Business Markets

Scott O’Malia, a Republican CFTC commissioner, has proposed the formation of a subcommittee that would be tasked with defining and identifying high-frequency trading in futures, swaps and options.

So far there is little consensus as to what is algorithmic or high-frequency trading and how various trading patterns affect the markets.

The subcommittee would be part of the CFTC’s Technology Advisory Committee, chaired by O’Malia. CFTC Chief Economist Andrei Kirilenko would lead the panel.

“I believe that this lack of consensus is impeding the ability to have a public debate on different trading patterns and their effects on our markets,” O’Malia said on Monday.

In high-frequency trading, banks, hedge funds and proprietary firms use extremely fast automated programs to make trades in electronic markets. Such participants use programs to submit and cancel large numbers of trades, and are able to move in and out of positions quickly.

The popularity of high-frequency trading has surged, and growth is expected to continue as more swaps activity shifts to electronic platforms.

Read full post…

As our world moves quickly away from the Industrial Age into this Technology/Idea Age — we’re being called upon to build something very different than our parents or grandparents did.

Our generation is being asked to create ideas, technologies, new solutions to age old problems — all of which require us to be innovative.

What does that actually mean?  It means coming up with something new, being creative, coming at problems in a fresh way.  In business it means finding better ways to be valuable to your customers’ lives.

A lot of people believe that they’re not creative or they can’t do that sort of work.  I think that’s rubbish.  Everyone has it in them to find new answers.  Or even to ask new questions that lead to new answers.

How do you do it?  I might suggest you read a book I just finished called Innovate Like Edison by Sarah Miller Caldicott. (click

Read full post…

Take a handful of tenacious farmers, add some innovation and a smidge of cooperation, and you have the secret to Michigan’s small yet growing cranberry industry.

While the state remains a niche player, family farms are capitalizing on opportunities to boost business. Consumer interest in healthy foods as well as in buying from Michigan companies has spurred new sales avenues for the little bulbous berry.

One example is the partnership between the Michigan Cranberry Co. and supermarkets such as Hiller’s Market, Meijer Inc., Kroger Co. and Whole Foods Market Inc. This fall marked the first year Wally and Sharon Huggett sold fresh cranberries directly to a retailer, thanks in part to a request from Hiller’s to supply Michigan cranberries to its stores for the holiday season.

“It’s a win-win for everyone,” said Wally Huggett, a semiretired sod farmer who has the largest cranberry operation in the state with about 220 acres producing 3 million pounds of cranberries annually in Cheboygan County.

Read full post…

The Times tracks several quarterly commodity prices to give consumers a snapshot in time of the agriculture industry.

Included are milk, hay, potatoes and oats.

Minnesota has a strong dairy presence, and hay is an important factor in the operation of any farm with animals.

Potatoes are a staple of the food industry, and oats are consumed by people and animals.

The Times tracks the price of corn and soybeans daily.

Inflation

Inflation was in effect in all four commodities in the agricultural snapshot for 2011.

While the price was not yet final for December, according to the National Agricultural Statistics Service, the price of potatoes increased more than 55 percent to an average of $11.34 per 100 pounds.

That was largely because of a July spike in the price, which had dropped back below $8 through November.

Oats also took a healthy jump, with the price per bushel rising 45 percent to $3.11.

Read full post…

An iconic London landmark, the Battersea Power Station, is now up for sale after Real Estate Opportunities the Irish developers were forced by investors after admitting they couldn’t repay over £502 million of debt on the project. Ernst and Young were appointed last December to recoup monies to repay investors, which include the Irish super bank, NAMA as well as the now nationalised Lloyds Bank and Victor Hwang, a Malaysian property tycoon.

The agents Knight Frank Rutley, better known as agents of choice to landowners and celebrities for selling their multimillion pound country estates have been appointed to find a buyer for London’s prime redevelopment opportunity.

The Battersea Power Station covers over 400 acres of prime development land next to the Thames. The

Read full post…

Pub chain JD Wetherspoon enjoyed some Christmas sales cheer but its chairman warned expansion plans may be scaled back in the face of more tax hikes.

The chain, which operates some 850 pubs, is on track to open 50 sites in the year to July but future openings may slow drastically if the Chancellor presses ahead with planned increases in duty.

Chairman Tim Martin has called on George Osborne to scrap the rises in alcohol duty, which have been going up above the rate of inflation in recent years and will wait for the Chancellors Budget speech before deciding whether the current rate of expansion can continue.

He highlighted parts of the West Midlands as evidence of the impact on the pub sector.

Meanwhile, the chain said that like-for-like sales in the 12 weeks to January 15 increased 3.6 per cent, which was up from 1.1% in the previous quarter.

Mr Martin said: If taxes continue to rise, we will have to look closely at our expansion plans.

We are already paying too much duty and its not a viable proposition for the Government to punish pubs in this way.

Its driving people away from pubs and its bad for jobs.

You just have to drive around Wolverhampton, Stoke or the suburbs of Birmingham to see the devastation wrought on the sector as a whole.

The most recent figures were flattered by comparisons with a weaker performance in the previous December when Arctic blizzards kept people at home.

The group said its profit margins fell in the second quarter of its financial year as it struggled to pass on the rising cost of VAT, alcohol duty, and higher food and drink costs to cash-strapped consumers.

Mr Martin, who started the chain in 1979, also pointed out that supermarkets have an unfair advantage over pubs because they do not to have to pay VAT on food sales, which went up last year to 20 per cent.

He claimed this allows them to subsidise beer and steal sales from the pub industry.

Pubs have been closing at a rate of about 14 a week between December 2010 and June, according to figures from campaign group Camra.

The sector has suffered in the wake of the smoking ban and as the squeeze in consumer spending sees more people buy cheap drink from supermarkets.

Its outspoken chairman said Wetherspoon has been the pre-eminent pub company in recent years, helped by its aim of providing reasonable prices.

Wetherspoon has been opening about 50 pubs a year recently and created some 2,800 jobs in its last financial year.

Mr Martin said the combination of tax rises and increases from breweries meant the price of a pint in Wetherspoon pubs rose four per cent or five per cent to an average of about £2.40 over the past year.

But he said another rise in duty would help push prices across the industry up by 10p to 15p this year, although it was too early to say how much prices in Wetherspoon would rise.

Online and off, one the most important services I am often engaged to perform is the development of a positioning strategy for small to medium size businesses.

A positioning strategy is not simply a cleaver slogan but a powerful and dynamic stand that your brand takes in your category. Right now as you read this, I believe that you are sitting on something that would absolutely position you as the leader in your marketplace. All too often, we as small business people think that advertising an inspirational tagline, will draw in customers. But that really isn’t enough to make them engage you.

You have to been seen and believed to be a leader. Customers like to do business with leaders. Your position has to resonate with them. When was the last time you bought something based entirely on the slogan? We purchase all the time on our perception of their brand position all the time. T

Read full post…