Stay Up To Date
Critical Topics We Cover
February 23, 2015 Hong Kong In 1494, a 47-year old Franciscan friar named Luca Pacioli invented something that was revolutionary. Pacioli was, in fact, a friend and contemporary of Leonardo da Vinci, and the two collaborated frequently. So you’re probably guessing that Pacioli was a co-designer in Leonardo’s famed flying
February 23, 2015 London, England [Editor’s note: This letter was written by Tim Price, London-based wealth manager.] “We are all at a wonderful ball where the champagne sparkles in every glass and soft laughter falls upon the summer air. We know, by the rules, that at some moment the Black
February 20, 2015 Los Angeles, California File this under ‘you can’t make this stuff up.’ Lenovo Group, the largest computer manufacturer in the world, has made a rather stunning admission that they have been pre-installing tracking software on their PCs. The tracking software is made by a company called Superfish,
February 18, 2015 San Diego, California It’s not very often that you hear a senior government official refer to their economic situation using the word ‘crisis’. Yet with uncharacteristic bluntness of any government official anywhere, at least one senior Chinese government official is sounding the alarm bells. And he would
February 17, 2015 San Diego, California Jim Morrison used to sing: “No one here gets out alive”. And while few people really expect to die, it happens to all of us. Death, like Hemingway wrote of going bankrupt, happens gradually then suddenly. Given the inevitability, it’s always a good idea
February 16, 2015 En route to the Land of the Free Two years ago, Mr. Chan saw an opportunity. Thanks to tight government control of the Internet, launching a website in China is an intensely bureaucratic affair. It takes much more than just buying a domain and hosting it. In
February 12, 2015 Puerto Varas, Chile Twenty-seven years ago at the 1988 Republican National Convention in New Orleans, George H. W. Bush accepted his party’s nomination to run for President of the United States. (This was when he announced Dan Quayle as his running mate, to which Senator John McCain
February 12, 2015 Puerto Varas, Chile Ten years ago, the legendary American mathematician Edward Lorenz paid a visit to the University of Maryland’s Atmospheric and Oceanic Science Department. As retold by Professor Christopher Danforth of the University of Vermont— At some point during his stay, [Lorenz] penned the following on
February 11, 2015 Puerto Varas, Chile On August 13, 1961, the government of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) began to establish an “Anti-Fascist Protection Rampart”. The idea was to, you know, protect people… from fascist terrorists who intended to do harm in the country. Just weeks after government officials
February 10, 2015 Puerto Varas, Chile Carrying cash is a really risky affair these days. Nearly everywhere I travel in the world (typically 30-40 countries each year), there are signs and warnings about carrying too much cash. Customs agents often ask me “how much cash are you carrying”, and you
February 10, 2015 Puerto Varas, Chile I’ve been having to keep consciously reminding myself where I am. The well-paved roads twist and turn along the lake’s shores, and beautiful snowcapped mountains tower above in the distance. And I keep seeing signs in German. It really feels like being in Switzerland
February 9, 2015 London, England [Editor’s note: Tim Price, London-based wealth manager, is filling in for Simon today.] There are some time-honoured signs of an impending market top. One of them is that margin debt has peaked. Another is that interest rates are going through the floor. Another is that
Stay in the loop
