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Bitcoin hits new highs

BITCOIN soared to fresh records Tuesday, putting it on course for $10,000, but the virtual currency’s stratospheric rise has fuelled fears of a bubble after a 10-fold increase this year.

The cryptocurrency, launched in 2009 as a bit of encrypted software written by someone using the Japanese-sounding name Satoshi Nakamoto, has had a roller-coaster ride that has taken it from just a few US cents to its current sky-high valuation.

Traded on specialist platform, with no legal exchange rate and no central bank backing it, Bitcoin is monitored and regulated by its community of users, and is used to buy everything from pizza to a pint in a London pub.

But it has attracted widespread criticism, from financial industry titans to governments.

JP Morgan Chase boss Jamie Dimon in September slammed the unit as a “fraud” and said he would fire his employees if they were caught trading it, while China has shut down Bitcoin trading platforms and South Korea’s prime minister Tuesday voiced fears it could lead the young to get involved in fraudulent crime.

Still, the opposition has not stopped a dizzying surge in bitcoin this year, with its value jumping a 2017 low of $752 in mid-January to a record high above $9,895 Tuesday afternoon. Its value has rise about 45% in the past two weeks alone.

Analysts say the popularity has been driven by growing interest from major investors and a decision last month by exchange giant CME Group to launch a futures marketplace for the currency, which has not been listed on a major bourse before.

BIG GAINS, BIG RISKS
As its fortunes have improved, retail investors have also rushed to jump on to the Bitcoin bandwagon, although fears of a bubble are growing, having witnessed wild swings in the past.

“The biggest issue with Bitcoin is that with no government backing or regulation, the gains may be big — but the sell-offs can be equally as drastic,” warned James Hughes, chief market analyst of Britain-based forex trader AxiTrader, in a note to clients.

Transactions happen when heavily encrypted codes are passed across a computer network.

Bitcoin and other virtual currencies use blockchain, which records transactions that are updated in real time on an online ledger and which are maintained by a network of computers.

Hundreds of other digital currencies have been created since its launch, but Bitcoin remains by far the most popular.

Its supporters insist it offers an efficient alternative to traditional currencies because it is not subject to the whims of a state that may, for example, devalue its money to boost exports.

Commentators also suggest some are buying it as an alternative bet in times of global economic uncertainty.

But critics point to its volatility, an apparent vulnerability to theft and its use in illicit purchases online.

In one of the most high-profile scandals to hit the currency, major Tokyo-based bitcoin exchange MtGox collapsed in 2014 after admitting that 850,000 coins — worth around $480 million at the time — had disappeared from its vaults.

Bitcoin’s use on the underground Silk Road website, where users could use it to buy drugs and guns, was also presented as proof it was a bad thing.

Despite concerns, most observers believe it is unlikely to suffer heavy falls soon.

“There is no real catalyst on the horizon that is going to bring this down,” Shane Chanel, from ASR Wealth Advisers in Sydney, told AFP. — AFP

Picasso’s erotic etchings sell for nearly €2M

A SERIES of 100 etchings by Picasso, which depict his personal and political turmoil in the 1930s, has sold for €1.9 million in Paris, auctioneers said.

The Spanish-born artist took seven years to complete the prints called the Vollard Suite, which deal with his erotic obsessions and marital strife as well as the gathering storm clouds of war over Europe.

The hammer came down on the prints late Sunday as part of a weekend of sales in the French capital from the collection of art dealer Henri Petiet. Some 622 lots were sold for €3.3 million, which the auction house Ader Nordmann called an “enormous success.”

It said the Picasso series was bought by an unnamed American collector.

Civil war erupted in Picasso’s homeland as he was working on the series, leaving his alter ego in the drawings — the minotaur — lost and blind by the end.

Picasso’s technique also developed greatly over the years from his relatively simple early prints of his voluptuous mistress Marie-Therese Walter in the arms of a bearded sculptor, to the darker later pictures where she leads a blind, impotent minotaur by night.

The final three prints are portraits of the French art dealer Ambroise Vollard, who commissioned the series in 1930, giving Picasso paintings by Renoir and Cezanne in exchange.

With no telephone or online bidding allowed for the Paris sale, “there was an unbelievable atmosphere in the room,” auctioneer David Nordmann said, which led to the “exceptional result”.

Only a handful of galleries have a complete collection of the drawings: the Picasso Museum in Paris, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the National Gallery in Washington and the British Museum, which acquired its set for £1 million (€1.1 million) in 2011.

Among the other stellar works in the sale were Renoir’s lithography Pinning the hat, which went for €43,000 — double its estimation—as did Toulouse-Lautrec’s The jockey, which sold for €40,000. — AFP

Star players win out

On this space yesterday, I noted that the Grizzlies, holders of the worst losing streak in the National Basketball Association’s current season at eight, still had time to right the ship. After all, I said, three-fourths of the 2017-2018 campaign still had to be played, and they were, if nothing else, known for their relentlessness; combined with their talent, however lacking, and the committed brain trust, they were poised to turn the corner and at least be respectable in the highly competitive West.

Today, that premise continues to hold true — save for one thing. David Fizdale will no longer be presiding over the projected turnaround. Evidently, the benching of top dog Marc Gasol in the last 15 minutes and change of the Grizzlies’ losing cause against the supposedly lowly Nets the other day was the last straw. After the All-Star went public with his frustration over riding the pine, management saw fit to take stock of his deteriorating relationship with the bench tactician and ultimately took his side.

Pencil pushers come and go in the league, so Fizdale’s firing isn’t earth-shaking in the grand scheme of things. Nonetheless, the underlying reason for the decision to let him go cannot but be the subject of second-guessing. He’s a fine, if demanding, mentor who had the Grizzlies overachieving last season, and who steered them to seven victories in 11 set-tos — and against quality opposition to boot — before starting point guard Mike Conley’s left Achilles tendon injury precipitated the swoon. He also captured the hearts of fans when he went on an epic “Take that for data” rant following a contentious contest versus the Spurs in the playoffs.

The bottom line is this: The Grizzlies are heavily invested in Gasol, and his venting the other day sealed Fizdale’s fate. It didn’t matter that the latter made a tactical move after seeing the players on the floor whittle down what looked to be an insurmountable lead into single digits — a move that, by the way, coaches do routinely. As league annals have underscored time and again, star players win out.

Parenthetically, the Grizzlies are in a quandary. They’re in a small market, so they’re hard-pressed to keep competing lest they alienate their base. Which is why they remain allergic to rebuilding, splurging on Conley and backing Gasol up even though his contract will be an albatross over time. Given their predisposition, though, they’ll likely be stuck in the middle, bad enough to make a postseason appearance an iffy proposition and yet good enough to miss the lottery.

For the record, Gasol didn’t ask for Fizdale’s head; he didn’t march to general manager Chris Wallace’s office and give a “me or him” ultimatum. He’s not stupid, however; he knew what was going to happen once he opened up to scribes. The Grizzlies are his team now, his and Conley’s for real, and while interim head coach J.B. Bickerstaff knows this and will forge better ties with them, it’s fair to wonder if the latest tumult actually made them worse.

 

Anthony L. Cuaycong has been writing Courtside since BusinessWorld introduced a Sports section in 1994. He is the Senior Vice-President and General Manager of Basic Energy Corp.

Brown rice on the menu is MANCOR’s next goal

RESTAURANT menus that give an option between white rice, garlic rice, or brown rice is something that the Mindanao Agri Network Corp. (MANCOR) dreams of. “We’re hoping that in a restaurant in the future, and if we position properly, they start offering white rice, garlic rice or brown rice,” Carlo C. Lorenzana, vice-president of MANCOR, which produces the Sun Made rice brand, said in an interview. Mr. Lorenzana said they have already made strides in marketing brown rice, with the product now carried by major supermarkets and retail shops. “We market it (Sun Made) as a product of Mindanao and it is growing and it is now in major market nationwide such as Rustans, Robinsons, SM, Landers, and also in some specialty stores in the city. We’ve been very aggressive in promoting it,” Mr. Lorenzana said. MANCOR, through its assisted farm program, buys the rice from around 60 farmers in Davao City. “Through the said program, we teach the farmers to grow rice organically and we purchase it from them at a premium, higher than the market price. The farmers are assured that whatever they produce, we bring it to the market,” Mr. Lorenzana said. — Maya M. Padillo

Evacuation centers, hotels fill up as Bali eruption looms

KARANGASEM, INDONESIA — Evacuation centers and hotels in Bali filled up Tuesday with tens of thousands seeking refuge as a volcano on the Indonesian resort island threatened to erupt, forcing the closure of the main airport for a second day.

Stranded tourists hunted for accommodation while frightened villagers living in Mount Agung’s shadow made their way to more than 200 evacuation centers as the mountain gushed smoke and ash.

The rumbling volcano — which last erupted in 1963 killing around 1,600 people — forced Indonesian authorities to close Bali’s airport for a second day Tuesday as experts raised the alert level to maximum.

Towering columns of thick grey smoke have been rising from the mountain since last week, and in the last few days have begun shooting into the sky, forcing all flights to be grounded until at least Wednesday morning.

Ash is dangerous for planes since it makes runways slippery and can be sucked into their engines.

Officials have warned that the volcano, which looms over the tropical holiday paradise, could erupt at any moment.

Some 40,000 people have abandoned their homes in the danger zone but as many as 100,000 will likely be forced to leave, disaster agency officials have said.

“Volcanic ash is still spewing. It’s thick and rising very high — up to three or four kilometers from the crater,” said I Gede Suantika, an official at Indonesia’s volcanology agency.

The exclusion zone around Agung, which is 75 kilometers (km) from the beachside tourist hub of Kuta, has also been widened to 10 km.

As of Tuesday some 443 flights had been canceled, affecting more than 120,000 passengers in Bali, a top holiday destination that attracts millions of foreign tourists every year.

Inn operator I Wayan Yastina Joni was among the few hoteliers willing to take up an appeal by Bali’s governor and tourism agency to supply free rooms to thousands of out-of-luck visitors, though some offered discounts.

“I don’t mind giving free accommodation for tourists I already know,” said the owner of the Pondok Denayu Homestay.

“This is nobody’s fault. It’s a natural disaster that no one expected.”

Hundreds of tourists are being shuttled to Indonesia’s second city Surabaya, about 13 hours’ drive away, so they can fly out of the country.

“We are preparing 10 buses and more can likely be provided later today,” Bali Transportation Agency Head Agung Sudarsana said earlier Tuesday.

The airport on nearby Lombok island — also a popular tourist destination east of Bali — has opened and closed several times in the past few days. It is currently open but may yet be shuttered again, officials said.

MEMORIES OF DISASTER
Mount Agung’s last eruption in the early sixties was one of the deadliest ever seen in a country with nearly 130 active volcanoes.

“I am very worried because I have experienced this before,” 67-year-old evacuee Dewa Gede Subagia, who was a teenager when Agung last roared, told AFP.

“I hope this time I won’t have to evacuate for too long. In 1963, I left for four months.”

Experts said however that Agung’s recent activity matches the build-up to the earlier disaster, which ejected enough debris — about a billion tons — to lower global average temperatures by 0.2-0.3˚ Celsius for about a year.

“What we are seeing at the moment are small explosions, throwing out hot gases and fragments of molten rock, or ash,” said David Pyle, a volcano expert at Oxford University.

“The probability of a large eruption is high, but this may take some days or weeks to unfold.”

Agung rumbled back to life in September, forcing the evacuation of 140,000 people living nearby. Its activity decreased in late October and many returned to their homes.

However, on Saturday the mountain sent smoke up into the air for the second time in a week in what volcanologists call a phreatic eruption — caused by the heating and expansion of groundwater.

Then on Monday so-called cold lava flows appeared — similar to mud flows and often a prelude to the blazing orange lava of the popular imagination.

Indonesia is the world’s most active volcanic region. The archipelago nation with over 17,000 islands lies on the Pacific “Ring of Fire” where tectonic plates collide, causing frequent volcanic and seismic activities.

Last year, seven people were killed after Mt. Sinabung on the western island of Sumatra erupted. A 2014 eruption at Sinabung killed 16. — AFP

The importance of trusting your gut

The customer is king, says the people-pleasing entrepreneur who constantly worries that negative feedback could shutter his business. I have personally worked for bosses who panic at the slightest indication of public dissatisfaction. Under said bosses, fickle policy making is the norm. They are more likely to be swayed by a toxic rant than to stand by a collective decision every team member supports.

And in this social media world we live in now — where an otherwise isolated sentiment can seem deafeningly loud when amplified by a handful of overzealous online warriors — corporate executives with weak resolve tend to buckle under the weight of digital lobbying. It is therefore my hope that the poor brand managers of Formula 1 — recently acquired by a new American owner — will not succumb to social media pressure after receiving a passionate backlash against the new logo they unveiled over the weekend.

When I first saw the new logo, my initial thought was: “This is actually nice. Sleek, clean, modern. I like it.”

And then I pored over the long thread of angry (and hilarious) comments from followers of the official F1 Instagram account.

“It’s like changing Helvetica to Comic Sans,” observed one.

“It looks like it was designed by a child,” remarked another.

“I’m starting to miss the old one already,” added a fellow critic.

After reading hundreds of similar brickbats, even I began to doubt my personal assessment. Was I wrong in thinking the new logo looked okay? Was I even qualified to evaluate graphic art to begin with? The sheer amount of disapproval gave me the illusion I was misguided in liking the new logo, and that the only acceptable emotion was one of repugnance.

I would later show the new Formula 1 logo to a colleague, who also happens to be an art director. As a visual artist whose aesthetic taste I respect, I had to know what he thought of the much-maligned trademark. As I had hoped he would, he gave the new logo his thumbs-up. Much better than the old one, he said. In fact, he pointed out, place the new logo next to the previous one and the latter would look so out of date.

I agree. Indeed, the old F1 logo almost seems like a counterfeit joke compared to its replacement. But see, I had to hear the validating appraisal of a professional artist to feel comfortable with my own judgment. All those critical statements made me feel insecure about my own ability to give an honest opinion regarding a simple logo. I imagine this is what someone who is being gaslighted goes through.

These are dangerous times to be harvesting information online, psychologically speaking. Besides having incompetent and flat-out ignorant charlatans offering aggressive views on just about any subject, there are countless trolls out there whose mission in life is to mess with other people’s thinking. The scary part is that it’s the quacks who are usually the noisiest, making them sound correct and authoritative.

Whether you’re a businessman or just a private individual trying to make sense of your antagonistic news feed, there are two things you need to arm yourself with: critical thinking and discernment. The first means being able to form ideas and conclusions by yourself, without the influence of social media — and being 100% confident about them no matter what. The second is being able to tell the bogus from the genuine, the hoax from the fact, the fake news from the real news. I have journalist-friends who, believe it or not, share stupid content from disreputable Web sites. If supposed journalists routinely fall for deceptions, what hope do their readers have?

Consumers are relying more and more on customer feedback these days, which is generally available online. I, for one, won’t buy an electronic product before I check reviews from buyers on Amazon. But even on popular sites like this, there are questionable reviews made by dubious users. Who knows if a particularly scathing analysis isn’t the work of the brand’s competition?

Social media, for the most part, is great. But we have to be extremely careful and extraordinarily tough when wading through a sea of comments, especially if these comments are aimed at our own brand or product. There will always be those who disagree, those who complain, those who find fault. Haters will always hate, as they say.

The good and wise businessman takes note of the grievances, but doesn’t lose sight of the big objective. To get there, sometimes you just have to mute Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, and execute your plan in peace and quiet. Get out of that misleading echo chamber and you will find a clearer path to success.

Copper bulls upbeat over China meetings amid property risk

JUST TWO YEARS AGO copper was floundering at the lowest level since the global financial crisis. Now the metal often viewed as a barometer of the world economy is heading for its best year since 2010 on bets that miners can’t dig fast enough to keep up with strengthening demand.

The metal’s 25% rally since the start of January lends a bullish backdrop to Asia Copper Week, an annual cluster of events starting in Shanghai on Tuesday. When traders, producers and consumers gathered in China’s main commodity hub in 2015, a slowdown in the nation’s industrial economy was beating prices of copper and other metals down to the lowest level since 2009. An upturn last year was given fresh impetus by the election of Donald Trump as US President and evidence that a global economic recovery was under way.

Now the market is more confident about prospects for prices in the long run, says Adam Fan, chief executive officer of consultancy Shanghai Metal Market.

“Sentiment at this event will be completely different from the past two years,” Fan said in a phone interview last week. “The overall mood is relatively bullish. From a global perspective, slowing investment in copper mines will lead to tight concentrate supply over the next two years. And in China, we don’t see any clear bearish trend for downstream demand in our model.”

Other observers have flagged shorter-term risks, led by a nascent property slowdown in China. But with average annual prices heading for the first increase since 2011, banks from Citigroup, Inc. to Bank of China see more gains this decade as world growth powers on. Oscar Landerretche, chairman of top global miner Codelco, who is scheduled to address the conference, recently dropped his caution to say that a return to $10,000 a metric ton is possible.

Top of the business agenda in Shanghai are talks in which miners including Chile’s Antofagasta Plc and Phoenix-based Freeport McMoRan, Inc. will agree how much they will charge Chinese smelters for raw material supplies next year. Miners are seeking lower treatment and refining fees given the prospect of tightening mine supply, together with growing demand from a Chinese copper industry that has added millions of tons of new capacity this decade.

Weaker supply growth or a contraction is at the heart of copper’s long-term bull case, with more frequent disruptions and a dearth of new mines combining to slow output. The refined copper market will be nearly balanced next year, before slumping into a deepening deficit from 2019 that will underpin prices past the turn of the decade, according to Bloomberg Intelligence. The global shortage will be almost 400,000 tons by 2022, it estimates.

“Copper mine supply will continue to see some challenges due to a combination of potential labor strikes, community difficulties and declining ore grades,” Fu Xiao, head of commodities strategy at BOCI Global Commodities UK Ltd., said in an interview by Wechat last week. And the next few months are “big” for the copper market given the possibility of fresh disruption amid wage talks at major mines, according to Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. analysts.

No metals conference is complete these days without discussion of the world’s electric vehicle revolution — another pillar of the bulls’ long-term view. Annual electric vehicle sales of 50 million units could lift copper demand by 5.5 million tons a year, equal to about 24% of entire demand at present, according to Sanford C. Bernstein’s base case published last month.

“Promotion of new energy vehicles may not be an immediate boost, but will be at least bullish for the long-term demand outlook,” SMM’s Fan said. In Shanghai, officials from the International Copper Association and consultancy Wood Mackenzie Ltd. will offer their latest outlook for copper’s use in electric vehicles and in the wider renewable energy sector.

For skeptics, the most obvious reason for immediate caution is a slowdown in two areas that are critical for demand: China’s property market and its electricity grid. Home sales fell the most in almost three years in October, while floor space under construction is in the red on-year. JPMorgan Chase & Co. sees a 6% decline in home sales in 2018. Investment in power grid infrastructure was flat at about 413 billion yuan in the first 10 months from a year earlier, compared with a 29% gain in the same period in 2016, according to the China National Energy Administration.

“The property market in China will definitely be weaker as government curbs take effect, while power grid spending will shrink as there’s not many new projects on which to spend,” Chris Wu, analyst at researcher CRU Group, said from Beijing. “Overall market sentiment is bullish right now, but on a seasonal basis the market is weakening so that won’t let copper prices shine just yet.”

Copper in London fell for a second day on Tuesday, declining 1.2% to $6,858 a ton by 2:23 p.m. in Shanghai. — Bloomberg

PSEi drops further on profit taking, cautiousness

THE Philippine Stock Exchange index (PSEi) continued its downward trend on Tuesday as investors pocketed gains from its recent climb.

The benchmark index closed at 8,291.88, down 69.81 points or 0.83%, while the all-shares index closed at 4,854.67, down 33.65 points or 0.68%.

Investors turned cautious after reports of a possible missile launch in North Korea, and others took profits during the early window-dressing session.

“Investors have been booking profits as they prepare for the MSCI index rebalancing due on Thursday,” Jervin S. de Celis, equities trader at Timson Securities, Inc. said in a text message.

“Philippine investors once again turned cautious after reports that North Korea may be preparing a missile launch. Others took this as a sign to sell and take further profit during the early window-dressing session, with one more trading day left in November on Wednesday,” Mr. De Celis added.

The index took cues from Asian and Japanese stocks, failing to gain momentum from the increases in Wall Street and European stocks.

MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan slipped further from decade highs, touching its lowest in a week.

Meanwhile, Wall Street’s major indexes ended little changed on Monday, retreating modestly from record highs set during the session, as gains for Amazon countered losses in shares of energy companies.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 22.79 points or 0.10% to 23,580.78, the S&P 500 lost 1 point or 0.04% to 2,601.42 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 10.64 points or 0.15% to 6,878.52.

The UK’s FTSE 100 Index rose 0.10%, and Germany’s DAX Index rose 0.2%. Japan’s Nikkei 225 Stock Average declined less than 0.05%, the lowest in a week, and the MSCI Asia Pacific Index decreased 0.1% to the lowest in a week.

Investors will be awaiting the summary of regional anecdotes from the 12 Federal Reserve districts from the Beige Book as well as the outcome of the latest Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries meeting in Vienna.

All sectoral counters declined except financials, which closed at 2,090.57, up by 0.15 point.

Meanwhile, mining and oil led losers as it went down 615.65 points or 5.07% to end at 11,526.59. Services dropped 28.50 points or 1.74% to 1,605.32; holding firms gave up 71.49 points or 0.84% to close at 8,443.69; property declined 25.32 points or 0.64% to 3,904.86;  and industrials lost 7.73 points or 0.07% to finish at 10,845.25.

Value turnover went up to P8.82 billion yesterday from Monday’s P6.35 billion as 1.74 billion shares were traded.

Decliners outnumbered advancers, 115 to 75, while 52 names ended flat.

Net foreign selling persisted, with the net outflow going up to P51.77 million on Tuesday from P32.38 million the previous session. — P.P.C. Marcelo with Reuters

Nation at a Glance — (11/29/17)

News stories from across the nation. Visit www.bworldonline.com (section: The Nation) to read more national and regional news from the Philippines.

China’s war on bubbles means home sales expected to decline in 2018

CHINA’S efforts to cool the property market may lead to the first decline in home sales since 2014 next year, highlighting the risks as officials try to battle bubbles without tanking the economy.

As a government campaign tackling excessive leverage and financial risks chokes off some sources of buyer funding, such as consumer loans, developers could also find that credit is tighter next year. As dozens of cities maintain their curbs on property sales, new mortgages have dipped and funds for building have slowed. JPMorgan Chase & Co. sees a 6% decline in home sales in 2018.

An overheated real-estate sector is one of the prominent dangers to the world’s second-largest economy as policy makers step up efforts to tackle financial risks, now that the political hurdle of October’s 19th Communist Party Congress is cleared. Officials must judge how tightly to squeeze with ad-hoc curbs while trying to keep the economy humming and searching for long-term structural remedies, such as a property tax or a bigger rental market.

“Slowing property investment will drag on economic expansion,” said Wang Qiufeng, an analyst at China Chengxin International Rating Co., a ratings company part-owned by Moody’s Investors Service. “There is little sign that policy makers will relax curbs on home purchases.”

Restrictions on home purchases that were rolled out since March 2016 will likely be maintained, and market oddities caused by the hand of the state may persist. With local officials able to effectively set maximum prices for developers’ home sales, new properties have sometimes cost less than old ones in Beijing and Shanghai.

An array of city-by-city curbs includes bans on buyers reselling for multiple years; mortgage restrictions; increased down-payment requirements; bans on purchases by non-residents; and limits on the number of homes that people can buy.

Officials’ focus will shift toward measures such as boosting the rental market from previous efforts to reduce inventories of unsold homes, according to a commentary published Tuesday by the Economic Information Daily, a newspaper under the state-run Xinhua News Agency.

Risks have been mitigated, and while the rising household leverage ratio is a problem, it can be managed, the paper said. In the meantime, the leadership is more tolerant of an economic slowdown and the curbs are aimed at buying time to establish long-term housing solutions, it added.

The home-sales decline forecast by JPMorgan is driven by the smaller cities that can account for two-thirds of demand, according to a note from analysts led by Ryan Li. Sales will bounce back in the biggest cities but sink in the smaller ones, where economic fundamentals are weaker and buyers are more sensitive to credit conditions, they say. Real-estate investment growth will cool from an estimated 11% this year to 9% next year, according to the bank.

The stakes are high: A bubble in the biggest cities such as Beijing and Shanghai risks spreading to smaller ones, increasing the likelihood and costs of a sharp slump, according to an International Monetary Fund working paper this month. Developing a bigger and better rental housing market is touted as one long-term method of cooling prices and stabilizing the market, but those efforts are in their early stages.

There’s also no imminent sign of a long-discussed property-holding tax that would discourage speculative investors from buying homes that stay vacant as they wait for prices to rise — that’s what Standard Chartered Plc calls the “missing piece” of China’s bubble-fighting toolkit.

Indeed, China lacks a nationwide real estate registration scheme, and that’s a major factor delaying a property tax. The nation aims for a basic registration management platform by the end of 2017, according to the website of the Ministry of Land and Resources. — Bloomberg

How PSEi member stocks performed — November 28, 2017

Here’s a quick glance at how PSEi stocks fared on Tuesday, November 27, 2017.

EastWest Bank’s tips for safe holiday shopping

The holiday shopping season is in full swing.  While people are on a spending spree for great buys and bargains, scammers and fraudsters are lurking, waiting for unsuspecting shoppers to victimize.

That’s why EastWest Bank reminds everyone to take precautions to protect themselves from fraud, identity theft, and scams.

The following are some of the bank’s tips for keeping transactions safe and secure when using ATM, debit, and credit cards on automated teller machines (ATMs), point-of-sale (POS) terminals, and the Internet.

Switch to EMV cards

EMV is the new global standard for card security.  An EMV card, also known as a chip card, is safer to use as it contains a microprocessor chip that creates a unique transaction code for each payment that cannot be used again for succeeding transactions. Magnetic stripe on a traditional card contains fixed information, which when accessed by fraudsters, can be used to make unauthorized purchases.

For its customers’ protection, EastWest will deactivate all its non-EMV debit cards on December 4, 2017 at 11:59 PM. Upon deactivation, these cards can no longer be used at automated teller machines, POS terminals, and online merchants.  Customers with non-EMV debit cards are advised to visit their store of account on or before December 4 to claim their free EastWest Debit Card with EMV and payWave.

Check the ATM before using it

Check the area surrounding the ATM.  Avoid ATMs located in areas that have little foot traffic or with poor lighting.  Also take a closer look at the machine itself.  Criminals may install false card slots, PIN pads, tiny cameras, and other devices to capture PINS, cards, and money.   Do not use ATMs with signs of tampering, like loose wires, adhesive smears, or components that are wobbly.

Check the purchase amount and your statements

When using ATM/debit cards to pay for purchases, be the one to key-in your PIN and cover your hand when you do so.   Always check the amount on the POS terminal screen to make sure that your account will be debited for the correct amount.

When using credit cards, check the purchase amount on the charge slip before signing it.

Regularly check your statements to ensure that there are no unauthorized transactions.

Keep your device and Internet connection secure

Always keep your computer security up-to-date with anti-virus and anti-spyware software.  See to it that your web browser is updated.

Avoid using public Wi-Fi connection for financial transactions, such as online banking and online shopping.  Most Wi-Fi hotspots don’t encrypt the information you send over the internet and aren’t secure.  For financial transactions, connect to the Internet instead using 3G, 4G, or LTE.

At home, secure your home wireless network. Change the default name of your router and protect it with a strong password. Turn off “remote management” features, if any.

Only shop from secure sites

Ensure that the websites you are shopping from are secure.  Check if its URL says “https,” which means the site is encrypted for security. Look for other signs that signal the level of security, such as a closed lock icon (padlock), which appears in the browser address window. A green lock icon means that the website has implemented the extended validation security feature.

For more banking security tips, visit www.eastwestbanker.com.

 

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