losses of £10m demonstrate that radical surgery will be required to re-invent the offering. Given the trite content of the freesheets, one hopes that the Standard can successfully use quality as its' point of differentiation and to justify its' paid-for status. However, I wonder if the free sheets are its' only competitor or whether online material has been equally to blame.

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Labels: Evening Standard, London Lite, Londonpaper, News International, Thelondonpaper

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Gladinet - joining up the clouds [storage and apps] Friday, January 09, 2009

Being a big fan of cloud application and to the extent I'm almost able to operate entirely using free online apps, I was delighted to be introduced to Gladinet, a brilliant free service that joins up cloud storage services with cloud applications.

Some of my concerns with any cloud application are a) where does my data live b) how portable is my data c) how reliable is the service provider. Gladinet helps overcome these fears by liberating data storage from cloud applications [or at least the ones it presently supports] and then enabling you to connect between them at will.

Windows only, you do need to install a small desktop application to use the service. The Gladinet software creates a virtual drive on your desktop from which you can access your online storage services as if they were local folders. You can also access the same folders from multiple PCs via the same Gladinet account.

Presently the service integrates with Microsoft SkyDrive [25gb of free storage], Amazon Simple Storage Service(S3), Google Docs and Google Picasa. You can also connect to folders on remote local computers that you have access to e.g. at home or at work. In effect it means your files can follow you.

It's easy to drop and drag files between your online and desktop folders, and the files become instantly available. You can also drop and drag files between cloud storage folders i.e. skydrive to google docs.

The "icing" comes from the ability to easily access online applications. Hence, your online or desktop files can be instantly opened within the web applications supported from Google Docs, Zoho and Think Free.

For example, you can elect to open a document stored on Skydrive in Google Docs. A temporary instance of the document is created in Google Docs but all the changes are instantly reflected by in the original source file when you save the document. Next time you open the document you could instead choose to use Think Free or Zoho to edit it, or perhaps use MS Word on your desktop. A point to note is that I found Google Docs considerably faster at opening files than Think Free.

Gladinet also lets you share your files by creating internet urls that you can send to others. If you choose to youcan protect your share with a password. You can also put a timer on the URL so it can expire at a specific time. Both features make the sharing experience more secure.

Gladinet doesn't provide any synchronisation capabilities between online and offline folders, leaving that to services such as Microsoft's Live Sync and Dropbox amongst others.

But here's a personal reason why I am enthusiased about this offering. When I installed Gladinet I simply couldn't get it to connect to the cloud storage services following the installation and got a Window error code. I dropped Gladinet an email asking for help and one of the founders, Jerry Huang, was kind enough to spend time investigation the problem with me online and despite it not being a Gladinet issue, tracked it down to a conflict with a very old Juniper Networks security application I had on my laptop, which I hadn't even been aware was still active. Thereafter things have been troublefree.

Whilst on the call, Jerry also took the time to give me some background on the company and a taste of their future plans, which were impressive.

Definitely a service to look at.

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Labels: Amazon S3, Cloud, Cloud computing, Gladinet, Google Docs, Online apps, Picasa, Windows Live SkyDrive, zoho

posted by John Wilson @ 1:30 PM Permanent Link ,

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How to get a Twitter feed in Google Reader

Image via CrunchBaseIf you happen to use Google Reader and have ever tried to add your twitter feed you'll know that they are incompatible. This is apparently because Google Reader doesn't support the authentication Twitter requires.

After wasting some time trying to use Yahoo Pipes as a conduit which was one solution thrown up on a web search, I finally thought I would try Feedburner which is the service that provides a RSS feed of this blog.

It was surprisingly easy and worked first time. Here's how.

1. At the bottom of your Twitter home page on the left hand side, you'll see a box marked "RSS". Copy the associated link location by right clicking on the box and selecting to copy link location.
   
2. Setup/Login into your Feedburner account
3. Within Feedburner, go to "My Feeds", which is accessed at the top of the screen, and paste the Twitter link you copied into the field under the heading "Burn a feed right this instant".
   
4. The link you copied in is password protected and so you now need to add your twitter username and password into the link as follows
   http://username:password@twitter.com/statuses/friends_timeline/nnnnnnn.rss
   
   where "n" at the suffix represents the numbers of your unique feed.
   
5. Click the "Next" button adjacent to the Feedburner field you've entered the link into
6. On the subsequent Feedburner page you can modify the resultant feed title and link if you wish to
7. Click on the button marked "Activate Link". This makes your feed live and provides you with a feed url which you should copy.
8. Back in Google Reader, add a subscription and paste in the feed url.

And that's it.

Given that Twitter no longer provides a feed via IM clients, you may find this an easy way to keep on top of your Twitter updates.

Labels: Feedburner, google reader, rss, twitter

posted by John Wilson @ 12:49 PM Permanent Link ,

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LinkedIn should introduce IM chat

Image via WikipediaI hardly ever use Facebook, occasionally logging in just in case anyone has left me a message. Yesterday was one such occasion and whilst I was online, I was contacted by an old work colleague who I'd "friended" on Facebook sometime ago via the online chat facility. Off the back of that chance conversation, we agreed to meet up to talk about his new business.

It struck me that LinkedIn should really look at doing something similar. Whilst it's not a "social network" site, in my experience lots of business stems from chance conversations and having the facility to drop a quick IM "hello" to connections who happen to be online would be a valuable feature.

Having already added an address book facility to add more info about a connection, it is perhaps a natural extension to allow real-time interaction on the site. Importantly for LinkedIn, it would perhaps encourage people to spend more time on the site and increase it's value to advertisers.

As an aside, I've also been using a service called SocialMinder lately which I intend to write about separately, but in brief it's a cut-down CRM hooked-up to LinkedIn. This is something LinkedIn should definitely buy or replicate.

Labels: facebook, Instant messaging, LinkedIn, Social network

posted by John Wilson @ 8:47 AM Permanent Link ,

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London tube unearthed

Image via WikipediaDescribing itself as the tube travellers bible, I stumbled across Metazone's London tube site last night by accident whilst looking to find the nearest tube to a meeting venue.

In one part of the site, they've overlaid the tube lines on a google map which highlights the astonishing meandering routes some of these lines follow, but more practically as you mouse over the map useful tube information is revealed.

You can check it out here.

Labels: Google, Google Map, Google Maps, mashup

posted by John Wilson @ 8:40 AM Permanent Link ,

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Back when $100bn bought very little Wednesday, December 24, 2008

I saw this recently on The Big Picture blog and thought it worthy of reproduction

Consider that one year ago Royal Bank of Scotland paid US$100 billion for ABN Amro. That seemingly impossible amount would now buy:
Citibank $22,5 billion (74% down)
Morgan Stanley $10,5 billion (-72%)
Goldman Sachs $21 billion (-67%)
Merrill Lynch $12,3 billion (-77%)
Deutsche Bank $13 billion (-71%)
Barclays $12,7 billion (-71%)

And still leave $8 billion change - with which you would be able to pick up General Motors, Ford, Chrysler and the Honda F1 team.

Odd thing is, it would be hard/impossible to borrow the $100bn now to buy them.

posted by John Wilson @ 2:43 PM Permanent Link ,

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Could USD and GBP become carry trade currencies Thursday, December 18, 2008

With US interest rates around/at zero and sterling interest rates poised to fall further, could these two currencies become the funding source of carry trades?

A carry trade is a strategy in which an investor sells a certain currency with a relatively low interest rate and uses the funds to purchase a different currency yielding a higher interest rate [Investopedia].

For years, investors have been borrowing japanese yen and investing in currencies paying higher interest rates. Provided interest rates remain stable, these can be profitable trades which can be amplified by leverage. Of course, they can go horribly wrong and investors have to remain alert in case they need to quickly unwind their positions as fx rates move against them.

Whilst many of the world's interest rates have fallen sharply, there are still some currencies that may offer some potential for investors, provided the fx rate volatility don't terrify you. Current interest rates around the world can be found here.

Of course, it does rely on being able to easily borrow funds in USD and GBP which isn't the experience for many at present. But don't worry, the central banks in both countries appear to be priming the currency printing presses to head off deflationary worries, so borrowing may become easier.

Labels: carry trade, fx

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Spreeder - A fast way to improve your speed reading

I've been fortunate to develop an ability to speed read over the years, albeit I confess I've no idea exactly how fast.

It's an important skill, especially if you are time pressured, and improvements in your speed will genuinely free up more time.

Hence I was impressed by the free online application, Spreeder, that aims to help you do just that and which is a breeze to operate. Using text you provide, it renders the text on screen in a configuration and speed you specify e.g. 200 words per minute and three words at a time. By gradually ratcheting up the speed, you should be able to increase your reading efficiency. Of course, the important thing is not to sacrifice your comprehension of the content for speed!

Thanks to Andrew Dubber of New Music Strategies fame for pointing this one out.

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MF Global ditch US Futures Exchange

Image via WikipediaI'm intrigued by the motives behind the decision by MF Global, announced today, to abandon its' interest in the US Futures Exchange in which it directly held at 48% stake.

The business was originally set up by Eurex to provide a competing offering to the dominant Chicago Mercantile Exchange. in the US. In 2006, when it was struggling to attract liquidity away from CME, MF Global took a sizeable strategic stake in the venture, with a view to ratching-up the competition in the market via an injection of its' own sizeable order flow and ultimately generating significant capital value for MF, given the heafty multiples that Exchanges commanded at that time.

The $7m annual cost of being involved in the venture is a relatively trivial sum for MF Global, which prompts me to wonder whether the current CEO's past positions, resultant beliefs and relationships have influenced this decision far more than the financials. Prior to joining MF Global in the Summer of 2008, Bernard Dan headed the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) where he served as president and chief executive officer from November 2002 until July 2007 when the company was acquired by the CME.

Labels: Chicago Board of Trade, Chicago Mercantile Exchange, Eurex, MF Global, US Futures Exchange

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A dream that was realised Monday, December 15, 2008

LSE foyer, Image via WikipediaBack in 2003 when I joined Man Financial [MF Global], the firm was one of the most active equity CFD [contract for difference] providers in the UK by volume. These derivative instruments are almost perfect economic substitutes for equities, albeit without voting rights.

As a firm, we typically hedged every CFD order received from customers by executing an order on the London Stock Exchange [LSE]. More significantly, we were almost indifferent between whether customers sent underlying equity orders to us or CFD orders. . This prompted me to question why CFD orders couldn't simply be traded on Exchange like an underlying equity. Indeed, why shouldn't the order book treat equities and CFDs fungibly, and leave the mechanics of how the trade is settled to downstream processes.

I pitched this notion to the LSE and to LCH.Clearnet, with the intention being that Man Financial would act as a matching counterparty to all CFD orders for the purposes of managing the cash funding requirements or stock borrowing arising from such trades. This proposal was favourably received by the other parties and efforts began to implement the necessary consultations and infrastructure changes.

Sadly, I left MF before the vision became a reality and Man Financial subsequently withdrew from the consortium for reasons that never became clear. Thereafter the initiative was held back by issues at LSE and LCH but I was delighted to read today that the initiative is now close to going live.

Aside from the benefits cited in the news report, one important feature I saw early on was that making equity CFDs exchange-traded removed the regulatory restrictions on the use of CFDs by mutual funds which existed in their OTC form. I felt that this would widen and deepen the use of CFDs to the benefit of all.

By coincidence, I met with Roger Liddell, CEO of LCH.Clearnet the other week whom I'd also known at Goldman Sachs and was pleased to hear my involvement hadn't been forgotten.

Labels: Contract for difference, London Stock Exchange, LSE

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Dilbert guide to Mortgage Backed Securities and CDOs Saturday, December 13, 2008

Labels: humour

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Poundland expands Tuesday, December 09, 2008

Image via WikipediaI heard a piece on the radio this morning featuring the CEO of Poundland, the retail chain that sells everything in the store for a pound. Thanks to the Government's reduction of VAT, his margins are up slightly as they retain the 2.5% drop in VAT. At the same time, their volumes are increasingly dramatically as the recession bites and customers look for cheaper alternates.

Most tellingly, they will have added 40 new stores this year and will look to do the same next year, on top of the 200 they already have.

A similarly sales boost is been experienced at other "value" retailers such as Aldi, Lidl, Asda and Morrisons.

Labels: Retail

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Can we be certain our business will survive the next 12 months? Monday, December 08, 2008

Company Directors and Auditors are having to think long and hard about the "going concern" opinions they are required to express in the annual accounts. Most businesses are facing an uncertain time, especially around their banking facilities and funding, as well on-going profitability concerns.

Yet they are equally worried that any reservations or qualifications they may make to protect themselves regarding the future in the context of going concern matters may be self-fulfilling and panic investors. For instance, highlighting that the continuity of the business depends upon successfully renewing banking lines 6 months ahead may lead to jitters given that the rollover of such facilities is no longer as certain as it once was. Likewise, being dependent on the survival of both major customers and suppliers may have once been taken for granted - no longer.

Funnily enough, I once remember during my accountancy training being diverted for a week from my normal sector [capital markets, banks and building societies] to a building/construction materials business. I was astonished how no consolidated information existed within this large group about its' "counterparty" exposure to large building firms such as Wimpey or McAlpines. Management simply had no idea what the financial impact would be of a major building customer going out of business would be. Yet it was evident that my enquiries were received with bemusement, since this wasn't normal practice anywhere outside financial services.

Winning a large contract from a large customer is now a double edged sword - you are grateful for the business but concerned about the cashflow impact given that large customers typically demand generous payment terms, as well as worried about the financial viability of the same customer. Slow payment has always been a source of finance for companies, but the squeeze by banks makes it increasingly important. Sadly the companies under the "cosh" are those that can probably least weather it.

Likewise, the just in time supply chain upon which you rely now resembles a fragile chain with links buffeted by strong financial winds. Somewhere down that line a key component manufacturer could disappear or simply fail to secure the necessary letters of credit to oil the wheels of trade.

In the current climate, providing an opinion about your future business state is the question you will be increasingly asked - do you have an answer based on substance that you can confidently offer?

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• FRC moves to avert a going concern 'crisis'

Labels: Going concern

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Boxing Day Scrooge at Chelsea FC Friday, December 05, 2008

Image via WikipediaSo much for the spirit of giving! Chelsea FC have allocated West Brom fans just 1,400 seats in a stadium with a capacity over 40,000 for the Boxing Day game. Given that Chelsea regularly struggle to sell out matches, it is astonishing that they would be so restrictive given WBA regularly travel with upwards of 3,500 fans to games.

Whilst I concede that Chelsea fans may wish to see their club enjoy a goal feast over Christmas, I'd be amazed if WBA ranked as a must-see game for most Chelsea fans used to dining out on Champions League football.

Labels: Chelsea F.C., WBA, West Bromwich Albion F.C.

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A horrible day for City job losses Thursday, December 04, 2008

Image via WikipediaToday sees Credit Suisse announce a cull of 11% of their investment banking workforce, which is 5,300 jobs. Nomura have also announced 1,000 job losses following the absorption of Lehman staff. More job losses were also announced by State Street and Jefferies in the US. This follows other layoffs by Goldman, Morgan Stanley and a raft of others.

Whilst unlikely to generate much sympathy amongst the wider public who blame the City for all of the current woes [Reminder - the wider public were the folks borrowing the money when they couldn't really afford it! Like a person getting drunk blaming the barman for their plight, whilst being instructed by the Government to serve drink in greater quantities i.e. do more lending to the less well off], this represent a huge downsizing in the indsutry, perhaps comparable to that which the mining industry went through in the 1980s.

Almost everybody in the City will know someone that has lost their job recently be it friends, colleagues or former colleagues. I sadly know many people in this situation, who are talented and capable people, but who have been hit by indiscriminate layoffs as a result of the scale and urgency surrounding the cuts. There are no obvious comparable roles in other sectors, assuming jobs existed, for many outside of IT whose skills may be more portable. Job insecurity is rife and there is considerable fear evident amongst those with jobs.

It's a frightening situation and may represent a permanent change to the landscape of the City and the wider economy which had come to depend upon the City for wealth creation and tax revenues.

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• Credit Suisse to cut 5,300 jobs
• IT jobs to go as major banks cut staff
• Credit Suisse Cuts 5,300 Jobs

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Cross channel shopping gets a boost from Gordon Brown Wednesday, December 03, 2008

Image via WikipediaBased on today's announcement in the Queen's speech, booze cruises across the channel could see a resurgence of interest.

The proposed measures are intended to ban drink promotions in supermarkets, as part of measures to discourage alcohol abuse and drink related problems. As a consequence, retailers will not be able to offer discounts on bulk purchase of alcohol, regardless of how many a customer buys.

Hence, no more "two for ones" or "20% off if you buy six bottles" or "three bottles of wine for £10". Even multipacks of beer/lager cannot be sold for an average unit price which is less than the items are sold individually.

Most businesses are driven by volume and hence offering discounts for buying more is common-place. To remove this facility will be to the detriment of breweries, wineries and consumers alike.

The group who are expected to be hardest hit by this will be wine buyers, which was acknowledged in a Government sponsored study by the University of Sheffield.

Unless the supermarkets find a way to circumvent these measures e.g. they could drop individual prices, I suspect that the attraction of cross channel trips to France to stock up on cheap wine and beer will see renewed interest, as French retailers will not be constrained. The Euro is relatively expensive at the moment which will act as a discouragement, but it may not be a deterrent for long.

At the same time, no one will be able to consider this as a populist measure. Increasing the cost of alcohol at a time when there is increasing gloom is hardly going to cheer people up.

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Microsoft's Skydrive ups free storage to 25gb + alternates

Image by via CrunchBaseMicrosoft continued their expansion of their online capabilities by increasing the free online storage limit for their Skydrive "storage in the cloud" to 25gb. This is a considerable uplift - even a year ago they were only offering 1gb.

Unfortunately, they haven't increased their individual file size limit which remains at 50mb, which is increasingly relevant eg home made video files. I realise that you can load these up to video sharing sites instead, but usually you only load finished/edited video to these sites.

Obviously this announcement has generated enormous interest in the website, with the consequence that I was only intermittently able to access the site during today, which is a little worrying - these people are supposed to also be running Azure based services for third parties [Microsoft's Cloud Computing offering], so you'd expect them to be able to handle surges on their own services! Hopefully they will address this pronto, otherwise they will not be a reliable storage choice and will undermine confidence in their abilities.

Meantime, if you're underwhelmed by 25gb for free, you can get 50gb free storage with Adrive here. Easy to use interface and I've experienced no reliability problems with them to date.

Whilst on the subject of online storage, you should also check out Gladinet, a free application which can mount your online storage locations as virtual drives on your PC and make them indistinguishable from your local folders, so long as you are connected to the internet. Whilst the new Skydrive service isn't supported [enhancement being made according to their blog], it does support many other services. However, this is not a synchronisation service - for this you need to look at services like Dropbox or Foldershare from Microsoft, albeit this is imminently due to be replaced by Microsoft Live Sync in December 2008.

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• Microsoft increases SkyDrive to 25GB of free cloud

Labels: Cloud, File hosting service, Skydrive, Windows Live SkyDrive

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UBS switch their LSE clearing to X-Clear

Image via WikipediaIt wasn't a huge surprise to see that UBS was going to switch its' clearing for its' London Stock Exchange ["LSE"] traded equity business to the Swiss based X-Clear from LCH.Clearnet. After all,

• they are both Swiss and you should never under-estimate the power of relationships e.g. inevitably, UBS personnel will be on advisory boards at X-Clear and will be one of the largest X-Clear users in Switzerland
  
• they will probably enjoy margin netting benefits by combining their their Swiss and UK equity business at a single clearer, which will be financially beneficially
• they may enjoy cheaper tariffs or better margin rates
  

It was possible for UBS to do this after the LSE decided to allow X-Clear to offer clearing services in competition with its long-standing clearer, LCH.Clearnet. Unlike a number of its' rival exchanges including the Swiss Exchange which is part of the same group that owns X-Clear, LSE doesn't own and operate its' own clearer, with the consequence it doesn't face losing revenue from opening up this element of the trade lifecycle to competition.

However, I chuckled when reading the comment made by Robert Barnes, managing director, equities at UBS who said "that by deciding to switch to X-Clear, UBS believed that it would help accelerate a “market-driven” solution to interoperability, rather than waiting for regulators to apply further pressure to get the process moving."

Firstly, it was the LSE's decision to enable competition that allowed this to happen, albeit evidence of client support for this must have existed. Secondly, UBS are doing this for financial reasons rather than on altruisic grounds for the "good of the market". Perhaps UBS should now be using its' market clout to insist that other markets, including Switzerland and Germany, follow suit.

Labels: Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation, LCH, London Stock Exchange, LSE, UBS

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Steve Eisman of Front Point Partners called "spoof" on CDOs Tuesday, December 02, 2008

Image by Getty Images via DaylifeMotleyFool has an interesting piece with Michael Lewis (Liars Poker fame), who talks about the huge sums Steve Eisman made for his funds by spotting the lunacy surrounding certain Collateralised Debt Obligations [CDOs] as well as Mortgage Backed Securities [MBS] and shorting them via credit default swaps. In essence, he paid a small annual premium to an investment bank as insurance against these instruments defaulting, in the expectation that they would collapse. Once these assets began to implode, the price of the CDS protection rocketed and he was able to profit, without evening having to wait for default to occur.

In the piece, Lewis recounts that

"Eisman called S&P, the ratings agency, and said, Look, I know you are rating these things AAA, and your model says they are AAA, but what happens if real estate prices go down? And the guys says, Actually there is no place in their model to put a negative number. I can't tell you what happens when real estate prices go down."

So much for stress testing.

Labels: CDS, Collateralised debt obligation, MBS, Standard and Poor

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London Scottish Bank closes Monday, December 01, 2008

Over the weekend, London Scottish Bank was forced to close as it no longer met the FSA's threshold conditions for authorisation.

The Government has announced that no depositors will lose any money regardless of the size of their deposits, including those over the deposit protection threshold.

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Labels: Deposit Protection Scheme, Financial Services Authority

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Mortage backed securities are toxic

Image by Getty Images via DaylifeI'm catching up on some of the "View from the Market" videos on FT.com and just watched one featuring Chris Flanagan, who is Head of Asset-Backed research at JP Morgan.

In his first video he affirms that virtually every mortage-backed security could be classified as toxic or distressed. Prices on the triple A part of the capital structures are down to 30, 40, 50 cents on the dollar. A huge proportion of the asset-backed investor base, anywhere from 65% to 75%, is gone from the market which combined with continuing losses on mortgages is placing major downward pressure on MBS prices.

Yikes.

In a second video, he is very negative on any asset backed security that is not government backed. In his view banks holding other than government backed securities are essentially stuck with them on their balance sheet.

It's rare to find so candid a set of responses in an interview of this sort and he makes no attempt to gloss over or play-down the situation faced.

Labels: jp morgan

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Is VOIP service EQO going off air?

Image by via CrunchBaseAlthough I've recently been using Nimbuzz on my Blackberry as my IM aggregator application because of its' inclusion of skype amongst the networks it covers, I have retained EQO as well. Whilst it performs a similar service to Nimbuzz, I much prefer the EQO interface and its superior usability.

Sadly it appears that EQO may be about to shutdown if reports on GigaOM and Techvibes are true. Having raised $13m in VC funding, it was apparently under pressure to find a buyer for the company but seemingly hasn't been successful.

I previously blogged about my use of EQO here.

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Labels: blackberry, EQO, Nimbuzz. IM

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One law for one Saturday, November 29, 2008

The arrest of Damian Green MP raises many significant questions, but one wonders whether the same matters of principle regarding leaks will be applied to HM Treasury and its' Ministers.

Much of the Pre-Budget Report's contents were leaked in the weekend press ahead of Darling's speech. Reasonably to be considered price sensitive information eg Government forecasts affect share and gilt prices, these leaks surely warrant investigation on a similar basis as immigration figures.

Or are there "good" leaks and "bad" ones?

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Recycled waste piles up

The economic downturn has apparently led to a big drop in demand for recycled materials such as used paper, plastic and aluminum.

The Telegraph reports today that Councils are being forced to store collected recycling materials that they can't sell on. As a result some Councils are abandoning recycling collections and withdrawing drop-off points.

At a time when enthusiasm for recycling is high and Councils have been set targets by Government, the market collapse will sadly undermine environmentally-friendly efforts.

Whilst fiscal subsidies to encourage use of recycled material could be introduced, they would be costly at a time of ballooning Government debt. Moreover, most consumption of such materials has been in China, so domestic UK subsidy would be ineffective.

Alternatively, the Government could tax non-recycled items (or those without a min recycled element e.g. 30% of packaging) to incentivise the market, under a green tax heading. Whilst fraught with compliance complications and possible unexpected outcomes, it may be essential to achieve environmental targets and reduce stockpiles.

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Wheels coming off at Porsche? Friday, November 28, 2008

Image via WikipediaPorsche on Wednesday said revenues had plunged 15 per cent in the past four months and expected revenues in the four months to the end of November to come in below €2bn ($2.6bn). It expected unit sales to fall 18 per cent in the same period.

Fortunately, it has made considerable sums from share dealing practices in VW shares that would be considered market abuse in the UK, but which apparently are perfectly acceptable in Germany. The results of this were to impose considerable losses on hedge funds, albeit it is unclear how many were forced to close as a consequence.

Is it surprising that hedge fund managers can no longer afford to buy Porsche cars as a consequence?

Labels: markets, Porsche, Stock market, Volkswagen

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Free online Karoke "takes my breath away"

If you happen to be cutting back on evenings out, in favour of home entertaining, you may want to check out Lucky Voice, which provides a free online Karoke service i.e. there's no "money, money, money" involved.

It has a large collection of songs to choose from and even has "social" features on top e.g. photo sharing and favourite song lists you can share with friends.

Great idea, [but not recommended during office hours].

Labels: karoke, Song

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MFI - Gordon Brown considers a rescue

Image via WikipediaExcellent one-liner from Rory Bremner at the Insitute of Directors Dinner this week, when he suggested that Gordon Brown, the UK Prime Minister, might be tempted to rescue MFI in case he needed a new cabinet.

Labels: Gordon Brown, humour, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Rory Bremner

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Ontario carpooling restrictions - Wednesday, November 12, 2008

You can only gasp in amazement at the story here about the ruling handed out by an Ontario court to a web start-up designed to assist people to carpool.

No matter that Ontario allegedly wants to encourage carpooling on environmental grounds, it seems the transport companies who were behind the action think that making carpooling harder for people will shift them out of their cars onto public transport.

The PickupPal blog sets out the Ontario restrictions, which brought them into Court:

The only way you can ride with someone is if you meet ALL of the following extremely impractical set of specific criteria:

• You must travel from home to work only – (Not Home to School, or Home to the Hospital or the Airport)
• You cannot cross municipal boundaries – (Live outside the city and drive in – sorry you cannot share the ride with your neighbour)
• You must ride with the same driver each day – (Want to mix it up go with one person one day and another person another day – no sorry cannot do that – must be same person each day)
• You must pay the driver no more frequently than weekly – (Neighbour drives you to work better not pay her right away just in case she drives you later on in the week)

Unbelievable.

However, it appears even the Ontario Govt recognise the lunacy of the situation and appear to have begun the process of changing the rules.

Sadly services like this don't eliminate the concerns people have about accepting a lift from strangers, which is probably the biggest deterrent to greater take-up.

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Labels: Carpool

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TinyTwitter - An excellent Twitter app for the phone

Image via CrunchBaseDespite my failure to become a Twitter cult follower, a number of friends from the blogging and tech world have repeatedly nudged me to have another try.

However, each time I've tried to play with Twitter, a technology barrier impeded me. Having a blackberry, I tended to use email to interact with Twitter when on the move [avoided SMS costs!]. However, the service I began by using simply died one day [Emailtwitter]. Thereafter, several people recommended Twitterberry but having installed it, I simply couldn't get it to work on my Blackberry 8800 for inexplicable reasons.

Finally I was pointed in the direction of Tinytwitter, and if you are both a Blackberry user and Twitter fan then I recommend it. It installed easily and worked immediately. It seems very compressive and its' ease of use did encourage me to post. It's still very early days and I confess I still haven't got the Twitter bug, but maybe I'll have an epiphany sometime soon.

My Twitter id is johndwilson

Labels: blackberry, twitter

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vLingo - excellent Blackberry app [with unlimited data plan]

Image via WikipediaHaving seen references to Vlingo, which claimed to give BlackBerry smartphone users control over mobile information and tasks with the power of their voice, I thought I would give it a try whilst they were running a UK beta.

It was easy to install the application and it did work very well on my Blackberry 8800, with a reasonably good accuracy rate on speech to text and in following standard commands.

However, to use this service you really need to be on an unlimited data plan, as it appears that every translation involves interaction with the server across a data connection. Whilst this is understandable, I'm speculating that this will be a data hungry process [no evidence either way].

As I'm fairly quick at typing on a Blackberry , so the imperative for the application is less than it might be. However, the convenience of initiating calls, emails, sms and text entry was appealing and it quickly became something I adopted, albeit briefly. If only T-mobile UK offered an unlimited data plan, [and one that was reasonably priced], I would certainly continue to use the application. As it is, the data costs are likely to be too prohibitive relative to the value I derive.

Presently the application is free and I see from their web site that they have enabled Yahoo search within the application, which may well be generating some referral fees for the company.

Labels: blackberry, Smartphone, Speech recognition, t-mobile

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The end of SWX Europe

Many years ago, I was involved during the early stages of a fledgling Recognised Investment Exchange in the UK called Tradepoint. The model it operated was revolutionary and addressed many of the flaws in the LSE operated model of the day.

They introduced the notion of clearing and a central counterparty to the UK equity market, using LCH as the operator of the arrangements. This was quite radical, monetising for the first time the inherent counterparty and market risks that went with current trading and settlement practices. Pre and post trade anonymity were side-effects of this structure and its' operation was underpinned by a reliance on electronic trading. Unfortunately, things that are now taken for granted were shunned by a market participants of the day who were happier with the status quo, prefering to ignore the risks, as well as remain inefficient.

Tradepoint had been launched with the backing of several banks, but who significantly avoided having to commit flow/liquidity to the new Exchange. As a consequence, despite being cost efficient thanks to its' technology, trading volumes were pitifully low and so it struggled in financial and credibility terms. In 1999, the business was re-financed and re-launched by a new consortium including Instinet. However, in 2000, amidst a backdrop of European Exchanges mergers & acquisitions, the Swiss Exchange bought Tradepoint and subsequently renamed it Virt-X.

In 2003, the business was finally forced to re-focuss its' efforts on the Group's key offering around Swiss stocks. Sadly, the Swiss Group this week announced the closure of SWX Europe, as the business became known.

Interesting there are many parallels between Laker Airways and today's low-cost airlines, and the link between Tradepoint and today's Multilateral Trading Facilities ["MTF"] such as Chi-X, Turquoise and BATS. Both were ahead of their time and sadly neither benefited from the revolution they foresaw.

I shall fondly remember "Tradepoint" and the contribution it made.

Labels: Chi-X, London Stock Exchange, LSE, MTF, Stock exchange

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An astonishing pension u-turn.

Image via WikipediaThe current economic downturn is forcing business to look at all options for weathering the downturn, including corporate restructuring. However, many companies and potential acquirers of companies face the challenge of fully funding pension scheme liabilities under "Section 75" if they wish to enact changes that may imperil schems.

Introduced in 2004, it directly tackled a loophole highlighted by Maersk, the Danish shipping line, which tried to walk away from the pension liabilities of its UK subsidiary even though it remained solvent. The scenario at the time was one of plunging stock markets and falling bond yields unmasked which created huge pension deficits that were transparent to investors. Unsurprisingly, companies sought to restructure to avoid their pension responsibility and, at the time, it was estimated that about 125,000 UK pension scheme members had been affected by such moves.

Now in a bizarre about-turn by the UK Government, at a time when pension deficits are to balloon again after huge falls in stock markets, the Pensions Minister has announced a consultation process with a view to watering down the scheme. It apparently reflects concerns that Section 75 is impeding "necessary" restructuring.

For clarity, I do have considerable sympathy with companies who are impeded from introducing restructuring measures on the basis that they simply cannot fund deficits at this time - corporate borrowing is difficult enough right now, and so to be forced to use scarce funding for "non-business" purposes is a massive issue. Moreover, since Section 75 was introduced, there have been a number of examples of high profile takeovers that have fallen through because of the need to fund a pension deficit upfront e.g. Sainsbury's.

Similarly I recognise the difficult balance that exists between allowing companies to implement measures to keep a company afloat to the benefit of current stakeholders and the protection that needs to be afforded to current and future pensioners.

Nonetheless, I'd be astounded if Unions don't express their fury at such a move and it will be an interesting spectacle to see the Government defending any weakening in employee protection at a time when workers are increasingly fearful about their jobs.

Worryingly, if measures did backfire and companies exploited any changes to the detriment of pensioners as is likely, it may actually lead to more Pension schemes having to turn for funding to the Pension Protection Fund, which is funded by pension schemes via a levy.

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Labels: Pension, Pension Protection Fund

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Recycling in London - a winner Tuesday, November 11, 2008

The UK Government has announced the winner of a competition designed to find better ways that the Government could make public data available. "Show us a better way" selected 5 ideas including one which has resulted in the website "Recycle for London", which highlights places in London you can recycle and opportunities to increase your recycling.

It provides useful details about local services including opening times and materials that can be recycled.

Sadly the site seems wedded to London Borough boundaries, highlighting services that may be on the far side of your borough rather than closer ones which may cross a border into the neighbouring borough. This may be at the insistence of the Councils themselves who only want to bear the cost of their own ratepayers, or it could be poor site design. Either way, it seems at odds with energy efficiency considerations.

Full details of the competition winners were reproduced from the official site were

Ideas where we hope to create a fully working tool

• Can I Recycle It?
• UK Cycling
• Catchment Areas
• Location of Postboxes
• Loofinder

Ideas where we will develop the idea further

• Road Works API
• Oldienet
• Free Legal Web
• Allotment Manager,
• Where Does My Money Go

Prototypes we will be funding to be developed further

• UK School Maps (showing where the UK’s schools are - building on data released for the competition by the Department for Children, Schools and Families);
• School Guru, which helps determine whether your child could get into a school (in Hertfordshire only at present);
• Where’s the Path, with an Ordnance Survey map and Google Maps satellite picture of any spot; and
• UK Wreck Map, showing the location of undersea wrecks around Britain’s coast.

The fabulous thing is how the public's efforts can
- identify great ideas at little or no cost via crowdsourcing
- build useful solutions provided the data is made available from the closed data stores held by Govt at no cost

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Labels: Google Map, London Borough, Ordnance Survey, UK Government

posted by John Wilson @ 9:46 AM Permanent Link ,

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Viewdle - Finding faces in the news

Viewdle is could be considered yet another facial recognition software offering that claims to be able to identify individuals in video for the purposes of searching and index such output. What differentiates it, is that Reuters is seemingly making use of its' capabilities to index their video output as illustrated here, which you can try out on their video archive.

This is an important area of technology given how much information is buried in newsreels as well as increasingly in video clips, and which would take considerable human effort to properly index. More significantly, this service claims to operate in real-time. This type of service would ideally benefit from being combined with a) a speech recognition engine that could also capture transcribe the audio in order to make it indexable/searchable; and b) an alerting mechanism that could notify you if relevant people/terms had been found in videos or on live tv.

Labels: Facial recognition system, Reuters, Speech recognition, Video clip, Viewdle

posted by John Wilson @ 9:18 AM Permanent Link ,

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Popego - An "interest platform"

Popego have tweaked an existing concept, namely that of trying to filter the noise from the web [blogs, twitter, flickr feeds, video] to hone it into a stream of things most likely to interest you. Their twist is to also apply your filters to help you find others with similar profiles.

A Techcrunch 50 finalist they are also showcasing at Le Web.

Popego automatically creates your interest profile by scanning your own digital output [blog, friendfeed, flickr, picasa, youtube......] and locating your most significant areas of interest via tags and keywords. This profile may then be finessed by increasing/decreasing the prominence of those items. Oddly, Popego only examines your shared items rather than your actual RSS subscriptions and I confess that I don't tend to use the share function.

The result of this is your own "interest feed" which serves up content that the service considers relevant to your interests.

Popego also consolidates all of your digital output for easing viewing by others and likewise allows you to view the consolidated profiles of others.

I am loathe to add to my current daily consumption of digital material but am attracted to smarter filtering of content [please filter out iPhone content!!!]. I have yet to find such a mechanism that I could overlay over Google Reader, which I am presently wedded to. Likewise I recognise it is easy to fall into a comfort zone of current sources of information rather than continually refreshing/replenishing useful sources of material.

Is this the product to satisfy that need? Sadly, I'm not convinced.

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Squareclock - 3d space planning for free Monday, November 10, 2008

I confess to being hopeless when it comes to visualising how interiors will look, be it after decoration, home improvements or with new furnishings. Hence, I've always been drawn to any store or service provider that can provide me with actual visual mock-ups of how things are expected to look, which thankfully encompasses an increasing number of stores. The fact the architect we used last year was an "old-timer" who insisted on hand drawn plans drove me nuts - changing anything on the plans involved considerable re-work rather than a simple drag'n'drop.

So, whilst it is not unique and is unlikely to be something the average consumer would use very often, Squareclock appeals to me, allowing anyone to "design" their house project for free in 3D inside their web browser and then furnish, decorate, arrange, transform it virtually with real products and services from professionals.

The service has obvious revenue potential - paid-for version of the service for designers and architects, who in turn can encourage interior furnishing companies to host their product ranges in the galleries, with the possibility down the line of Squareclock charging for "gallery space" or charging a commission on transactions perhaps placed via the site e.g. specifications could be issued and quotes received.

Meanwhile, for those considering home improvements [now that you can no longer sell your house or afford to move], this might be an ideal sketch pad to outline your ideas and create your own grand designs.

Labels: Interior design, space planning

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Zipiko - meeting friends made easy

Zipiko is a new approach to arranging meet-ups with friends that I can imagine catching on, which is showcasing at Le Web.

In concept it is very similar to Upcoming.org or even Meetup in that it is orientated around the notion of publishing events which your friends can see. The service is free [no ads spotted either] and is entirely web-hosted.

Members set up an event, detailing time and place plus comments. Thereafter friends can either be specifically invited or the event made public amongst your friends who can choose to participate in the open invite. Hence you can see events that your friends are organising and elect to opt in e.g. join your friends to watch the rugby in the pub.

I found that setting up an event was very easy and intutitive, via the simple online interface. Likewise, inviting friends was very easy. Interestingly the service currently send free SMS messages or emails to invite people, as well as notifying you of their responses.

To add friends to your account, you have the option of importing your phone contacts as well as importing contact from Gmail. Any friends you do add have to positively accept your invite to connect. I confess that didn't find either appealing since my address books co-mingle friends and business contacts. I think they should definitely be looking to add the capability to import contacts from services like Facebook, Twitter etc and you can buy code to do this off the shelf these days for less than $100.

The site claims it has been configured to be easy to use via mobile phone and a brief check on my own Blackberry phone browser did confirm this.

Connecting your events to your calendar is possible albeit only 30 Boxes appeared to be supported when I tried.

Whilst I understand that the team behind this are keen that you regularly use their site, I think the service would benefit from creating an ical feed of events from your "crowd" that could be accessible by calendar applications, with entries that link back to the Zipiko site. I say this because Gmail and Google calendar are two webapps I use constantly whereas I am initially less likely to have Zipiko open constantly. Likewise, it would be great if you could "send an calendar invite" to your own Zipiko account from say Google calendar to be added to the events list.

Worth trying when organising your next social meetup.

Labels: gmail, Google Calendar, meeting, meetup, social networks

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Bremner, Bird & Fortune do it again Sunday, November 09, 2008

I highly recommend you watch this excellent episode of Silly Money by Bremner, Bird & Fortune. 48 mins in length but well worth watching all the way through as the team discuss recent market events.

Labels: credit crunch, humour

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Porsche's cornering puts the skids on the market Friday, October 31, 2008

Image via WikipediaA tremendous amount of glee seemed to greet the news that Porsche had "outwitted" hedge fund managers and profited enormously from squeezing short sellers in VW stock.

On October 26th Porsche announced it owned nearly 43% of VW’s shares outright, up from 35% and had derivative contracts [options] on nearly 32% more. That meant it had tied up almost all of the freely available shares (the rest are held by the state government and index funds).

The car manufacturer had executed a classic squeeze by controlling a huge portion of the free float [available] stock in the market, leaving short sellers unable to borrow stock to cover their positions and thus leaving them scrambling for stock at any price to cover their positions. In doing so, VW briefly became the most "valuable" company in the world and Porsche may have made paper gains of €30 billion-40 billion according to the Economist. Not bad considering Porsche had a market value of €4 billion.

That a symbol of Germany industry pulled off such a stunt is apparently a great thing. But consider had the same strategy been executed by a hedge fund or a bank. It is inconceivable that the reaction would have been the same. Instead there would have been outpourings of hatred for a demonstrable case of market manipulation that led to great instability in the markets and undermined indices.

Astonishingly no German laws were broken, yet the concealment of such stake building is something that only this week the FSA has been praised for tackling, albeit to only a partial degree. On Thursday, the City watchdog announced existing share and contracts for difference holdings, in the same company, should be aggregated for disclosure purposes in order to address concerns in relation to voting rights and corporate influence. The existing regulations already include provision to cover disclosure of entitlements to acquire voting rights resulting from holding financial instruments, including transferable securities and options, futures, swaps, forward rate agreements and any other derivative contract referred to in Section C of Annex 1 of the Market in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID) ( as per Disclosure and Transparency Rules 5.3.2).

Hence in the UK, Porsche would have been required to disclose its' aggregate build up of an interest in VW, including the options component. As the FSA stresses, the purpose of such disclosure rules is to avoid perceived market failures.

The German regulator, Bafin, has confirmed it will investigate the events relating to the sharp movements in VW shares to establish whether there was any market manipulations. I believe that a failure by Bafin to take action, or at least redraw the rules to bring Germany's rules into line with London, will be viewed poorly in international capital markets.

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Labels: Germany, Market turmoil, Porsche, Short

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I haven't fallen into a dark pool [of shares] Thursday, October 30, 2008

It was an easy mistake for those kind enough to send me congratulations to make - but sadly I'm not the John Wilson that has just been appointed to be the CEO of Baikal, the London Stock Exchange venture which plans to launch a dark pool for pan-European equities trading.

The future of the Baikal project has been in doubt following the collapse of the LSE's former joint venture partner Lehman Brothers. Planned to launch in early 2009, Baikal was going to utilise Lehman Brothers technology.

Apparently my namesake had previously served on the executive committees for both equities and fixed income and as head of equity and fixed income research at Lehman Brothers.

Good luck John Wilson.

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Labels: Baikal, dark pool, Lehman Brothers, London Stock Exchange, LSE

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Legg Mason undone by money funds

Image via WikipediaHaving pumped $2bn into their money funds within the last 12 months, Legg Mason's share price fell 78% over the same period and in the last quarter its' assets under management have fallen by a further 9% to $842bn.

Aside from money market fund troubles, their former star equity chief Bill Miller who outperformed the market for 15 years from 1991 has seen big reversals in the last few years in his main fund, "Legg Mason Value Trust". Between Jan-Jun 2008 it fell by over 28% and its' 10 year performance to Jun 2008 was lower than the S&P500.

Legg Mason operates funds under a range of brands operated by semi-autonomous fund management subsidiaries that tend to specialise in particular asset classes e.g. Western focusses on fixed income.

The Legg Mason sales and distribution teams will have a considerable uphill struggle to maintain existing business, let alone secure new wins. Their saving grace may be their ability to push product from other brands in their stable that have performed better and which have not been "tainted" with the current problems.

Labels: Bill Miller, Legg Mason, Money fund, money funds

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IT contractors get squeezed

Following moves by RBS, Barclays, Deutsche Bank, Merrill Lynch and Nomura in demanding their IT contractors take a 10% pay-cut or lose the possibility of a contract renewal, JP Morgan has now demanded a 15% cut or else face being given notice.

In the current market, most contractors will have little choice but to agree, given the scarcity of roles available elsewhere.

Labels: JPMorgan Chase, Merrill Lynch, Royal Bank of Scotland

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MF Global throws skipper overboard Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Well it took six weeks for the coup to be completed, but MF Global finally ditched its' CEO today. Back in mid September, I wrote here about their Global COO having been jettisoned and doubting it would be enough to save Kevin Davis his job.

Bernard Dan, who led the Chicago Board of Trade for five years replaces Kevin. He joined MF Global in June as chief operating officer for North America and was promoted to global chief operating last month in place of Chris Smith before rounding off with the top job within two months.

Kevin has to be given enormous credit for building MF up from relatively nothing to a global player, ignoring the many doubters and critics along the way. He made mistakes including his late conversion to electronic broking and passing on the opportunity to pick up Instinet from Reuters on the cheap, which has since spawned Chi-X.

He was an exuberant character but ruthless with it and could be quick to judge - his dreadful handling of the hikes in margins on CFDs following the unauthorised trader loss in February was a case in point. He was a canny deal maker and acquired both Refco and GNI relatively cheaply, albeit the former proved to be his downfall since it included the unit that clocked up the unauthorised trading loss of $141m back in Feb 2008.

Kevin gets $7.5m severance to ease his pain, but will have lost considerably more than that on his share holding in the firm since it went public last year at $30 and which closed at $2.25 on Tuesday.

MF Global have also got a new Global Treasurer, David Dunne who was previously at Bear Stearns in London for 15 yrs, but who will be based in US. It's a smaller job than it once was given that $3.5bn of client funds have been withdrawn from MF since March according to JP Morgan.

Disclosure - I was previously a board director at Man Financial [which renamed itself to MF Global when it listed in July 2007].

Labels: MF Global

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Morgan Stanley injects $23bn into Money Funds

Despite the US Government underwriting US domiciled money funds, Morgan Stanley had to inject $23bn cash into its money funds in September by buying securities such as US Treasuries to cover net redemptions on the funds which totalling $46bn, which is almost a third of the $134bn in such funds.

Morgan Stanley was able to refinance the purchases through a combination of depositing the assets with the Federal Reserve and via sales in the open market.

This action was to avoid the funds "breaking the buck", given the wave of redemptions which would have required liquidation of assets held by the funds in a climate of volatile prices.

I anticipate redemption levels will have been greatly reduced in October with the introduction of the Government guarantee that offers unlimited protection to investors in funds that have subscribed to the scheme. However, I also believe firms will still top-up funds to avoid breaking the buck, despite the scheme, given the reputational harm that would result from having to call on the guarantee scheme.

Presently, the regulatory capital requirement for fund management firms tends to be relatively low. The actions of firms in topping up funds may well prompt a review of whether their capital base is adequate to meet such reputational commitments, regardless of the actual legal wording that firms have no legal obligations to funds.

Labels: Federal Reserve, Money fund, money funds, Morgan Stanley

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A free conference without authority or community is a vacuum Thursday, October 23, 2008

Following my post here on a free conference I attended in the City of London last week which failed to pull much of an audience, I was contacted by someone at Fix Protocol who had read the piece and shared their own experiences. They gave me their permission to republish the email, which raised some interesting matters.

I read with interest the submission you had written about city conferences in the current climate and I would like to share with you some of my thoughts.

Your submission raised some very interesting and valuable points and as a not-for-profit organisation that is heavily focused on education, the formulation of events that enable us to communicate the issues, challenges and opportunities presented by electronic trading and use of the FIX Protocol are central to the effective delivery of this information to the financial community.

Last week FPL hosted two events in London and due to recent market developments we were nervous that this would cause us to struggle from an attendance perspective, however our fears proved unfounded. On Tuesday evening we hosted the Quarterly FPL EMEA Meeting which typically attracts 50-80 representatives from the FPL membership, including buy-side, sell-side, exchange/ECN and vendor participants. The meeting included a panel session entitled ‘The European Trading Environment: Can it Meet the Challenges of Current Market Conditions’ and was followed by networking drinks. This event attracted over 100 registrants and in the end we had to turn people away who wanted to register due to the space available, and on the evening we had 71 delegates attend. Additionally, on Wednesday we hosted a FIX Beyond Equities Briefing from 9am-2:30pm which explored the support offered by the protocol within the Fixed Income, Foreign Exchange and Derivatives space and we had 107 people attend which was great, as in planning the event we were hoping to achieve delegate numbers of approximately 80!

Further to this, on October 8^th FPL held the FPL Japan Electronic Trading Conference in Tokyo which successfully attracted just over 500 delegates on the day. Still to come this year we have the China FIX Conference which will take place tomorrow and the annual FPL Americas Electronic Trading Conference in November, which in 2007 sold out completely and with an agenda that really focuses on the key issues impacting this market, it looks like it will be a great event yet again.

The one pattern that we have noticed is that with events at present expected numbers are a little lower than normal up until 10-14 days before the event, but within the last few days interest soars. Hence, what we are witnessing as an organisation is that market conditions are impacting people’s ability to plan to attend events in advance but so far from an FPL perspective they have not impacted numbers on the day.

Daniella Baker, FPL Marketing and Communications Manager www.fixprotocol.org

Firstly, I was delighted to hear FPL is still attracting good sized crowds to its' events. Having been involved with the European Marketing Group for the Fix Protocol some years ago, I know how hard the volunteers in the community work to promote the use of the "open source" message protocol and to stage events to inform, educate and debate on matters relating to Fix.

Based on Daniella's comments, I gave some thought as to why these events might be more succesful than others:
- Evening events outside of work. I'd expect these to do better as people will find it easier to attend outside of work and even if they do cut into the end of the work day, you can demonstrate your giving up some of your own time as well.
- Having been on the European Marketing Group several years ago, my experience was that FPL events have greater authority than similar commercial events and are more justifiable at work.
- FPL represents a community and whilst there are many motives at play for participating in the community [as with any such organisation], people tend to relegate their personal agendas because its' socially unacceptable i.e. FPL member peer pressure tends to eliminate corporate self-promotion and plugging one's own firm. I find the reverse happens at commercial events, especially when speakers have had to pay [directly or indirectly via sponsorship] to speak.
- The community aspect tends to make events more practically focussed e.g. how you can do "X" because the agenda's are put together by members rather than by professional conference organisers with no direct experience
- Speakers tend to be better at the community events because people are often more willing to speak at such events where no one is making "a buck", because they have gotten something out of past events or recognise the benefits the community brings
- Attendance at an FPL "community" event is a less haphazard mingling occasion and a good catch up opportunity with industry peers, in contrast to one-off conferences.

I think these matters are true of many community run events e.g. Barcamps or Open Source groups and will be why they succeed when commercial rivals do less well.

Labels: conferences, FIX Protocol, fixtures

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Hurrah - Gmail now supports autoresponders Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Image via CrunchBaseFinally, Gmail have announced a Labs feature which enables you to create email autoresponders. Entitled "canned responses", you can create email templates that can be used manually i.e. select email template to reply, or in combination with Gmail filters to autorespond to emails e.g. out of office

Up until now, only vacation autoresponders were provided within Gmail, so this is an excellent improvement.

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Labels: gmail

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DTCC buys their way into Europe

After many years of fruitless toil in Europe [read London], DTCC has evidently decided to rapidly accelerate Diana Chan's attempt to build a clearing business for DTCC in Europe and is to buy LCH.Clearnet for €739 million. The announcement is here.

EuroCCP, DTCC's European subsidiary, had won business from Turquoise but in taking over one of the major European players, DTCC has instantly vaulted up the central counterparty league table in Europe. Interestingly, the existing LCH CEO, Roger Liddell whom I briefly worked with at Goldman, will be the CEO of the new combined European entity ["LCH.Clearnet HoldCo"].

Roger was made Head of Global Operations at Goldman Sachs in 2000. He was responsible for all businesses including equities, fixed income, foreign exchange, derivatives, commodities, asset management, prime brokerage and private wealth management. He is already very well known to DTCC as a consequence.

Where this leaves Diana Chan and her experienced COO, Trevor Spanner, is presently unclear.

I suspect that the combined entity in Europe will simply adopt LCH's systems, requiring Turquoise to migrate platforms. The larger question is to what extent DTCC will embark on the ambitious project to integrate the European infrastructure with the domestic US infrastructure.

Labels: CCP, Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation, DTCC, LCH

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The greatest football match ever? Friday, October 17, 2008

Image via WikipediaWest Bromwich Albion go to Man Utd tomorrow with little hope of winning, but Hull have proved that sometimes Giants can fall in the Premier League.

It's been a long time since West Brom won at Old Trafford but one such win was the game below that still lives in the memory of many - even considered one of the best games ever by the Daily Mail, when West Brom pulled off an astonishing 3-5 win in the magical era of 1978. Ron Atkinson was West Brom Manager and Cyrille Regis and Laurie Cunningham were in devastating form, with Bryan Robson just emerging as a great player.

Labels: Manchester United F.C., Old Trafford, Premier League, Ron Atkinson, WBA, west brom, West Bromwich Albion F.C.

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Former Lehman staffer tells it how it is

A heartbreaking story of a former master of the universe coping with life after Lehman - gotta love it.



Brilliant satire.

Hat tip to The Big Picture.

Labels: humour, lehman, Lehman Brothers

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Excellent interview with Jon Stewart of the Daily Show

Image by elkit via FlickrWhilst not a regular nightly viewer of the show, I always enjoy watching episodes of the Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Despite being US centric, its' portrayal of events provides a welcome alternative take from traditional news outlets and in a manner that makes telling points via a humorous delivery. People often soften a [non-physical] blow with humour but in the case of the Daily Show, it amplifies the point.

I happened to stumble across an excellent interview conducted by Bill Moyers, a highly regarded US TV journalist, with Jon Stewart which I recommend you watch here. Thirty minutes long, I found it to be fascinating viewing and worth setting time aside for.

Labels: Bill Moyers, Comedy Central, Daily Show, Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert

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Even a free City conference can't pull an audience Thursday, October 16, 2008

Image via WikipediaFinextra has run a conference in the City of London for a number of years, which has been free to elligible City folk and funded by sponsors and exhibitors.

Expensive conferences have been an early casualty of City cutbacks, so you'd expect a free conference to attract an audience desperate to network and hear words of wisdom about the turmoil.

Evidently not - the event only attracted about 50 people, considerably down on previous years. I heard a number of reasons cited

- free event is perceived as "low quality/value" (no reason for this to be true)

- quality of speaker line-up was diminished by large number of vendor presentations (true)

- past experience of the event was poor

- topic too narrow (execution management with an equity emphasis)

Yet the most notable reason I discerned was that all firms are under considerable stress, leaving little scope for people to "wander" along to events. Equally significant was that even if they could attend, people didn't do so because they didn't want to highlight that they had time to do so in case that made them vulnerable with job losses looming.

Heads down everyone.

Labels: City of London

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Leaving the trading screens to look at Gold [Silver & Bronze too]

The GB Olympic and Paralympic teams from Beijing will be parading through London today. It sets off from outside the Mansion House [Bank tube station] at 11am and makes its' way to Trafalgar Square via the route shown on the map below.


Details of the parade timings may be found here and travel details are here. Perhaps this will cheer folks in the City up, albeit for only a hour or so.

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Labels: 2008 Summer Olympics, olympics

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Fidelity's Anthony Bolton - What's a SIV? Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Writing an opinion piece for Hargreaves Landsdown, the legendary UK fund manager, made the following claim

"In nearly four decades of investment, I had never come across SIVs - special investment vehicles - until the past 12 months."

Now that sort of ignorance is worrying given he was someone who was running one of the largest UK investment funds for over 10 years.

Labels: fidelity, fund management, siv

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We7 - from Butterfly to Caterpillar Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Image via CrunchBaseI haven't logged in We7, the music site for over 9 months but was prompted to today when I received an email from the service advising that they were dramatically changing their model.

Their initial offering worked as follows

• from their [very limited] catalogue you could legally download tracks for free
• adverts were appended to the downloaded tracks which generated revenue for We7 which was shared with artists. The adverts automatically dissolved after 28 days or so many plays, leaving you with a pristine, legal download for free

The economics were simple - advertisers got to directly place their message at a targeted audience, assured that their ads couldn't be avoided; artists got paid; customers got free music with the minor inconvenience of hearing ads for a short time.

Evidently their dealings with the large record labels has forced a re-working of the service with the consequence that the site emphasis is now on free streaming of specific tracks you choose, with adverts appended.

• Only a small proportion of tracks can now be downloaded, a capability restricted to UK users, and the ads are permanently appended as a pre-roll
  
• You can save up to 60 tracks per playlist
• Heavy emphasis is on encouraging you to buy tracks via iTunes or direct from We7
  
• Massively expanded catalogue
  

Only a small proportion of tracks appear to be available for download and this seems to excludes recent releases from major artists.

This is a dramatic reversal of approach, which I think is a retrograde move, and whilst always being online to access streamed content is increasingly possible thanks to a combination of broadband and "all you can eat" mobile data plans, there remains a large proportion of the population who

• are wedded to their mp3 players, most of which lack streaming capability [iPhone being a notable exception] and which We7's restyled offering no longer serves
  
• don't have unlimited mobile data plans via which to stream music whilst on the move
  

Where I do see that We7 has the edge over services like Finetune, Pandora and Last.fm, which are similar streaming services, is that you actually get to select the songs that you want to listen to in full, rather than samples or "stations". Whilst We7 lacks the "discovery" element that something like Pandora offers, the ability to listen to any track for free online means that exploring new tracks and artists isn't impeded in anyway. Of course, if you live outside of the US, you are presently barred from directly listening to Pandora thanks to licensing restrictions.

If you spend much time online or have unlimited broadband access at home and enjoy listening to music, I think that We7 is definitely worth adding to your bookmarks. Meantime, I hope they will be able to find a way for their original model to re-emerge.

Labels: itunes, last.fm, music, pandora

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City employment levels to be decimated Monday, October 13, 2008

According to a forecast from the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR), financial firms in the City of London are set to cut 62,000 by the end of next year, taking employment back to levels last seen in 1998 falling from 353,000 in 2007 to 325,000 in 2008 and 291,000 in 2009.

It suggests that

• worst hit sector over the next two years will be corporate finance, which is likely to lose half of its 15,000 employees
• employment in derivatives will fall 46% over the next two years
• legal and professional services, insurance, fund management, securities and equities sectors will all see headcounts cut by 10% to 20%

Any suggestions for a retraining course I can take?

Labels: credit crunch, Market turmoil

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Are Banks commiting to unwise lending practices?

RBS, LloydsTSB and HBOS have all committed to maintain the availability of SME and mortgage lending at least at 2007 levels as part of the Government share scheme, agreed over the weekend.

This implies a considerable expansion of lending over current levels, which has to be considered precarious entering a recession. Whilst lending criteria might be tightened i.e. Loan to Value ratio is going to be less than 95% etc, it is hardly going to improve the bad debt prospects for the banks. Moreover given that this is now an explicit lending target, lending policies and rates will have to be adjusted to ensure it is met.

Obviously the Government is keen to ensure that the economy remains primed with access to credit but does LloydsTSB+HBOS really need to add to its' existing property market exposure. It may be politically expedient, but is it really good for new shareholders i.e. Us.

Labels: HBOS, Lloyds TSB, mortgages, RBS

posted by John Wilson @ 9:38 AM Permanent Link ,

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HM Treasury get Buffett-style terms from the Banks

Extract from LloydsTSB regulatory news announcement this morning

HM Treasury will subscribe for £1.0 billion of Lloyds TSB preference shares. The preference shares will carry an annual coupon of 12% (non tax deductible), and will be callable after a period of five years.

Under the terms of the preference shares, the enlarged Group will be precluded from paying a cash dividend on its ordinary shares whilst any of the preference shares remain outstanding.

Not cheap financing for a Group that only two weeks ago was insisting it was in decent shape.

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Labels: credit crunch, HBOS, Lloyds TSB, Market turmoil

posted by John Wilson @ 9:30 AM Permanent Link ,

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Which is worse - market crash or divorce Saturday, October 11, 2008

Great quote on Paul Kedrosky's blog today

"This is market is worse than a divorce. I've lost half my net worth, yet I still have my wife."

Labels: humour

posted by John Wilson @ 9:02 AM Permanent Link ,

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Market collapse caption time Friday, October 10, 2008

I saw the above photo on Mashable under the heading of Financial Crisis in pictures. As you'll guess, most of the pictures involvement people looking bewildered or crestfallen.

But when I saw the one above I immediately thought of the guy in the picture saying....

"Hey, who shorted my hair?"



Your turn. The prize for the best entry is 20 Dec Kaupthing Calls at a strike of £10. Closing date 17 October 2008.

Labels: humour

posted by John Wilson @ 7:17 PM Permanent Link ,

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Economic war between UK and Iceland Thursday, October 09, 2008

Image via WikipediaFollowing the collapse of Iceland's banking sector, the impact on the UK will have come as a considerable surprise to many. Yet the Icelandic banks have been aggressive players in the market for deposit and loans, as evidenced by the large number of depositors and borrowers affected.

The £1bn of deposits placed with Icelandic banks by Local Authorities, now at risk, will widen the pain across the UK via its' impact on local services. Similarly, many Charities will find themselves constrained because of their exposures.

Gordon Brown insists that Iceland has acted illegally with regard to failing to honour its deposit protection scheme and consequently has initiated measures to seize Icelandic assets.

This marks a dramatic escalation in events which will leave a deep scar on international relations. Notably, the UK actions will give a number of international companies operating in the UK cause for thought about emerging political risks, which they have probably never had to do before.

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