World's Richest Lose $21 Billion...more to go...

World's Richest Lose $21 Billion as Icahn's Fortune Drops

By Alex Cuadros - Feb 23, 2013 3:52 AM GMT+0530

The 100 wealthiest people on the planet shed $21.3 billion from their collective net worth as the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index posted its first weekly decline so far this year.Activist investor Carl Icahn, the world’s 34th-richest person, was one of the week’s biggest losers, dropping $1.3 billion as shares of Icahn Enterprises LP (IEP) sank 15.6 percent. He’s worth $20.4 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.“The market was looking for an excuse to take a few chips off the table,” said James McDonald, chief investment strategist at Northern Trust Corp. (NTRS) in Chicago, which manages $759 billion. “The excuse was the minutes from the Fed, but investors realize the Fed’s picture really hasn’t changed that significantly. Today, there was good German confidence data.”The S&P rose 0.88 percent yesterday, trimming a decline triggered by concerns that the Federal Reserve will scale back stimulus. The index rebounded from two days of losses after German business confidence rose more than forecast, adding to signs that Europe’s largest economy is gathering strength.Carlos Slim, the world’s richest man, saw his net worth fall by almost $700 million as America Movil (AMXL) SAB, Latin America’s biggest mobile-phone company by market value, fell 2.2 percent, capping its third straight weekly drop. Slim, 73, has a net worth of $73.4 billion.

Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) co-founder Bill Gates, 57, is the world’s second-richest person with a $66 billion fortune, down $260 million for the week. Amancio Ortega, the 76-year-old founder ofInditex SA (ITX), the world’s biggest clothing retailer and owner of the Zara clothing chain, is No. 3 with a net worth of $56.1 billion. He lost $1.3 billion.Suspicious TradesTrailing Ortega is Warren Buffett, 82, who’s valued at $54.2 billion. A federal judge froze a Swiss account that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission says was used to carry out suspicious trades in H.J. Heinz Co. shares shortly before Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (BRK/A) and Jorge Paulo Lemann’s 3G Capital Inc. announced they’d agreed to buy the company. The SEC on Feb. 15 sued the “unknown” traders over suspicious purchases of Heinz options through the account.Lemann, 73, is Brazil’s richest individual. He has a net worth of $19.9 billion, down $20 million for the week.Tax LoopholeHedge fund manager John Paulson, 57, is No. 93 on Bloomberg’s ranking with a net worth of $11.2 billion. Last year, executives at his firm sent about $450 million to a reinsurance company that they’d set up in Bermuda. By June, the island company, which has no employees and sells far less reinsurance than the industry norm, had sent all the cash back to New York, to be invested in Paulson & Co. funds. The little- known tax loophole allows them to reduce their personal income taxes and delay paying the bill for years.

The Bloomberg Billionaires Index takes measure of the world’s wealthiest people based on market and economic changes and Bloomberg News reporting. Each net worth figure is updated every business day at 5:30 p.m. in New York and listed in U.S. dollars.

To contact the reporter on this story: Alex Cuadros in Sao Paulo at acuadros@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Matthew G. Miller at mmiller144@bloomberg.net

1987 Market Crash...he predicted .....Martin Zweig...

Martin Zweig, Who Predicted 1987 Market Crash, Dies at 70

By Tomoko Yamazaki - Feb 19, 2013 9:53 PM GMT+0530

Martin E. Zweig, who predicted the 1987 stock market crash and whose newsletters influenced U.S. investors for a quarter century, has died. He was 70. He died yesterday, according to Zweig-DiMenna Associates LLC, his New York-based firm. No cause of death was given.

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Martin Zweig, co-founder of Zweig-DiMenna Partners LP., poses for a photograph during an interview in a file photo. Photographer: Rob Kinmonth/Time Life Pictures/Getty Images

Zweig wrote “Martin Zweig’s Winning on Wall Street,” his book first published in 1986, and stock-picking newsletters such as the Zweig Forecast for 26 years, helping start his career in hedge funds and philanthropy. He co-founded Zweig-DiMenna Partners in 1984 and, according to the New York Times, bought a 16-room apartment at Manhattan’s Pierre hotel in 1999 for $21.5 million. He also had a residence in Fisher Island, Florida. “I was on the road show with Marty for the Zweig Fund in 1986 and he was like a rock star,” Gene Glaser, a business partner with Zweig from 1989 to 1999, said today in an interview. “People would wait around to get his autograph and ask him questions about the market.” Zweig began his career in the 1970s writing investment newsletters, which became the Zweig Forecast, published from 1971 to 1997, the company said in a statement through Business Wire. In 1984, Zweig and Joe DiMenna founded Zweig-DiMenna Partners, their first long-short hedge fund, followed by the Zweig Fund in 1986 and the Zweig Total Return Fund in 1988.

Predicting Crash

A regular guest on the PBS television show “Wall Street Week With Louis Rukeyser,” Zweig is credited with developing the technical analysis tool known as the put-call ratio, according to his firm. The indicator plots bearish versus bullish options as a way of determining investor sentiment. Zweig’s best-known call came during Rukeyser’s program on Oct. 16, 1987, when he predicted stocks were poised for a “vicious” decline reminiscent of the crash of 1929. The Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged 508 points, or a record 23 percent, in the next session, now known as Black Monday. “I haven’t been looking for a bear market per se, really, in my own mind I’m looking for a crash,” Zweig said in the PBS interview. “I only look for a brief decline, but a vicious one.” The Dow declined 23 percent in October 1987 and climbed 2.3 percent that year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Zweig bought bearish options and advised readers of the Zweig Forecast to do the same prior to the 1987 crash. The strategy generated an 8.7 percent profit for the month and helped push his picks up 50 percent in 2007, according to a profile published on the website of his alma mater, the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School.

Dow Theory

“He was a pioneer in technical analysis,” said Richard Russell, editor of the Dow Theory Letters newsletter, in a telephone interview. Zweig was a “terrible worrier,” said Russell, who took over Zweig’s investment advisory service. Dow Theory, which stems from observations made by Wall Street Journal founder Charles Dow during the late 1800s, holds that moves by the transportation average must be “confirmed” by the industrial measure, and vice versa, to be sustained.A patron of The Wharton School, who helped fund its Locust Walk lobby, Zweig played poker and collected pop-culture items, according to the 2007 profile. He owned the sequined dress Marilyn Monroe wore when she sang “Happy Birthday” to President John F. Kennedy and a baseball jersey worn by Brooklyn Dodger star Jackie Robinson in 1947, it said. Cleveland Native Martin Edward Zweig was born on July 2, 1942, in Cleveland. His father died when he was 9, and the family moved to Florida a year later following his mother’s remarriage, Zweig wrote in “Martin Zweig’s Winning on Wall Street.” His interest in the stock market began at 13, when he received a gift of six shares of General Motors Co. from an uncle. Zweig graduated from Wharton in 1964 with a B.A. in economics. He later received an MBA from the University of Miami and a Ph.D. in finance from Michigan State University in East Lansing, Michigan. “Marty became a mentor and close friend shortly after he hired me in 1977 while I was still in college,” DiMenna said in the statement. “He was a wonderful, kind and generous person and I will always be grateful for the opportunity to have been his friend and partner. Marty was one of a kind.” He is survived by his wife Barbara and sons Zack and Alex.

To contact the reporter on this story: Tomoko Yamazaki in Singapore attyamazaki@bloomberg.net To contact the editor responsible for this story: Andreea Papuc at apapuc1@bloomberg.net.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-02-19/martin-zweig-stock-author-who-predicted-87-market-crash-dies.html

Loan recast to touch Rs 3.12 trillion...

17 FEB, 2013, 02.46PM IST, PTI 

Loan recast to peak next fiscal to touch Rs 3.12 trillion: Care

MUMBAI: Ratings agency Care has said loan restructuring will peak next fiscal to reach Rs 3.12 lakh crore if the latest Reserve Bank guidelines are accepted without any changes. 
"If the draft RBI guidelines on restructured accounts are implemented as it is, it will prompt banks to carry out most of the restructuring in pipeline during the fourth quarter of this fiscal and through next fiscal in an attempt to upgrade fresh restructured accounts by the end of FY15 and to avoid incremental provisioning of 1.25 per cent," Care said in a note. 
The report says there will be new loan restructuring worth Rs 57,782 crore taking total recast loan book to Rs 3,12,022 crore next fiscal (2013-14). Under the draft RBI guidelines on provisioning for standard restructured accounts, banks will be asked to set aside 3.75 per cent for each of the restructured accounts in FY14, which will increase to 5 per cent by FY15. Provisioning requirement stands at 2.75 per cent at present, which was 2 per cent till last October. The draft norms also make it easier for banks to reclassify accounts as well as the restructured assets as standard accounts. The report, however, says a reclassification will see the total quantum of restructured books going down as assets get reclassified and upgraded under the revised norms. 
"At least 25 per cent of the outstanding restructured assets of FY12 would be upgraded instantly, while 60 per cent of the outstanding standard restructured assets of FY12 will be restructured afresh in FY13," it said, reducing its estimates on total recast book up to Rs 2,80,000-3,10,000 crore from its earlier estimate of up to Rs 4,00,000 crore by FY13. 
Additionally, the stress on contribution from promoters, who have been asked to bring in 15 per cent of bank sacrifices or 2 per cent of debt restructured, "may temper the pace of restructuring, as only the genuine cases will be referred for restructuring during FY13-FY15," the note said. The draft norms on provisioning are expected to push up total provisioning by Rs 5,000-7,000 crore till FY15. Public sector banks are expected to be hurt the most because of new rules as they carry the maximum bad books and CDR accounts, while private sector ones, with lower sizes of restructured assets, are expected to have a "muted impact", the report said. Overall, the report has welcomed the guidelines saying they are a step towards integrating the country with the rest of the world. 
"The RBI notification with respect to restructured assets disclosure could enable greater accounting and reporting transparency governing asset quality of banks and financial institutions," it added. 

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/18542317.cms