1/17/2011
Perfect solution to the stock market farce
Asian stock markets are being coerced to cut down their lunch breaks, and better, no lunch breaks to increase their productivity and facilitate cross border trades. The latest victim is Hongkong halving its lunch break from 2 hours to one hours. Tokyo too will have its lunch break cut. Singapore is contemplating of doing away with the lunch break completely, which is likely to happen on 1 March.
One of the solid reasons given is to reduce the advantage/disadvantage of differences in trading hours. By doing away with lunch breaks and to extend the trading hours, stock exchanges will now operate with at least similar trading hours or overlapping hours. That will ease off a lot of the disadvantages.
To me this is a little foolish. As long as the stock markets across the world are operating at different hours because of the different time zones, no amount of time adjustment or no lunch breaks can be of any great help. The advantage is minimal but the price paid by the stockbrokers is not small.
There is a perfect solution to all the farce about different trading hours and trying to bring them as close as possible. Actually there are two answers. One is to operate stock markets on a 24 hour basis. The second is to use Greenwich Time and all stock markets shall operate at the same hours. See, all the farce will go away.
Stupid problems need to be solved by stupid solutions. Red herring problems can be solved by applying twisted logics.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
27 comments:
If you owned a restaurant, you've just lost some of your best customers. Especially Hong Kong.
What a stupid idea. Asian competitiveness gone insane.
The ASX operates without a lunch break.
SGX should do likewise. The Hongkies like lunching and yakking over food so much that a concession of a one instead of two hour lunch break is allowed to maintain civil order as they are prone to get onto the streets at the slightest manifestation of their grievances.
The only guys who can do with a lunch break, a coffee break, an afternoon nap would be the ones putting up the money, ie the investors such as Wally.
This is the world of the fast moving financial markets. It waits for no man. If you want to make the commission and earn big bucks, just call for MacDonald delivery. There are no free lunches in this world.
Hehe. :o)
Only fund managers need to operate across boundaries and in several markets at the same time. Most retail investors would not bother. Now the brokers have to keep the fund managers company.
Most remisiers are self employed like taxi drivers.
Who is to stop you from a few hours break?
A lot of people do not understand the way the business works. A responsible remisier will always try to be available when the client calls. When the market is open during lunch break which coincide with that of the client's break, you can bet that many employees would rather trade during lunch time than be caught by their bosses during office hours.
The more important part is that when a client is desperate to sell/buy in a running market when the price is changing rapidly, falling or rising, and if the remisier is not around, it can mean big losses when cannot sell or big gains gone when cannot buy.
A fix operating hours would make things fairer to all parties concerned.
Then, dont drive taxi, find another job. Feel comfortable and will not inconvenient others.
We've gone through this question many times before.
Don't understand why people who want to buy or sell goes through an intermediary.
Just apply to the broking house, get your own credit standing assessed and buy or sell electronically within this limit.
Face a bank of computer screens in your own home instead of talking or trying to get to a harried remisier on busy days. You'll get what I mean.
The remisier providing financial guarantees? Hell, how much risk can the poor remisier undertake? And for a pittance of a commission nowadays.
First thing, big clients like to be served. No need to struggle or lug a computer around, switch on, wait to log on etc etc. Big time investors don't have time for that except retirees. Big time remisier can afford a few thousand commission per trade. No sweat.
Second point, any average remisiers would have a credit risk of $2.5m daily. And this is small time risk. Bigger remisiers would have more. No comparison with taxi drivers lah.
I always like to joke that I don't even earn $200 daily. Just take it as a joke.
My motto is not to be a braggart, and also not to despise anyone or any profession: )
oh, anon 11:52, remisier also a one man show: )
Walau eh,
Mr. Bean, if you can extend 2.5 mil of credit, your net worth must be worth more than 5 million hor? No wonder they say Millionhairs in Sinkapoore are a dime a dozen. :o)
I ain't going to see or smell that kind of money in this lifetime or the next! I only play retiree games. Hehe.
And I thought the only big time remisier was the Remisier King aka Peter Lim?
$200 bucks a day for doing part time remisiering ain't bad considering that you're also quite preoccupied with blogging and RAR photography. By the way, what does RAR stand for?
Hehe. :o)
But then again..., on the other hand...
Remisers are essentially in business for themselves. If they have high net worth clients and are trading well, they make money.
All "broker" type jobs are like that: basically you are left alone -- there is no "ceiling" and no "floor" -- you make as much or as little as your talent allows.
So fuck it: no one forces these people to be remisers. This is the new world -- compete or go home. Bottom line: can you bring in the business -- i.e. the clients, with the cash, who need someone to "look after" their interests?
I do pity the restaurants though. These changes all over Asia will seriously impact their lunch/ afternoon revenue. These folks tend to spend up big when they are doing well, or when they are soliciting business.
Remisiering, if there is such a word but for brevity and expedience, I shall use it, is like selling life insurance.
You're as good as your quality business contacts. To put it bluntly, it is who you know, not how many you know.
Typically, all remisiers provide sub standard investment advice although they are expected to otherwise. They are merely order takers and queue masters on the buy and sell trading platform. Fuck, these people hardly have the time to shit or eat properly in a busy market let alone read up on all the emails that their broking houses send them. Ask some to explain the chart movements or why a certain counter is moving the way it does and most will be as blur as a sotong.
In this age of fibre optic high speed broadband internet access to world wide markets, remisiering is a sunset activity and I predict in another 10 years time, as dead as a dodo.
Hehe. :o)
All broking work involves "salesmenship". You can sell, you make it. Lots of it.
We've already seen the industry contract due to the advent of online trading.
However, the "smart" ones (aka "outliers") will always be ahead of the pack and buck the trend. Don't worry, the top in any field -- even fields which are "dying" -- still do alright.
And many have moved onto "private wealth" -- having a few select high net worth accounts.
Wally is absolutely right: in a networked world, it is the quality your contacts who will keep your domestic wine and cigar inventories abundant.
I love the "openess" (very free market) of the S'pore finance system: anyone can take the exams and "qualify" for a licence to operate in the finance and banking sector. Once you are licensed you can take it as far as you want: start your own hedge fund, if you so choose.
Damn cool.
The truth is that practically every business and profession depends on connections and networking. Any exceptions?
How successful one is depends on many things, and knowledge or skills does not ensure success. My top remisier only got Cambridge Grade 3. My top analysts or fund managers may have all the MBAs and know all the charts but making all the wrong calls.
With wisdom we know many things are just humbugs. Oh smart ones! I have seen doctorates struggling even as a remisier. To many remisiers, the lunch is necessary as it means more networking and CBM with their clients.
In a way it is a dying industry as computers is taking over the business. Trading is no longer about fundamentals alone. In most cases, it is about gambling. Warren Buffett is obsolete today.
My prediction on how the industry will move is that the machines will take over the gambling processes. No need company reports on P&L. At the end of the day, all the small investors will be taken to the cleaners. Then the heads of the stock exchanges will be put on trial for mismanagement and running a casino.
Oh Wally, what is RAR? That's a thinking man and an enquiring mind.
RAR stands for Reflection and Refraction. We all learn this in Physics. I have been busy, very busy, conceptualising on how to use RAR to come out with a new art form. I can say that I have succeeded and the result, mystifying!
And yes, I didn't crush the fish like a roti prata to get it into that shape: )
Your new found photographic art is like abstract painting.
The artist wants You to see what you want to see.
Vely vely cheem leh.
I'm not that brainy or have the intellectual depth to appreciate such fine art. Give me the good ole recognizable Koi anytime leh.
Hehe. :o)
My first book which I should receive this week is a mixture of the what a normal fish should look like and a bit of RAR. My second book will be devoted to the fantasy of RAR. The latter would have a lot of resemblance to Picasso's painting which is still in vogue.
Photography as an art form would need a bit of intrigue and excitement, and a bit of out of this world feeling. The subjectivity in art leaves a lot of room for creativity and imagination. And yes, what is ugly may not be ugly. What is beautiful may not be beautiful in art. Very individual: ) That is the exciting part.
wah, redbean...too cheem for me man. The photos I like and call "art" primarily deal with attractive, naked women. Those images move me.
Anyway, this is 2011 -- another year of TIMSS testing (every 4 years).
How will S'pore kids do? Will they kick ass, yet again -- as they have been since TIMSS began? Last round in 2007, the bloody S Koreans beat S'pore. Fuckers.
I too prefer appreciating and oggling at female art, with a critical eye, which does wonders for my libido than some genetically modified carps aka kois!
As for these TIMSS testing, it's high time we move away from the charade and educate and bring up our kids with more emphasis on morals, creative thinking and an entrepreneur spirit.
wally:
> more emphasis on morals, creative thinking and an entrepreneur spirit. <
Surely you jest. That would mean S'poreans will have to stop spoiling their kids.
Do you know how much pocket money kids get these days?
Why bother when you just "get" out of thin air
That's why they grow up as spoilt brats.
There was this letter in the forum page just a day or two ago where he complained that his son was made to march from the Basic Military training camp to the floating platform at Marina Bay, a distance of 24km. for his passing out parade.
Fuck. This is military training not a Sunday stroll in the Park.
When my sons were doing their OCS training a few years ago, they were left alone in the jungle for warfare survival training. Now, if this bloke's beloved boy were to do that nowadays, his father will cry blue murder.
Your children will be how you bring them up to be. When my sons were in school they were only given hand to mouth allowances. If they wanted anything branded or fanciful, they had to work for it. All of them worked with MacDonald's as a result.
Now adults, they really know the meaning of money.
Hey, before teaching the kids morality, you got to teach the ladies, mothers and mothers to be, from flirting with men first.
Yeah right, and the manfolks from cheating on the weaker gender too.
Who is cheating who? Recently there is this legal case about a woman demanding $450k maintenance per month from her ex husband.
What kind of law is that that provides for a man to pay for a woman for life after divorce at the same level of comfort which only the man could provide for? A man must provide for his wife till death do them part. Why should a man provide for an ex wife? In the past, the womanfolks are not independent and depends on the men for a living. Today, what is the situation?
Equality is taking on a nonsensical level. Such laws of inequality against the manfolks should be repealed or amended.
Why are pre-nuptial agreements not recognized here although they are in the US?
The Women's Charter?
A piece of shit.
Hehe. :o)
I am now reports that trading volume will go up by 10% with no lunch break.
Of course what. Now all the workers and employees no need to trade behind the back of their bosses during office hours since they can trade during lunch break. Trading volume during the lunch break hours will shoot up by 100% or 1000% from 0. Clever statistics.
And trading outside the lunch break hours can go down to neglible. Remisiers are now planning to go for early or late lunches and stay back during lunch break.
See, thinking folks always have a way out!
Post a Comment