During a recent sit-down with some of my Taiwanese friends, the discussion topic invariably shifted to stocks and stock markets. I am not Taiwanese, but I was curious as to how the Taiwanese investors and their stock exchange worked. It turned out to be a revelation of how a stock market can be affected by various inefficiences, cultural and political issues. Here are some of my findings from that night and from my past inquiries:
Like many Asian markets, the stock exchanges uses a numbering system rather than a alphabetical ticker …

The Globe & Mail reports that a coalition of Canadian investment regulators have offered 55 investment firms that referred business to the scandal plagued hedge fund company Portus a settlement term. The terms were to repay the referral fees paid to advisors of said firms in exchange for dropping investigations against the firms and their financial advisors.
The deadline for firms to accept the offer is January 24th, 2006. Manulife has previously offered restitution proactively. 2 firms that have already accepted the terms of the proposal are Berkshire Securities (widely publicized …

‘The Intelligent Investor‘ is a highly recommended book for any investor of any investing style; especially value investing. It is my personal favorite investment literature. When the second richest man in the world, Warren Buffett - the only one on that distinguished list who made his fortune through stock investments, recommends a book to you, aren’t you the least bit curious why he did so?
Warren Buffett: “I read the first edition of this book in 1950, when I was nineteen. I thought then that it was by far the best …

Email has replaced many forms of communication media, and is unscrupulously used by scammers and con artists to extend their reach to a global arena. It’s not just about simple identity thefts anymore. Those phishing emails seem pale in comparison to the many other scams perpetrated by others on the internet. At least, when it comes to identity theft, you did not participate much except that you mistook a well-disgusied website as an authentic one and gave away your passwords and personal information.
The Nigerian email scams are not new. They’ve …

Did you hear this? In an effort to build an in house production studio for movies based on its comic book characters, Marvel essentially mortgaged 10 of its comic intellectual property for a revolving credit line of $525 Million dollars. In return, the financier Merrill Lynch Commercial Finance Corp secured film rights to 10 Marvel characters.
Marvel was tired of sharing profit with other companies. They collaborated with Sony, in a sour deal turned lawsuit, during the “Spider-man” series. The financing deal worked out very well for Marvel. I guess …

I recently read an update on Portus. It reported that investors who were victims of the hedge fund company’s malfeasance could recover more than the previously estimated $0.62 on the dollar. I’m happy that these investors may look forward to receiving more settlement, but this unfortunate incident should not have happened in the first place.
You can call me an investment cynic, but I think everything is a scam until I educate myself about it. Portus was a hedge fund company who sold invesments via an offering memorandum with the help …