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Culture of Secrecy
How can companies still think what they do is top secret. Note I’m not talking about intelligence, research or military organizations here. I mean general competitive businesses in a competitive marketplace. How many of the projects we’ve been sworn to keep secret really needed or benefited from that? How many top secret projects failed to…
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Transparency in Basketball Adminsitration
One criticism I forgot to make in yesterday’s NBL Beyond a joke post was the absolute lack of transparency by basketball businesses, administrators, marketers and promoters. Fans of all types love talking about their favorite things. Basketball has been in crisis for a long time both in Australia and the USA. However the people at…
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NBL Basketball beyond a joke
Australia’s National Basketball League has become a joke. Now the Cairns Tiapans have gone into voluntary administration. They join the Brisbane Bullets, Singapore Slingers and Sydney Kings in bowing out of the NBL this year alone. The Sydney Spirit (formerly the West Sydney Razorbacks) remain only because the NBL could not afford to allow the…
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ASIC Lifts Ban on Covered Short Selling
From today covered short selling of non-financial stocks is allowed again on Australian stock markets. Obviously if you are a short seller you’ve known this for a week. What does it mean to us? The disclosure and reporting details are in this Market Advice. Australian Securities and Investments Commission – Requirements for disclosure and reporting…
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Calculate the Beta Coefficient of a stock
As part of the Corporate Finance subject of my MBA we have to calculate the beta coefficient (aka Beta) of a company’s share price. The is applied economics and market mathematics, but it simply is a number which indicates how closely (or not) a company’s share price moves in relation to a broader market (or…
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Porsche Fleece Hedge Funds for 12 Billion Euro in Volkswagen Sting
Porsche There is No Substitute! The background: In September 2005 Porsche bought 20% of its larger but less profitable German rival Volkswagen. In March 2007 Porsche bought another 19.9% (to 39.9%) and launched a takeover bid. In October 2007 the law preventing the takeover of Volkswagen was scrapped. On 20 October 2008 Volkswagen’s share price…
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Credit Crisis Explained
A number of people have asked me if there is a simple explanation of the financial crisis. It is difficult to give a simple explanation that doesn’t paint the exclusive cause as naive greed. The credit crisis is one contributing factor to the financial crisis (I see these as two different issues). I see four…
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Warren Buffet: Buy American. I Am.
As part of my Corporate Finance class, Warren Buffet and Berkshire Hathaway came up. Nobody had checked its stock price recently so I volunteered to do it. In doing so I came across the following op-ed piece Warren Buffet wrote in the New York Times. For the record BERKSHIRE HATH HLD A (NYSE: BRK-A) closed…
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Design Change
Finally I was forced to update the design of WealthEsteem.org The old theme has been around since before WordPress 1.0, I’ve kept it together by hacking it occassionally. Finally I needed a reliable and modern theme. So welcome to “fresh”. Let me know if anything has broken.
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MBA Term 2 course result
Wow I passed the Data Analysis and Statistical Modelling exam I wrote about in August. My term result was a solid Credit grade, so I didn’t do too badly given my inability to study for the exam. One of Corporate Finance lecturers said my trade-off of limited study time for family and a new job…