Tuesday, November 25, 2008

His Highness

Was this a comedy or some James Bond persiflage?

CNBC: Prince Alwaleed: 'Full Confidence' in Citi CEO Pandit

Monday, November 10, 2008

Money Talks

CHF 12 million returned by Peter Wuffli, which says: "I fucked up hugely". Respect for such a statement. It doesn't have to be the Japanese solution (harakiri:). But at times it is nice to hear that someone made a mistake. Not like Mr. Meritocracy Ospel saying good by with the words "UBS is well setup for the future", before going silence. On the other hand, if Mr. Grübel would actually have the dignity to also shut up, that would be also something.

Sunday, November 02, 2008

Jim Rogers With Swiss Gold

Saw him in Zurich in the congress hall a day before he gave this video interview:
Jim Rogers on Bloomberg (10/24/08)
There he also proudly showed his gold coins purchased (for his daughters) that same day at the Zurich Bahnhofstrasse.

The video is only 10 minutes but well worth to watch. Other stuff he mentioned in Zurich was:
- He owns three Swiss bank accounts (his daughters own accounts as well, thought he pays his US taxes on them, again, so do his daughters:).
- He is long the CHF, as it has always been a currency of stability. Thought he is worried with the latest bank bailout of the Swiss National Bank. The other reason to be long is the unraveling of the CHF carry trades (similar to the JPY). Thought if the SNB keeps doing "mistakes", he will be out again. He is now worried for the first time in his life about the CHF.
- Commodities should bottom out and be rising again before the stock market. He had a nice chart depicting the 1930s comparing commodities and stock prices.
- Be long aggriculture (as mentioned in the video as no one likes being a farmer anymore).
- Taiwan is hot, as there is now "peace" for the first time (in his book) with China, and combining the Chinese labour market and production capabilities with the Taiwanese capital strength and technological knowhow will be a magical setup.
- Chinese stock market is down 70% and he started buying more (water, food, electricity). He didn't sell his holdings before but was long already for a couple of years.
- He owns a little ABB for years already.
- He is not good at timing, he needs advise there himself:).
- If you are a good stock picker, do it. Otherwise it is easier and saver to just own commodities/indices directly.
- Moved to Singapore instead of China, because of the terrible air in China. If Hong Kong cleans up its air, he would consider moving. Thought the problem with Singapore is, you get to hear both the worst English and Chinese. But again, he made sure to have the best teachers for his daughters.


Gold foil at the new museum Rietberg concrete entrance hall in Zurich (2007).