Heard and misheard in Davos
"America's lifestyle expectations are far too high and need to be adjusted so we have less things and a smaller, better existence," U.S. billionaire Jeff Greene, who flew to Davos on a private plane with his wife, kids and two nannies, told Bloomberg last week. Or maybe not.
In an interview with CNBC's Closing Bell on Wednesday, Mr. Greene denied he said any such thing, insisting that he was "completely misquoted," adding that the reporter probably misheard because his comments were made "in a busy, noisy room."
But Bloomberg is standing by its story, according to Business Insider, which mischievously and pointlessly published several pictures of the interior of his luxurious-looking private jet, and added that he owns five mansions and a "megayacht."
Yuan leapfrogs loonie
The loonie has lost altitude in more than just the exchange-rate stakes: China's currency has leapfrogged ahead of the Canadian dollar for use in global payments.
The proportion of transactions denominated in yuan hit a record 2.17 per cent in November, up from 1.59 per cent in October, bumping the currency up to the No. 5 position from No. 7, according to data from SWIFT (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication) released on Wednesday.
While the loonie fell to the No. 6 spot, the Aussie dollar was also nudged down to No. 7.
The news is particularly significant for China, as it increases the chances that the IMF will endorse it later this year as one of the world's five reserve currencies, which currently include the U.S. dollar, the euro, the pound sterling, the yen, and the Canadian dollar.
"The yuan has a very high chance of being chosen as a reserve currency in the next IMF review," DBS Group economist Nathan Chow told Bloomberg. "The yuan could even surpass the yen in the rankings this year."
Generation Smartphone
It will likely come as little surprise that younger Canadians have embraced technology considerably more than older age groups as a survey from the Media Technology Monitor reports.
Among the findings was a substantial gap in smartphone ownership, with almost 90 per cent of millennials (18- to 34-year-olds) saying they had one, compared with just 58 per cent of those surveyed who were older than 35.
Among the 25- to 34-year-old group, Google's Android and Apple's iOS mobile platforms pretty much tied in popularity at 40 per cent, with just 10 per cent preferring BlackBerrys.
Another big gap lay in social network use, with nearly 90 per cent of millennials reporting they had used at least one social network in the past month, compared with just over half of older respondents.
The most surprising finding? Despite widespread media reports that millennials have been deserting Facebook in droves, virtually all demographics said they had recently been on the site. Seems that despite protestations to the contrary, everyone secretly loves cute baby and kitty photos.
Icahn admits: I goofed
Father knows best. Unless you're Carl Icahn, in which case you should listen to your son.
The billionaire activist investor conceded as much on Wednesday, when he told CNBC he exited his Netflix stake too soon, ignoring the advice of his son Brett and fund co-manager David Schechter that the stock was significantly undervalued.
Icahn Enterprises sold about three million Netflix shares in October of 2013 after just 14 months, booking profit of between $700- and $800-million on the deal. In an interview with CNBC, Mr. Icahn explained that he was concerned about how the controversy over net neutrality – treating all data traffic on the Internet equally – could affect Netflix. Those worries at the time prompted him to sell, he said, but they seem to have abated.
"That one storm cloud has gone away so I agree completely now with Brett and Dave on Netflix. I wished I had bought more, but hey, look, you can't cry about making the money that we made on it."
Russian shoppers shift into overdrive
Russian retailers must be lovin' it. The ruble has lost 10 per cent of its value this year after tumbling 46 per cent in 2014, and consumers are rushing to spend them before they sink further.
December sales jumped 5.3 per cent from a year earlier, almost tripling November's 1.8-per-cent advance, the country's Federal State Statistics Service said Wednesday. The median forecast of 14 economists surveyed by Bloomberg was for a 2.8-per-cent increase.
"We can see the panic that occurred in December," Dmitry Polevoy, an economist at ING Groep in Moscow, told Bloomberg before the data were released.
Winklevosses see gold in bitcoin ETF
The Winklevoss twins are reaching out to gold bugs in hopes of turning them into bitcoin bugs.
The brothers, best known for their legal tussle with Mark Zuckerberg over the origins of Facebook, pitched investors at ETF.com's Inside ETFs conference in Florida this week, MarketWatch reported.
The pair are working to launch an ETF that provides exposure to the volatile virtual currency, modelling it after the SPDR Gold Trust ETF, one of the world's largest exchange-traded funds. It's set to be a brave investment: Gold bugs considering embracing the ETF may find it's a case of from the frying pan and into the fire.