thangdynasty

So now you know what goes on behind the great game of Who’s the Greater Fool!

“Boobs for Booze” @ Overeasy

Early last week, a widely circulated email hit my Bloomberg Inbox with the resounding thud of a pair of D-cups.

One Fullerton being one of the favourite hangouts for us traders, we instinctively perked up at the hint of a “free booze” offer at OverEasy.

Inspired by DJ DCUP from down under, the “Boobs for Booze” promotion created quite the commotion, taking a few precious minutes worth of  attention away from the stable of stocks we were monitoring. 

The promotion: 1 female and 1 male judge from OverEasy will gauge the approximate size of the fully clothed contestant’s cup size. An A-cup = 1 drink, B-cup = 2 drinks, C-cup = 3 drinks… you get the drift.  (more…)

Remember Hulk Hogan and The Undertaker? That’s what springs to my mind everytime I read about the hostile tussle between Cadbury and Kraft. 

Just as I once stood in gaping disillusionment, at the sight of my favourite (then) WWF heroes playing “Family Guy” and worse, getting all chummy with each other backstage, I get a sense of impending loss as I watch yet another childhood icon being “robbed” from memories of my past.

That said, the Kraft-Cad (KC) tussle is unlike zero sum games that seemingly hostile wrestling matches are. In fact, loud whispers of a Win-Win KC deal are dominating talks across financial markets.

Here’s what you need to know about the sweet deal that’s currently lacing The Streets: 
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1. And the Top Scorer is…

Singapore. Again. Top of the charts for ease of doing business.

2. Big Brother, Singa the Lion & Teamy the Bee

Over a decade ago, her government started singing praises, in the name of the entrepreneurial spirit, about competition, creativity and… Teamy the productivity bee.

The result is sound infrastructure  that was to play the harvesting field for enterprising residents. Despite such relentless efforts by Big Brother however, Singapore is still one of the least entrepreneurial societies in the developed world.

Why?

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1. Who’s got the cleanest (balance) sheets?

Whoever controls the strings to the coin purse, wears the pants in the house. And it is a fact that women control 80% of household finances.

Which practically makes my kind, hermaphrodites; oscillating between the domestic roles of Sexy Short-skirt Susan and Hard hat Harry.

“More credits, less debits” in the household budget wins the approval of the credit bureau… ironically. Nations are not immune to this judgement either. The lesser the imbalances (deficits), the stronger the domestic demand. And between Europe, US and Asia (including Chindia), it is the latter who has the strongest sovereign balance sheets. (more…)

(image source: Jerry Holbert)

Remember the speculative proposition about Obama being part Chinese?

Well, I think that when he was doing sing-a-long’s with supporters during his campaign, chanting the famous  ”Change We Need” chorus, he was probably thinking of the Chinese remedy of using poison to combat poison or 以毒攻毒?

The poison being CREDIT, in this case.

In my world - a veritable jungle of bulls, bears, stags, butterflies and greedy pigs, charts are to traders as oxygen is to… all other living things.

I scan through an average of 20 charts per day: economic data, forex majors, stocks, bonds, gold, crude oil, indices, wata-wata. A simple example of my daily dose of eye candy:

Being an incidental connoisseur of charts, I must say Mark Ghuneim’s ”12 Graphs of Christmas“ on Mashable, are excellent examples of charts that say it all: 

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In my December 2 post, I wrote about how the crisis triggered by Dubai World, would lead to a strengthening greenback (USD).

A picture speaks 1000 words.

The 20-day intraday chart of my favourite trading pair, the USD/JPY (lead image), tells a 3-points story: (more…)

People generally love to complain. For Singaporeans though, it’s the national pastime.

Let’s have a look at the current alltop list of complaints:

1. Electronic Road Pricing (ERP) – Whether you are driving toward or away from the heart of the lion den… i mean euh… city, there are in total (as at this date), 67 gantries you could try to play hide-and-seek with.

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Chicken rice balls, durian chendol, Jonkers Street and … Little Nonya.

These were the Top 4 synonyms that slid to the tips of my friends’ tongues when I mentioned Malacca. And voila! - a portable 4-pointer guiding companion etched onto my memory.

Or so I thought. The superficiality of my knowledge of Malacca could not have lacked more depth.

Without beating around the mangrove tree, let me bring on the 5 Trucs that filled the wide gap of knowledge of this UNESCO World Heritage Site.  (more…)