Showing posts with label asset allocation financial planning. Show all posts
Showing posts with label asset allocation financial planning. Show all posts

Friday, June 10, 2011

Brightbridge Wealth Management

http://www.widepr.com/company_profile/5906/brightbridge_wealth_management.html

Brightbridge is a world-wide private equity firm with the resources and expertise to source, evaluate, and manage private investments globally in both developed and developing markets and across many industrial and commercial sectors.
Brightbridge is manager of -- or principal advisor to -- private equity funds covering Asia, Latin America, Europe, Africa, and the Islamic countries that span the globe from North Africa through the Middle East and into Asia. These funds represent aggregate capital commitments of nearly $6.0 billion and several are the largest of their kind in their particular region.

Brightbridge Wealth Management Headlines: Double bombing in Iraq kills 27, injures dozens

http://brightbridgewealthmanagement-mag.com/2011/05/brightbridge-wealth-management-headlines-double-bombing-in-iraq-kills-27-injures-dozens/

A police officer takes in the damage at the scene of a bombing in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk. (Reuters / May 19, 2011)
By Asso Ahmed and Ned Parker, Los Angeles TimesMay 19, 2011, 4:01 p.m. 
Reporting from Kirkuk, Iraq, and Baghdad—
A double bombing killed at least 27 people, almost all of them police officers, and wounded dozens in a parking lot outside the main police offices in the oil-rich city of Kirkuk in northern Iraq on Thursday, according to security officials.
The attack came after a car bombing early this month outside a police station in the southern city of Hillah that killed 16 people, including some officers, and a later failed jailbreak from Baghdad’s Interior Ministry compound that left six police officers dead, including a counter-terrorism general.

Eight police officers were wounded when a roadside bomb targeted their convoy as they rushed to the scene in Kirkuk.
The spate of attacks and daring attempts to escape jail has put Iraq’s forces under new scrutiny as the last of the U.S. troops prepare to leave the country at the end of the year. “This has the fingerprint of Al Qaeda,” said Brig. Jamal Tahi, Kirkuk’s police chief.
Kirkuk is rife with ethnic and sectarian tensions among Arabs, Kurds and Turkmens, all of whom view themselves as the rightful owners of the province with immense oil reserves. The Kurds wish to annex the area to their semiautonomous Kurdistan region, while Arabs insist it should be under Baghdad’s control. Despite eight years of U.S.-backed efforts to mediate a solution, the sides remain at loggerheads.
Armed groups hope to exploit the population’s differences with bombings and killings.
On Thursday, a bomb hidden in a car exploded in a parking lot where police officers and Kurdish intelligence officers often mingle and drink tea. Eight people were wounded, all of them police. Officers worried about damage to their cars rushed to the parking lot and right into a trap: The attackers then detonated a second car bomb, which witnesses and security officials said killed 27 people.
“I always left my car in this park. Most of our friends left their cars in this place,” said police officer Fadl Ahmed. “I saw about 20 policemen’s bodies. There were too many wounded. Everyone was crying. There was too much blood all over the place.”
Ahmed mourned his friends. “I saw one of my officers. I had said good morning to him by the lot and when I came back, he was dead.”
The casualties included Arabs as well as Kurds, all of whom are represented on the province’s mixed police force.

Brightbridge Wealth Management Headlines: Swiss Stocks Rise; Syngenta, UBS, Bucher Shares Climb in Zurich

http://brightbridgewealth-management.com/2011/05/brightbridge-wealth-management-headlines-swiss-stocks-rise-syngenta-ubs-bucher-shares-climb-in-zurich/

May 18 (Bloomberg) — Swiss stocks advanced, led by gains in chemicals companies and banks.
Syngenta AG, the Basel, Switzerland-based pesticides maker, climbed 1.7 percent. UBS AG added 0.8 percent.
The Swiss Market Index of the biggest and most actively traded companies rose 0.5 percent to 6,527.16 at 10:28 a.m. in Zurich. The benchmark has rallied 8.4 percent since March 16 as company earnings exceeded estimates. The broader Swiss Performance Index increased 0.5 percent.
Syngenta added 1.7 percent to 292.5 Swiss francs after announcing the launch of Vibrance, a seed treatment fungicide based on the new active ingredient sedaxane.
UBS, Switzerland’s largest bank, increased 0.8 percent to 16.25 francs, its first gain in six days.
Bucher Industries AG rose 1.6 percent to 209.3 francs. The agricultural machinery maker said its Kuhn Group unit has a licensing and manufacturing agreement with Deere & Co. to cooperate on large square balers.
“The strategic cooperation with the world’s leading farm equipment producer underpins Kuhn’s product and manufacturing strengths in farming,” Fabian Haecki, an analyst at Vontobel Holding AG, wrote in a note to clients today.
Dufry Group climbed 1 percent to 109.6 francs after surging 6.7 percent yesterday

Brightbridge Wealth Management Headlines:USDA food pyramid out, food plate in (PICTURES)

http://brightbridge-wealthmanagement.com/2011/06/brightbridge-wealth-management-headlinesusda-food-pyramid-out-food-plate-in-pictures/

(CBS) After almost two decades, the USDA food pyramid is history. First Lady Michelle Obama today unveiled the USDA’s update on America’s visual nutrition guide, replacing the familiar – and much maligned – pyramid with a plate.
PICTURES – Bye-bye pyramid, hello plate: Timeline of food guidelines
The food pyramid has been around since 1992, but nutrition experts don’t seem to be mourning its demise.
“It’s going to be hard not to do better than the current pyramid, which basically conveys no useful information,” Dr. Walter C. Willett, chairman of the nutrition department at the Harvard School of Public Health, told the New York Times.
The new design incorporates seven key dietary messages:
- Enjoy your food, but eat less
- Avoid oversized portions
- Make half your plate fruits and vegetables
- Drink water instead of sugary drinks
- Make at least half your grains whole grains
- Switch to fat-free or low-fat (1 percent) milk
- Compare sodium in foods like soup, bread, and frozen meals – and choose the foods with lower numbers.
Experts argued the now-defunct pyramid lumped all types of foods in its design – including unhealthy ones at the top of the pyramid . That made it hard to tell which foods were better choices.
“The original icon was a bit misleading, e.g., all fats are bad,” Dr. Sara Bleich, an assistant professor of public health at Johns Hopkins University, told ABC News.
USDA spent $2 million to design and promote the plate, the Times reported. Will this costly venture cause Americans to eat better?
Dr. Robert C. Post, deputy director of the USDA, told the Times that he hopes the new visual will prompt “consumers to say, ‘I need to be a little more concerned about what I choose to build a healthy day’s diet.’ ”

Brightbridge Wealth Management Headlines: Swiss Stocks Rise; Syngenta, UBS, Bucher Shares Climb in Zurich

http://www.transworldnews.com/749340/c8/brightbridge-wealth-management-headlines-swiss-stocks-rise-syngenta-ubs-bucher-shares-climb-in-zurich

Swiss stocks advanced, led by gains in chemicals companies and
banks.



Syngenta AG, the
Basel, Switzerland-based pesticides maker, climbed 1.7 percent. UBS AG added
0.8 percent.


The Swiss Market
Index of the biggest and most actively traded companies rose 0.5 percent to
6,527.16 at 10:28 a.m. in Zurich. The benchmark has rallied 8.4 percent since
March 16 as company earnings exceeded estimates. The broader Swiss Performance
Index increased 0.5 percent.


Syngenta added
1.7 percent to 292.5 Swiss francs after announcing the launch of Vibrance, a
seed treatment fungicide based on the new active ingredient sedaxane.


UBS, Switzerland’s
largest bank, increased 0.8 percent to 16.25 francs, its first gain in six
days.

Bucher Industries
AG rose 1.6 percent to 209.3 francs. The agricultural machinery maker said its
Kuhn Group unit has a licensing and manufacturing agreement with Deere &
Co. to cooperate on large square balers.


“The strategic
cooperation with the world’s leading farm equipment producer underpins Kuhn’s
product and manufacturing strengths in farming,” Fabian Haecki, an analyst at
Vontobel Holding AG, wrote in a note to clients today.


Dufry Group
climbed 1 percent to 109.6 francs after surging 6.7 percent yesterday.

Brightbridge Wealth Management Headlines: Facebook executive takes heat in hearing on privacy

http://www.your-story.org/brightbridge-wealth-management-headlines-facebook-executive-takes-heat-in-hearing-on-privacy-244771/

A leading senator, angry that Facebook Inc. failed to stop millions of preteens from using its social networking site, accused co-founder Mark Zuckerberg of lacking “social values” and being more concerned with building the company than with children’s privacy.
“It’s my general feeling that people who are 20, 21, 22 years old really don’t have any social values at this point,” Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.) told another top Facebook executive at a hearing Thursday.
“I think he was focused on how the business model would work,” Rockefeller said about Zuckerberg, who was a 19-year-old Harvard student when he created Facebook in 2004. “He wanted to make it bigger and faster and better than anybody else ever had.”
The company’s policy requires users to be at least 13, a move designed to avoid federal regulations for websites used by young children. But a recent Consumer Reports survey found that about 7.5 million active Facebook users were younger than 13.
Rockefeller’s comments came as a Facebook executive for the first time came under congressional quizzing in a recent round of hearings about concerns that technology companies are not protecting personal privacy. Executives from Apple Inc. and Google Inc., which sent witnesses to a hearing last week, also appeared at Thursday’s hearing before a Commerce subcommittee.
Rockefeller, a key player on technology issues, and other lawmakers are considering new regulations to protect online privacy, particularly for children. The issue has gained momentum with the recent revelation that an obscure file on iPhones and iPads could store thousands of detailed records of a user’s whereabouts.
Rockefeller said he was recently told by Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg that the company has only 100 people monitoring the posts and other activities of about 600 million users.
“My reaction to that is that’s just absolutely indefensible,” Rockefeller told Facebook Chief Technology Officer Bret Taylor, saying he was worried about children being targeted by sexual predators and online bullies. “I want you to defend your company here because I don’t know how you can.”
Taylor said Facebook shuts down the accounts of people found to be lying about their age to avoid the company’s restriction.
“We don’t allow people to misrepresent their age,” Taylor said.
But he admitted Facebook depended on other users to report such violations to enforce the policy.
The under-age problem at Facebook showed that big technology companies have not made privacy a top priority, said Amy Guggenheim Shenkan, president of Common Sense Media, a nonprofit children and family advocacy group.
Such hugely successful innovators should be able to create ways to better protect children’s privacy, Shenkan said. She then took a swipe at Facebook for hiring a high-powered public-relations firm to push news organizations to write negative stories about privacy issues at Google.
“Instead of spending money to … hire PR firms to try and take down the other company, let’s take that money and spend it on figuring out technological ways that will protect our kids,” she told the subcommittee. “It can’t be 100 people sitting in a Facebook office trying to monitor 600 million conversations.”
Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), who has introduced bipartisan legislation to prevent the misuse of sensitive consumer information, said that privacy protection is not “the enemy of innovation.”
“Companies collecting people’s information, whether you’re a tech titan or not, ought to comply with a basic code of conduct,” Kerry said.
But Taylor warned that new privacy restrictions could squelch Facebook and other social networks.
Facebook tries to protect privacy by letting users choose which information they share, he said. But Taylor cautioned that many people want to share their pictures and other details of their lives to get the most out of social networks, and Facebook doesn’t want to assume that all its users want to put a vault around their data.
“We understand that trust is a foundation of the social Web. People will stop using Facebook if they lose trust in our services,” he said. “At the same time, overly restrictive policies can interfere with the public’s demand for new and innovative ways to interact.”
But lawmakers said many people are clamoring for more protection of their personal data, particularly now as more mobile devices can provide detailed information about a person’s whereabouts.
David Vladeck, director of the Federal Trade Commission‘s Bureau of Consumer Protection, said such location data deserved “special protection,” though the agency has stopped short of calling for legislation.
Google also has said it collects location data from mobile devices using its Android software. But Google and Apple executives said they collected the information anonymously and shared it with third-party applications only if the user agreed.
“Does Apple track the location of my iPhone?” Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) asked, holding up his device.
“We do not, sir,” said Catherine A. Novelli, Apple’s vice president for worldwide government affairs.
The company never tracked a user’s actual location from the data collected on iPhones and iPads, only the location of nearby cellphone towers and Wi-Fi hot spots, she said.
Apple said a software glitch caused the location data to be updated even when the user had chosen not to use location-based services. The bug was fixed in the latest software release, and the data will be encrypted in the next update, Novelli said.

Brightbridge Wealth Management Headlines: Swiss Stocks Rise; Syngenta, UBS, Bucher Shares Climb in Zurich

http://www.saeo.net/story/brightbridge-wealth-management-headlines-swiss-stocks-rise-syngenta-ubs-bucher-shares-climb-in-zurich-1


Syngenta AG, the Basel, Switzerland-based pesticides maker, climbed 1.7 percent. UBS AG added 0.8 percent.

The Swiss Market Index of the biggest and most actively traded companies rose 0.5 percent to 6,527.16 at 10:28 a.m. in Zurich. The benchmark has rallied 8.4 percent since March 16 as company earnings exceeded estimates. The broader Swiss Performance Index increased 0.5 percent.

Syngenta added 1.7 percent to 292.5 Swiss francs after announcing the launch of Vibrance, a seed treatment fungicide based on the new active ingredient sedaxane.

UBS, Switzerland’s largest bank, increased 0.8 percent to 16.25 francs, its first gain in six days.

Bucher Industries AG rose 1.6 percent to 209.3 francs. The agricultural machinery maker said its Kuhn Group unit has a licensing and manufacturing agreement with Deere & Co. to cooperate on large square balers. » Brightbridge Wealth Management Headlines: Swiss Stocks Rise; Syngenta, UBS, Bucher Shares Climb in Zurich