Nov 20, 2011

Steven Levitt, author of Freakonomics, gave a talk in Singapore last month - and he had some interesting things to say in the Q&A session about the country’s casino gambling policy. When asked by a member of the (mostly civil-servant-trainee) crowd what he thought of Singapore’s casino entry fee system, he pointed out one potentially major flaw - the $100-per-entry fee for Singaporean citizens might actually increase gambling losses, because if you pay $100 to get in, you’re going to want to feel like you’re getting value for money.

Aug 5, 2011

Josh Brown’s article from yesterday on the “ETF Singularity” is a winner. …we now have Concrete ETFs, Rare Earths ETFs, Global Aquaculture (Fishing!) ETFs, ETFs that hold only metals that are the color white (look it up – WITE, I kid you not)… We need to make an ETF of all the loony swap-based ETFs that have been launched over the last few years. And we could call it the World’s Traded Fund, so its ticker symbol would be WTF!

Jul 29, 2011

The price of COEs - Certificates of Entitlement, the piece of paper that allows you to buy a car in Singapore - has reached new 14-year highs. The COE for cars with engines larger than 1.6 litres - so, basically, any car that doesn’t suck - now costs $72,500 over and above the 105% tax on cars and the cost of the car itself. (The last time COEs cost this much was just before the 1998 Asian crisis; I’m not saying history repeats, but it occasionally rhymes.

May 20, 2011

(Note for the humour-impaired: this post is not investment advice; this post is comedy. Carry on.) As you should all know from extensive news coverage, the Rapture will arrive at 6pm on Saturday, and God will take all of his chosen people up to heaven for the least alcoholic Saturday night ever. Those who choose to turn away from him, however, will be left on earth for six months of unrelenting torment (and Facebook-organised looting - 455,518 people attending!

Apr 9, 2011

Even if you read nothing else this weekend, you must read John Hempton’s incendiary takedown of the SGX’s thwarted merger with the ASX. All I’ll add is that he’s absolutely right. Those dodgy S-chip listings that sucked up so much of Singaporean investors’ money in the mid-to-late-2000s (they were handing out prospectuses in Raffles Place as late as early 2008) are now collapsing or being suspended at the rate of one or two a fortnight.