Moneyterms Blog
Commodity prices, Cross elasticities and inferior goods
Higher commodities prices, especially those of oil and rice, have given us some excellent examples of the cross price elasticity of demand. Apart from the usual boring changes like higher sales of small cars and greater use of public transport, there has been a increase in demand for camels in Rajasthan, while Liberians are eating maize or millet spaghetti.
Blodget and bad incentives
It amazes me that Henry Blodget still has an audience, given his track record, but that they seem to be tolerant of his spouting nonsense, as in this post on Google. He is also an example of the bad incentives in the investment industry.
Why insider trading matters
Some people think that the the way to deal with the problem of insider trading is to simply legalise it, or at least that the objections to legalisation are moral rather than economic. This does not take into account the likely effects on markets if insider trading is legal, and can therefore take place with no fear of the consequences.
Ten reasons to invest (mostly) in your home country
Most private investors, and a good many others, invest most of their money in their own country. It is often argued that this misses an opportunity to diversify, and therefore a worse combination of risk and return. So, are investors stupid, or are there good reasons for doing this? (more…)
FSA might act on insider trading
The FSA seems to be finally accepting that London has a serious insider trading problem. The increasing proportion of informed price movements (IPM) ahead of announcements certainly shows, not only that there is a problem, but also that it is getting worse. In spite of this the FSA seems inclined to play down the amount of insider trading taking place. This is worrying.
The value effect and efficient markets
Richard Beddard has blogged on some interesting new evidence for the value effect. He also refers to our long running argument over active investing. I have more to say on that, and I also disagree with Richard’s attack in financial theory. (more…)
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Moneyterms vs Wikipedia
Royal Bank of Scotland’s announcement of a rights issue to strengthen its balance sheet on Friday lead to a lot of people searching for more information. Approximately equal numbers of them choose the the top two results on Google UK for rights issue: Moneyterms and Wikipedia. Of course, I think those who read Moneyterms made a better choice, but I need to explain why this is not just a bias in favour of my own site, starting with examples of Wikipedia’s unreliability. I also think I can generalise to what types of websites can be trusted to get things right. (more…)
Investing for inflation
With interest rates falling, and political pressure to bail out those who have taken on mortgages beyond their means, inflation has once more become a risk. (more…)
Do you like the CEO's face?
A recent paper suggested a link between the “success” of companies and their CEO’s looks. The direction of the causation is not shown by the simple correlation, but I suggest that it is linked to the difficulty of picking the best of many strong candidates.
TV ad revenues: the slide is just starting
A post on Broadstuff on the rise of internet TV ends by asking why viewers who watch the same show over the net are worth less to advertisers than those who watch conventional TV. I think part of the answer is that the broadcasters want to keep it that way — as shown by their apparent reluctance to release internet viewing data.