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Cinq ans après Lehman Brothers, la culture financière n’a pas changé.

"Les circonstances qui ont provoqué le 15 septembre 2008, la chute de Lehman Brothers sont nombreuses, mais jamais Richard Fuld, son CEO, n’a cru que le Trésor américain, à la tête duquel se trouvait l'ancien patron de Goldman Sachs et un des "parrains" de Wall Street, le lâcherait. Contrairement à une perception  erronée,  ce sont les Républicains qui étaient au pouvoir et ne voulaient plus d'un sauvetage des banques. Comme cette crise avait été provoquée par la mauvaise gestion des banques et non par des facteurs extérieurs, il  faillait envoyer un message clair: l'argent des contribuables n’est pas au services des institutions financières. Il fallait une leçon grandeur nature pour comprendre ce qu'une telle faillite signifie au niveau mondial et mettre une limite au chantage des banquiers.
Suite à ce qui a été un traumatisme -mais n'a pas affecté les investisseurs particuliers aux Etats-Unis- la machine règlementaire s'est mise en route. Des deux cotés de l'Atlantique, les Gouvernements ont renfloué les banques.  Les dirigeants politiques ont remis en route la machine à réguler pour que, plus jamais, les contribuables n’aient à sauver les banques. 

Malheureusement, au lieu de restructurer la règlementation, on en a ajouté une couche. La nouvelle règlementation est à la fois plus complexe, moins efficace et encore moins adaptée aux marchés mondiaux.
On s'est intéressé au risque systémique, mais en se contentant de mettre autour de la table les mêmes acteurs. 
Aux États-Unis, ce seront des régulateurs spécialisés sous la houlette du Trésor. En Europe ce seront les 28 régulateurs sous la houlette de la Commission et de la Banque Centrale Européenne.

La complexité institutionnelle et les détails absurdes,produiront deux faiblesses inévitables: un processus de décision encore plus complexe en cas de crise et une propension des financiers de contourner la jungle des règlementations.

Que ce soit la baleine de Londres chez JP Morgan, la chute de MF Global et surtout la manipulation du taux du LIBOR ou les délit d'initiés,  nous avons continué à assister à un ensemble d'infractions que les régulateurs n’ont pu prévenir.
Le bilan des grandes banques mondiales continue à contenir deux fois plus d'actifs financiers que de prêts à l'économie.
Apres une première vague de "démissions" à la tète de plusieurs banques et institutions financières, tout est rentré dans l'ordre. Les Présidents et leurs conseils d'administration sont aussi peu efficaces et compétents qu'avant. Personne n'a été remercié. Les activités de marché ont continué de plus belle, les hedge funds sont en croissance, les "acteurs financiers" sont repartis à l'assaut d'acquisitions, bref, le modèle financier n'a changé que marginalement, et les banques européennes ne se sont pas vu interdire de spéculer avec leurs fonds propres. 
 Le rôle de la règlementation est de fixer le cadre institutionnel, les règles du jeu et la manière dont les sanctions sont prises. Il serait cependant illusoire de croire qu'elle est en mesure de moraliser la sphère financière.
Il faudra que les individus qui commettent certaines de ces infractions soient appelés à la barre et aient à rendre compte de leurs actes. L'arme de la prison s'impose dans les cas extrêmes. L'interdiction de pratiquer la profession me parait infiniment plus efficace. Le droit et l'éthique opèrent dans des sphères différentes.
Ils se rencontrent sans pour autant se chevaucher.

C'est de la direction des institutions financières que doit venir l'initiative. On ne voit pas beaucoup de changement. Les hommes et les femmes au sommet proviennent de cette même culture et la plupart d’entre eux n'ont pas changé. Ce sont les mêmes dirigeants et les mêmes administrateurs au moins pour les trois quarts.
Ce changement est-il impossible? Certainement pas. C'est en privilégiant la gestion des risques par rapport aux bénéfices que l'on arrivera à une vraie transformation de la dynamique qui amène la finance à se multiplier. C'est indispensable, mais demande du temps et il semble qu’il faudra quelques belles déconfitures financières. Augmenter les pare-feu ne change pas les mentalités. Il est important d'être réalistes. Le rôle des régulateurs reste limité. L’intégrité personnelle et collective reste la clé de voute".

Georges Ugeux

Le Monde

DoCoMo ignites free iPhone 5S handset free-for-all in Japan

NTT DoCoMo's entry into the iPhone fray in Japan is sparking fierce competition for customers, with all three carriers offering certain iPhone 5S models for free with a two-year contract.

DoCoMo, KDDI (au), and SoftBank will offer the 16GB versions of the iPhone 5S for effectively nothing with a two-year contract on certain plans, all three carriers announced Friday.

The carriers have posted the pricing plans on their respective Web sites, while the news has been reported widely in Japan.

In DoCoMo's case, for example, discounts are applied monthly over the term of the contract, effectively yielding a free handset.

The entry of DoCoMo, Japan's largest carrier, into the market marks a tectonic shift in that company's strategy and for the Japanese phone market in general. Domestic phone suppliers like Sharp and Fujitsu, which are in DoCoMo's stable of handset suppliers, are expected to suffer as a result.

And the numbers aren't pretty. DoCoMo sells about 23.5 million mobile phones a year. If Apple takes 40 percent of that number -- as Nikkei recently reported -- the iPhone maker could dominate the Japanese market.

Japan retakes top spot for overseas bank lending - BIS

Japanese banks have once again become the biggest overseas lenders, returning to a position they last occupied in the late 1990s before a deep banking crisis forced them to pull back from international markets.

The Bank for International Settlements (BIS), which charts cross-border lending around the world, on Sunday said Japanese banks were responsible for 13 percent of cross-border lending at the end of March, up from 8 percent in early 2007, after stepping up lending to emerging markets, Caribbean and U.S. borrowers.The put Japanese lenders above U.S. and German banks, who accounted for 12 percent and 11 percent of cross-border lending at the end of March, respectively. British and French banks both accounted for just over 10 percent of loans.
The BIS report said Japanese banks funded their expansion mainly through financing from their large domestic deposit base.

Source: Reuters

Japan should promote deregulation in Tokyo for Olympics

The Japanese government should promote deregulation in Tokyo to tap private-sector money for developing social infrastructure ahead of the 2020 Summer Olympics, external members of its panel on economic and fiscal policy said Friday.

In their proposal, the nongovernmental members urged Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to designate the capital as a special economic zone under his policy package to stimulate growth, including incentives for investment in building facilities for the sports event as well as transportation infrastructure.Earlier in the day, the government also named education minister Hakubun Shimomura to double as state minister in charge of the Olympics.
Employing private-sector funds and known-how for infrastructure development is expected to help the government decrease its fiscal burden for such projects at a time when state finances have been suffering from growing debt, the worst among major developed countries.

Source: NewsOnJapan

Largest travel fair in Asia opens in Tokyo

Japanese travel agents and hotels are scrambling to draw tourists to Japan, even more so after Tokyo won its bid to host the 2020 Olympics.

The largest travel fair in Asia, "Tabihaku" began in Tokyo on Friday.The Japan Association of Travel Agents holds the event every year. People from 730 firms and groups, including travel agents, airline companies and hotels, from 154 countries, are taking part.
The weaker yen has been a factor in the record number of foreign visitors in Japan this year. Tourism officials expect more, with Tokyo's winning Olympic bid.

Source: NewsOnJapan

Japan, India ageee on joint gas and oil development

Japan and India have agreed to discuss ways to jointly develop untapped energy resources in Africa and South America.

The agreement came at a ministerial meeting of the 2 countries in New Delhi on Thursday. Japan was represented by Economy, Trade and Industry Minister Toshimitsu Motegi. India's representative, Montek Singh Ahluwalia, is the deputy chairman of a planning commission in charge of energy policy.The 2 countries want to procure liquefied natural gas and oil at lower prices. They will start discussions this year to formulate a strategy to develop oil and gas fields in Africa and South America.

Source: NewsOnJapan

Former UK PM Gordon Brown China's degree of success will determine global growth

Former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said that China's degree of success will determine global growth, and determine whether the 21st century would be the Asian century.

Recalling the history of China's development in recent years, Brown said under the first wave of modernization, China's progress to middle-income status has been astounding and dramatic.

"In the first decade of the century, China became the world's largest manufacturer. In 2009, China surpassed Germany as the world's largest exporter. In 2010 it passed the U.S. to become the world's largest car producer," according to Brown.

He predicted that China would depend less on exports to the West. In the last decade, merchandise exports to developing economies have already doubled, to 25 percent.

Brown pointed out that China should no longer rely on "one-off" advantages such as the move from an agricultural to an industrial economy, comparatively low-cost labor, and the boost from membership in the WTO.

"China knows it will have to move quickly to exploit the "Third Industrial Revolution" from 3D printing and digital design to nanotechnology, biotechnology and genetics, hence its one million research and development workers and its plans for 100 million more graduates," he said.

Brown also noted that most important barriers to long-term success are the disparities in wealth, now being addressed under Chinese premier's desire to "promote social equity."

Source: Xinhua

China-Arab States Expo opens in Ningxia

 The first China-Arab States Expo, a key platform to promote the relationship between China and the Arab states, kicked off on Sunday morning in northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous region.         Yu     Zhengsheng , chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, attended the exposition, which runs until Sept. 19 in the Ningxia capital, Yinchuan.

Foreign leaders, including King Abdullah II Bin Al-Hussein of Jordan, King Sheikh Hamad bin Isa Al-khalifa of Bahrain and Vanuatu Prime Minister Moana Carcasses Kalosil attended the opening ceremony.

More than 7,300 domestic and overseas officials, exhibitors, purchasers and investors from Jordan, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Syria, Kuwait and other countries have been attracted to the fair.

Source: Xinhua

Japan to be completely without nuclear power for some weeks

Japan will be fully without nuclear power on Sunday as Kansai Electric Power Co.'s Oi No. 4 reactor is shut down for regular safety inspections, officials said.

This will be the first time Japan is without nuclear power since July 2012, The Japan Times reported.

Inspections of nuclear reactors normally take four to six weeks.

Japan relies on nuclear power for about 32 percent of its electricity prior to the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mack, Quo Vadis?

  Saving mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mack "was the single most important thing we did to prevent disaster—real disaster," said Mr. Paulson in a recent interview. But five years later, he adds, "it didn't occur to me that we'd be here with nothing done."
  Fannie and Freddie remain the largest single piece of unfinished business from the financial crisis. As record profits have replaced huge losses, some now question whether cosmetic changes could substitute for the more radical overhaul of the companies envisioned five years ago.
 The Obama administration, congressional leaders and the financial industry all insist that Fannie and Freddie must change. But figuring out exactly how to reshape or replace them is proving harder than most anyone imagined.
 The biggest reason is that the firms play such a central role in the mortgage market, including access to the 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage. That product, which doesn't exist in much of the world, is popular with Americans who enjoy stable payments even if interest rates rise.
 The firms don't make loans. They buy them from lenders and package them into bonds. That middleman role created deep markets for mortgage securities by matching banks with investors willing to manage the risks of holding long-term, fixed-rate mortgages.
Fannie and Freddie got into trouble because they took on more risk over the past two decades while using their political clout to beat back attempts to force them to hold more capital.
As the housing bust deepened in 2008, by August 2008,Treasury officials concluded the firms didn't have enough capital and feared what would happen if investors lost confidence in Fannie and Freddie. 
 On Friday, Sept. 5, 2008, Treasury Secretary summoned the companies' chief executives to separate afternoon meetings and told them they were being taken over. Two days later, the firms had been effectively nationalized.

Source: WSJ

USA REAL STATE. SAM ZELL's CAUTION

In an article published in the Wall Street Journal of today in an interview with one the most aggressive
real state investors of the 1990's, he gives his feeling of the state of the market today and the future.
"Sam Zell gained the nickname "the grave dancer" in the early 1990s for buying beaten-down real-estate properties and riding them to huge recoveries.
He has done relatively little buying since the market crashed five years ago, viewing prices as remaining too high, even as rivals such as Blackstone Group and Carlyle Group  made big acquisitions.
  Mr. Zell says "he has a low of just 30% of his personal investment portfolio in real-estate investments, down from 40% about seven years ago. In 1990, half his money was tied to real estate".
 "We're dealing with a world that's dramatically more volatile, and that requires more caution and care than before" 
  The 71-year-old real estate mogul has been one of the biggest, most aggressive commercial-real-estate investors for decades, accumulating a net worth of $4 billion, according to Forbes magazine. In 2007, for example, he practically defined the top of the market with his deal to sell Equity Office Properties Trust to Blackstone Group for a record $39 billion—a deal that netted him personally around $1 billion, said people close to him.

Mr. Zell's opinion is one side of a heated debate in the market, with some investors convinced values will keep rising and others arguing that economic growth in the U.S. and elsewhere has been artificially enhanced by loose central-bank policies and will slow when the easy money ends.

Commercial-property values have rebounded strongly and hit record territory this year. An index compiled by Green Street Advisors that fell 61.7 in May 2009 from 100 in August 2007 climbed back to 104.3 last month. But in recent months, prices have stalled because of rising interest rates, Green Street says".

SpaceShipTwo, la navicella spaziale per turisti

"Lo SpaceShipTwo ha compiuto il secondo volo verificando per la prima volta tutte le sue parti. Oltre l’impiego del motore a razzo ibrido, acceso nel volo del 29 aprile scorso, ora sono state verificate le parti aerodinamiche nelle varie configurazioni. Queste sono elementi determinanti perché è proprio il movimento a garantire il corretto e sicuro rientro dal balzo quasi cosmico.
La navicella pilotata da Mark Stucky e Clint Nichols è salita a 19.812 metri raggiungendo la velocità di 1,6 Mach (1 Mach è la velocità del suono). Prima era salita alla quota di 14 mila metri appesa sotto la fusoliera del jet WhitKnightTwo. Qui si è sganciata e ha acceso il motore a razzo che ha funzionato per venti secondi come previsto.
Richard Branson ha scritto  sul suo blog. «La nostra navicella è ora il veicolo alato commerciale superiore a tutti nella storia». Sarà appunto la Virgin Galactic, la società creata dal miliardario britannico Branson, a effettuare i voli ai confini dello spazio con lo SpaceShipTwo. E, dopo il successo del collaudo, lo stesso Branson ha precisato che nei primi mesi del 2014 inizieranno i voli commerciali e sul primo ci sarà anche lui.
Finora 625 persone hanno versato un anticipo per riservarsi un posto. E dopo la prova dell’aprile scorso Branson ha alzato il prezzo del biglietto da 200 mila a 250 mila dollari".

Corriere dell Sera

Herd Investing.The Financial Crisis and the Institutional Investor "herding behaviour"

"The global financial crisis caught many financial market participants by surprise. Institutional
investors, by and large, were no exception. As the crisis intensified, concerns about capital
preservation arose, and several investors responded by abandoning long-term investment
strategies, reducing risk exposures, and switching to safer asset classes, usually with the
intention to switch back as soon as market conditions improved.
 This institutional investors tended to move with the rest of the market. This “institutional herding” is what we refer to as procyclical investment behavior .

Many institutional investors have long investment horizons, which allow them to ride out
short-term volatility in asset prices. In theory, they should be able to avoid the pitfalls of
herding, which tend to hurt performance in the long run. Recent financial stress episodes
have, however, demonstrated that various types of institutional investors are not immune to
herd behavior. This “institutional herding” is what we refer to in this paper as to in procyclical investment behavior.
  Examples of Institutional Herd behavior: Pension Funds(1),Life Insurers(2),Endowment Funds(3),
Mutual Funds(4),Sovereign Wealth Funds(5) and Central Banks(6).
1. Were net sellers of equities during the financial crisis.
2. They contributed to the downward spyral  in the equities markets, they sold equities to
bolster their balance sheets.
3. Harvard endowment decreased its uncalled capital commitments by roughly
US$3 billion,
4. Some SWFs decided to reduce exposures to, in particular, U.S. and U.K. banks
in the second quarter of 2009.
5. Central bank reserve managers joined the flight to quality and collectively pulled
out more than US$500 billion of deposits and other investments from the banking
sector from December 2007 to March 2009.

 With long-term investment horizons Institutional Investors should be able to avoid  the pitfalls of
herding, which tend to hurt performance in the long run. Recent financial stress episodes
have, however, demonstrated that various types of institutional investors are not immune to
herd behavior.
During periods of global financial distress , where investors’ procyclical strategies can accentuate the fragility, of the financial system.
           In particular, prolonged very low interest rates and unconventional
monetary policy measures could push many institutional investors’ risk appetite to the point
of creating significant adverse side effects, including possible mispricing of credit risk and
underestimation of liquidity risks".

Source: IMF Working Paper
            Monetary and Capital Markets Department
            by Michael G. Papaioannou, Joonkyu Park, Jukka Pihlman, and
            Han van der Hoorn