L'Information est d'Or

Interesting comparison of Google and Apple's mobile OS strategy in AppleInsider. While Apple's strategy is established and clear (integrated platform, tight control and brand management), Google has still to find a winning formula. Comparison of business models with technical presentation

Total has sacked several hundreds of employees (up to 900 according to some reports) for participating in a strike. This is outrageous behaviour on behalf of an international company. Let's boycott them! Link to the BBC news story

Sovereign funds have been welcomed to refinance banks who suffered (and will continue to suffer) huge write-downs from the sub-prime crisis. This map from the WSJ tells you which ones they are.

As if the massive write-downs that Financial institutions had to suffer wasn't enough, Societe Generale took another hit: one of its traders made them loose €4.9bn in Equity Derivatives . Apparently, this trader had accumulated a longue position in equity derivatives in the UK, Germany and the Eurostoxx 50 worth an estimated €50bn, more than SocGen’s market value. “Every two or three days, he was changing his position. He would input a transaction that would trigger a control in three days and before that happened he would replace it with a different one,” said Mr Mustier. He said the rogue trader was managing hundreds of thousands of concealed trades and an equal number of falsified hedges to give the appearance that any loss was offset. It is interested to note that half the losses occured after the management was made aware of the position and decided to sell it. Financials are definitely a sell. The story on the FT http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/3ac68dd2-cb7c-11dc-97ff-000077b07658...

European property crash could bring the euro down with it By : Matthew Lynn 09/05/2007 "The European Central Bank didn't worry about prices on the way up so there is no reason to imagine it will worry about them going down" In the eight years since the euro was launched, soaring, runaway property markets in Spain, France, and, most of all, Ireland have been seen as one of the greatest threats to the stability of the currency. Now it turns out that precisely the opposite might be true. It is not rising house prices that are a threat to the euro. It is falling prices. Why? Because as property markets in those three countries start to collapse – as they now appear to be on the edge of doing – the European Central Bank (ECB) will be able to do nothing about it. Economies may be plunged into recession, financial systems hit, and people's wealth wiped out. And the central bank will be able to do nothing except sit on its hands and fret. In the past few years, a small num...