Word: abn
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...began trading far beyond his responsibilities, racking up debts as global markets gyrated. To cover his losses, he created complex fictitious trades, until the losses appeared to spiral out of control. Said Kinner Lakhani, a London-based analyst for the Dutch bank ABN Amro, who covers Société Générale: "It was out of the realms of anyone's expectation...
Investment-research firm KLD Research & Analytics launched a climate-change index in 2005. This year the big investment banks have piled in, too. JP Morgan introduced an index in February comprised of bonds from firms with limited vulnerability to global warming. ABN Amro launched a Climate Change and Environment Index in March, tracking stocks in businesses like emissions reduction and water filtration. In April, UBS introduced a global-warming futures index based on the weather in 15 U.S. cities. Merrill Lynch launched an energy-efficiency index in July. And in September HSBC unveiled what it claims is the largest climate...
...might expect on Wall Street, money is the prime motivator. So long as cash continues to flood into environmental investment vehicles, new ones will keep being created. "There is a lot of demand for these eco-products," says Ronald van der Ham, assistant director of equity structuring for ABN Amro, and that is what's driving "the constant stream of new indices and new funds being launched." Lipper FERI, a mutual-fund information provider in London, estimates that Europe's environmental and ecological equity funds alone raised nearly $8 billion in the first three quarters of 2007, almost $4 billion...
...surprisingly the big banks - many of them still nursing their wounds from the subprime meltdown - are eager to embrace this new money-spinner. Institutions like ABN Amro, Merrill Lynch and HSBC have all created structured products built around their own indices: protected offerings, for example, that track an index but give a minimum guaranteed return, or leveraged offerings that amplify gains and losses. They can be used to hedge risks presented by global warming, or simply to bet on the likelihood that cash will continue to cascade into the sector...
...former chief of the U.S. Federal Reserve, said it's "absolutely conceivable that the euro will replace the dollar as [the] reserve currency, or will be traded as an equally important reserve currency." If that ever happens, says HSBC chief economist Stephen King, "the dollar goes into free fall." ABN Amro's de Jong agrees that this would trigger a crisis, but doesn't think it will happen anytime soon: "Ultimately, the U.S. will lose its unique reserve-currency status, but it may take 20, 30 years." At the moment, he says, "the world simply doesn't have an alternative...