London Canary Wharf MotorExpo

Take a load of sexy cars, place them in the financial and commerical heart of Britain, and this is what you get. For a full week, London bankers, traders, financiers were treated to a bevy of motor vehicles ranging from the sexy Audi R8 to the environmentally conscious BMW Hydrogen 7 Series. Also not forgetting the extremely petit SMART cars.

Take a look at some of the pics taken:

Here's the heart-stopping Audi R8. Growl ... Bite your head off ...




Overheard between 2 bankers over an Audi A8...
Banker A: So what colour did you get?
Banker B: Got it in black.
wanker A: It's a real beauty isn't it? What are you going to do with your Beemer and the Lex?
wanker B: Yeah, looks like I have to get a bigger garage.

One of these A8 cost about 80k pounds. I bet these guys get like an annual bonus which could easily buy them 10 of these.

The Ford GT - Only 500 of these are manufactured in the world:

The environmentally conscious BMW Hydrogen 7 series. It sprouts out water instead of fumes. How's that for a car?


My kind of car - tells alot about me and my wife - both pretty SMART ;-)


The breath taking Aston Martin V8 Vantage Roadster. They were only uncovered for interested buyers - most of the time they are all covered beneath a black sheath.


The LandRover FreeLander2. You will never fail the park-on-the-steep-slope driving test with this fuel guzzler.


This may cost up to a fifth of the bankers' annual bonus ... hmmm ... Should we have this in pink my dear?


Back to reality ... Back to work ...

Low Low Rates in Singapore

Against the backdrop of rising yield in the United States and in Europe, it is interesting to see that Singapore rates remain low and sticky. Check out the short term rates here. The longer end of the yield curve is also relatively low in comparison to US and Europe.
Well the MAS has categorically stated that Singapore uses the exchange rate as its only tool to maintain price stability, rather than using interest rates.

So, in this low interest rate environment, we see the following implications/consequences:

• Buoyant property markets - Loans are cheap, banks are willing to extend their loans
• Capital gains for the local banks - Local banks borrow cheaply from retail customers paying less than 0.5% on deposits but lend out at 6%
  
• Weak Singapore dollar against the Euro, Sterling and Australian, NZ dollar. Companies exporting to these countries can expect an exchange rate windfall

Is MAS going to raise rates anytime soon? I do not think so. Singapore prices, with the exception of the property markets, have remained relatively stable so far. In addition, in order to compete with the cheap (and good?) workforce in Asia, the Singapore dollar has to remain competitive.
So what to do with the extra cash? Well the simplest way would be to open a foreign currency Fixed Deposit - taking on a bit of the FX risk but getting a lot better returns.