Index of Economic Freedom - Taiwan

Interesting indeed.
business freedom, government spending rating, trade freedom are among the highest in the world. however, as expected, labor freedom, freedom from corruption, and financial freedom are low.

A demon of our own design

Richard Bookstaber has a little different background from most other arthors whose books i've read. He came from an academic background but joined wallstreet as a risk manager. The book is full of his anecdotal accounts from work, as well as theories from the academia.

The first half he details the events leading to various market crashes and scandals (eg. Salomon and LTCM), intermittently with his personal experience during the events. He moves on the stories as salomon was incorporated into travelers and later citigroup.
The latter half of the book focuses more on why the market has become so complex, and it is essentially this complexity and tight coupling of the market that leads to the overall increase in risk of the mareket, which causes each next crash to be bigger than the ones before. There are several interesting thing I have found to be very interesting. first, he believes that contrary to popular belief, regulating or raising the transparency of hedge funds will not help the future of the market since hedge funds are esstentially made of every single possible investment strategies known to men. as transparency of their position increases, so do their attempts to hide/take advantage of it. he believes to decrease the complexity of the market is the key. Another thing he has noted is that despite his background in quantitative trading, he believes accounting can contribute much more than it is now, as the current accounting method is based on tangible assets for corporations of the last century instead of intangible assets which are what make modern companies valuable. instead of valuations, he hopes companies can release data such as training expense per employee, customer retentation rate for investors to use. an easier more correct valuation method can certainly keep the market more steady.

Overall, this was quite an amazing read.

小摩報告唱衰 勝華翻臉揚言提告

There is a Chinese Wall there in for a good reason - to curb or at least minimize insider trading. 勝華如此的大動作是把市場參與者都當作是傻瓜.


小摩報告唱衰 勝華翻臉揚言提告
自由 更新日期:"2010/10/21 04:11"

〔記者陳梅英／台北報導〕摩根大通昨日上午出具一份報告，表示因為蘋果第二代iPad明年將問世，第四季之後第一代iPad出貨恐在第四季通路開始清庫存後放緩，摩根大通甚至建議客戶此時正是了結勝華時機點。

該報告引發勝華不滿，勝華晚間罕見地於證交所上傳重大訊息，直接點名摩根大通這份報告的假設沒有提出明確依據，並指出，若影響股價、損害股東權益，將對該名分析師採取法律行動。

摩根大通與勝華關係一向友好，今年初勝華赴海外發行海外存託憑證還是委託摩根大通辦理，由於勝華正準備掌握時機，再次發行海外存託憑證，原本摩根大通仍是主辦券商，勝華昨日則公告，將停止與摩根大通集團海外存託憑證合作事宜。摩根大通一份報告引發市場議論紛紛外，並與公司交惡，倒是少見。

摩根大通報告中指出，勝華最近三個月來股價表現優於同業，股價已經漲多，但第一代iPad出貨高峰已過，由於第二代iPad即將於明年第二季推出，為避免堆積過多庫存，第四季iPad出貨將明顯放緩，這將使得勝華第四季營收動能下滑。

摩根大通預估，勝華第四季營收將落在181億元，低於第三季的195億元，與目前一般預估勝華第四季因新產能開出，營收將持續比第三季成長二成看法差異頗大。

目標價下修至39元

此外，報告也指出，因為友達、奇美電等大廠加入，在垂直整合能力具備優勢下，將威脅勝華市佔率，並預估在各廠積極擴增產能下，觸控面板產能包括10吋與3吋將於明年第二季起供過於求，價格戰轉趨激烈，摩根大通給予勝華「劣於大盤」投資評等，將勝華目標價下修為39元。

據了解，撰寫這份報告的摩根大通分析師為新人Narci Chang，摩根大通原來的面板分析師林良俊則在數月前跳槽高盛。