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.

Mar 18, 2011

I’ve ranted previously about people calling things “flash crashes” that don’t deserve the name. Fat fingers; gunning stops; these things aren’t a patch on the original flash crash. But what happened in USDJPY two days ago, in the witching hour between the Wednesday session in New York and the Thursday session in Singapore - that was worthy of being called a flash crash. The least liquid time of day in the FX markets is after 5pm in New York: the NYC traders are in the pub; the Sydney traders are still waiting for their first cup of coffee to kick in; and the Tokyo and Singapore traders (except for a few dedicated souls) aren’t at their desks yet.

Feb 27, 2011

In 2007, Singapore’s stock exchange started enthusiastically pitching for Chinese SMEs to list on the SGX. Since then, an astoundingly large number of these so-called “S-Chips” have been embroiled in accounting scandals - mostly involving missing cash or fraudulent transactions in the Chinese operating subsidiaries. Just this week, another two companies have admitted to “accounting irregularities”: sportswear maker China Hongxing (whose shares were suspended on Friday after tanking from 15.5c to 11.

Dec 29, 2010

I ranted a few weeks ago about an egregious structured deposit from UOB - a trade that locked aunty-and-uncle customers in for six years, mysteriously linked their returns to a 2y5y SGD swap curve steepener, and had worse returns than a term deposit down the street at ICICI bank. They’ve outdone themselves now, though, launching a product that’s doesn’t just give worse returns than a time deposit - it gives worse returns than a Singapore government bond.

Nov 13, 2010

“The joy of giving continues at UOB”, shouted the flier that Singapore’s second-largest bank stuffed through my letterbox earlier this week. It was a Christmas-themed advertisement for their latest structured deposit, the UOB Principal Guaranteed Structured Deposit: Growth Deposit - Series (11) - brackets and italics in original. “Enjoy 7.5% Total Guaranteed Minimum Interest!” it blared, and you might think that was pretty great. But if you look in the fine print (which takes up two-thirds of the page), you’ll see it’s not a 7.