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It is now official - the world is changing, and Asia is leading this change. First it was Middle East, then Singapore, and now China is joining the race to bail out the ailing Western financial institutions. China Investment Corp. ( CIC ), a sovereign wealth fund ( SWF ) will be holding up to 9.9% of Morgan Stanley shares by injecting as much as USD 5 bln . Rejoice the West, the East is coming to help you! Or is it? SWF accumulate government money that come from oil, trade or other sources, and therefore cannot be independent in the way they conduct their investments. They are formed by governments and work for them. And if Middle East and Singapore have long-lasted business relationship with the West, and can be at least to some extent expected to stay within the limits of business practice accepted in the West, can CIC be trusted just as much? CIC was established this year, and instantly made headlines by investing into Blackstone Group LP at the time of IPO . They later made los

Japan's FSA has introduced yet another way to watch over the unruly companies so that they do not hurt easy-to-trick Japanese investors. Surcharges for insider dealing were significantly increased, and now they should at least match the amount gained by improper use of the insider information. In principle, this is the right thing to do - insider dealing must be punished. But, viewed from a broader perspective, this is yet another step in tightening the screws in financial regulation that has been under way in the recent years. In my opinion, this is how the hardliners in FSA are trying to restrain investors from being active. Admittedly, they might have some reasons to believe this is a right thing to do. Say "shareholder activist", and the name you will hear in Japan is Yoshiaki Murakami - the one of the few who tried to assert more power for shareholders over the traditionally indifferent Japanese companies . He ended up convicted for insider dealing, and seemingl

It is interesting to note that CFA pass rate has considerably declined over the years. It amounted to as much as 94% at the time of inception in 1963, and as little as 42% for the June exam of 2007. Of course, the total number of exam-takers has grown around 250 times, so these pass rates are not completely comparable, but the shift is considerable enough to show a clear trend. Is it the exam becoming more difficult, or the exam-takers are getting dumber? Let's just hope that I am one of the few lucky among the 42% when I receive my exam results in about two months... Original data is available at CFA Institute official site at the following URL: http://www.cfainstitute.org/cfaprog/pdf/candidate_results.pdf