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.

Oct 24, 2010

Singapore has, according to estimates, about thirty thousand real estate agents in a city of five million people. Or had, until last Friday night. I was on my thirty-somethingth Hendricks and tonic when the clock rolled over from Friday to Saturday, and I completely missed the moment when more than twenty thousand real estate agents… disappeared. From Channel News Asia (Singapore’s own 24-hour news network, which combines the impartiality of Fox News, the production values of early-eighties CNN, and the nose for journalism of CNTV):

Aug 24, 2010

17:55 to go, Singapore: Takeoff. Singapore shrouded in low cloud, as per usual. 17:45 to go, Johor Bahru: seatbelt sign off. Bust out my half-finished copy of The Rational Optimist. 15:15, Thailand: take a break from reading. Matt Ridley was a terrible bank manager, but he’s a brilliant science writer. Good to see he’s decided to stick to his doctrine of specialization and trade. 15:14: leaf through inflight duty-free catalog. What on earth is a Lancome Duo Virtuose Precious Cells and why does it sound like something pilfered from a Genentech lab?

Jul 1, 2010

Back in the seventies, a German bank named Herstatt Bank earned an ignominious place in history. It opened for business one sunny summer’s day, and halfway through the day, it settled some of its outstanding FX transactions by taking in a whole bunch of Deutschmarks - the idea being that later in the day, when its US clearing bank opened for business, it would pay out the US dollars that were on the opposite side of those dollar-mark trades.

May 2, 2010

On March 2nd, 2000 - less than a week before the Nasdaq Composite index hit its all-time peak - network equipment maker 3Com spun off its Palm mobile-devices division in a blaze of tech-bubble-fuelled glory. The IPO was originally priced at $14-16 per share, then revised sharply higher to $32-36, then finally priced at $38 - and when it hit the boards, the tech stock frenzy kicked in. Palm stock began its first day of trading at $145.