In a market known for measured and deliberate and more often than not friendly M&A, the merger between Kirin and Suntory is an interesting transaction. The Kirin Suntory deal is by no means hostile but it is a merger of rivals. The merger if consummated will create the fifth largest food and beverage company in

The stockmarket is no longer determined by fundamentals nor technicals nor free market forces but by the desperation of governments, central banks and policymakers hell bent to give the impression that they have averted an economic crisis which in the end will be inevitable.

The fundamental picture: The second quarter of 2009 witnessed a continuation of the rally in all risky assets from equities to credit to commodities and energy to illiquid Asian physical real estate. On the back of this reversal of the acute risk aversion that plagued the fourth quarter of 2008 and the first quarter of

Here is a chart of the dispersion of hedge fund returns across strategies as classified by Hedge Fund Research. It is the simple standard deviation of the monthly returns across the 18 strategy indices compiled by HFR. What it shows is a clear compression of dispersion from Jan 2000 to Jan 2004 where it troughs.

In emerging markets, something bad happens every 3 to 4 years, and something very bad happens every 7 to 8 years. Bad things tend to happen when periods of high growth store up imbalances which accumulate till breaking point or hide fundamental structural flaws. More often than not, they are borne from lack of diversification