loadntxt.com blog

Tying the knot. Wedding reception at Hotel Supreme, Baguio City. Typhoon Cosme. A day of unwinding at Manila Ocean Park and Mall of Asia. Unwinding turned almost into a nursing experience. My lactose intolerance may have tied my stomach with a local, instant noodle brand!

Things are getting more complicated if the internet is running in your bloodstream especially when being offline is like getting choked, so to speak. Globe’s Mobile Broadband isn’t that much help with its predominant GPRS coverage. But still, it’s better than nothing! Forget lousy SMART Bro and its prepaid counterpart. SMART is the equivalent of lousy AT&T in the US!

This is the world of 24×7 though this is far from NYTimes uber-blogging death scare!

And when you seem that you are at the top of things, little surprises are sure to ruin your day. Like getting a voltage surge on your BlackBerry which kind of knock off my battery. Or the nasty Norton antivirus software that broke loose the gates of hell, blocking Remote Desktop at its whim, and during at a time when tech support is 16 hours away. Add to that the wrath of typhoon Cosme which reminds me of the dark days after typhoon Milenyo wrought destruction in Manila.

Oh well, but that’s life. Sometimes you are going to get bad cards in the game of life. But that’s how nature works. Besides, how would you enjoy life if there is no pain nor difficulties? Sometimes, getting unwired will let you realize the more important things in life. Like doing nothing. Or just tuning to your inner self. Better yet, searching for the meaning of life…

Source: Financial Times

The Treasury Department on Monday plans to unveil a series of recommendations that would radically reshape the regulation of the US financial services industry, giving broad new powers to the Federal Reserve to tackle systemic risk.

The move comes amid growing pressure in Congress to overhaul financial regulation in the US, after the credit crisis exposed significant lapses in the government’s ability to monitor Wall Street and prevent it from making overly risky bets on mortgages. Some of the largest institutions suffered multi-billion dollar losses, and the Fed this month was forced to take the dramatic step of offering emergency cash to investment banks.

One of the main features of Treasury’s plan, which however is unlikely to be fully implemented for several years, would give the Fed greater power to regulate financial firms such as investment banks and hedge funds, when their actions could pose a threat to the system. However, the proposal falls short of permanent regulation by the Fed of investment banks such as Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch, which some lawmakers have suggested.

A second feature of the plan, which Hank Paulson, Treasury secretary, will outline in a speech on Monday before he travels to China, involves a reduction in the role of the Securities and Exchange Commission. The SEC would be merged with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and would take a more hands-off approach in its oversight of exchanges in favour of the CFTC’s “principles-based” self-regulation, according to the proposal.

That should put a stop to what Barack Obama calls the "ethic of greed" which led to the US subprime mortgage crisis. Indeed, the Wall Street party over CDOs and credit default swaps is coming to an end. Or so it seems.

Online trading has been around in the Philippines since the 1990s, but it was only over the past three years that it has really caught on with Filipino investors partly due to low interest rates and partly due to availability and ease of use of online stock trading, according to MoneySense in its first issue this year. Packed with industry research, analysis of stock trading activity, and access to real time quotes of PSE stocks, it’s no wonder that online stock trading sites are getting abuzz nowadays among Filipinos. You may try your luck, skills and ample money through these hot sites:

• CitisecOnline (www.citiseconline.com)
• AB Capital Securities (www.abcapitalonline.com)
• Accord Capital Equities (www.philstocks.ph)
• BPI Trade (www.bpitrade.com)

Source: Inquirer.net

The national government Tuesday floated $500 million in sovereign bonds in the international capital market, hoping to complete its foreign commercial borrowing requirement for the year before problems brought on by the US subprime market become worse.

The issue is expected to be priced at about 97-3/8, said two persons involved in the deal.  The bonds will mature in 2032.  Credit Suisse and Deutsche Bank are handling the bond sale for the Philippines.

The $500 million borrowed commercially from the international capital market is part of the government’s total foreign borrowing requirement of $2 billion. The larger share of $1.5 billion will be drawn from official development assistance extended by multilateral lending institutions, including the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank and the Japan Bank for International Cooperation.

The $2 billion in foreign borrowings account for 30 percent of the government’s total borrowings for this year. The government intends to borrow 70 percent of its financing requirement from the domestic market.

The DoF said borrowing more from the domestic market was a debt-management strategy to minimize the country’s exposure to foreign exchange risks.

Those were the highlights of Arroyo’s gathering at Jumeirah hotel in Dubai Sunday night.  Source: Inquirer.net

•  Hedging facility - There are two options under the hedging facility, which is being handled by the Development Bank of the Philippines (DBP): 1) peso insurance and 2) forward.  An OFW can chose to avail of a peso insurance, wherein a "protection rate" will be set. The more pesos an OFW wants for every dollar remitted, the higher the cost of the peso insurance.  For example, if an OFW wants to set a protection rate of P41:$1, for his $10,000 remittance, he or she has to pay an insurance fee rate of 1.42 percent of the money remitted or $142. The protection rate can be set for a minimum of one month up to a maximum of 12 months. The insurance rate fee varies every time the OFW hedges, depending on the prevailing exchange rate.         Under the forward option, an OFW will not pay to ensure a certain exchange rate, but he or she will agree to a market-determined rate, regardless of whether or not the dollar appreciates or depreciates at the time of maturity. Like the peso insurance option, an OFW can hedge using the forward for a minimum of one month up to a maximum of 12 months.The hedge facility will be available at the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) where the OFW is based. 

• LTNCDs (long-term negotiable certificate of deposit) - The LTNCDs (which will be available through Land Bank of the Philippines by March) will be issued in P20,000 denomination with five and a half and 10-year tenors. The notes will yield 6.25 percent for the five and a half-year tenor, and 6.88 percent for the 10-year tenor.  If an OFW avails of a P20,000 LTNCD, it will earn P8,056 in five and a half years or P12,760 for 10 years.

• OFW Cash Card - To remit money via SMS (short messaging service), an OFW must avail of the Land Bank OFW Cash Card. The package includes a cash card and a SIM card for the OFW, and a cash card for his beneficiary. (This is just a variation of the SMART Money product). A menu is preloaded in the OFW’s SIM so there is no need to memorize key words, Smart spokesman Mon Isberto said in a presentation. To send money, he has to load his cash card and follow the instructions on the SIM menu. An acknowledgement receipt will be sent to him through SMS, confirming the remittance. Afterwards, the beneficiary can withdraw the money from any ATM machine, on all ATM networks, Isberto said. Each transaction costs P5 and a roaming fee of P20. Another P2.50 is charged to the sender’s airtime load.