Latest Articles

Server Virtualization: Powerful Tool, Extra Exposure
Dividing a server into multiple virtual machines has brought down firms' purchasing costs and allowed for more efficient use of existing hardware. However, virtualization also poses security risks and challenges, including managing a more complex network, additional layers of technology, potential data leaks as multiple virtual machines share common communication lines, and the threat of rogue machines.
Securities Industry News Feature (March 2008)
Co-pro 'Milk & Fashion' gets China distrib'n
American-Chinese co-production "Milk and Fashion" will be distributed in China by Shanghai-based Red Art beginning in June, the film?s producer said Thursday. An American producer and a Taiwanese director made the coming-of-age drama with money from a Japanese medical supply company.
The Hollywood Reporter News (March 2008)

Record users for China game operator
China's online game operator The9 Ltd. announced record-breaking user numbers for the last quarter of 2007 as well as strong revenue growth in a conference call with investors and analysts Friday morning in Shanghai.
The Hollywood Reporter News (February 2008)

KFC Ditches Nestle, Teams up with Mongolian Sour Cow
I love fast food, and I love celebrity marriages. Better still, I love celebrity divorces. This week's announcement about the tie-up between KFC and Mengniu Dairy has everything I need.
Emerging China Editorial (October 2007)

Working Men Need Protection as Much as Women
Last week the China Daily explained a new labor law -- due to come into effect on January 1 -- that ostensibly protects women from job discrimination. Ironically, the way that it does this is to list jobs that are "unsuitable for women." These jobs including working in mines, cutting lumber, installing and removing scaffolding and carrying heavy weights.
Emerging China Editorial (October 2007)

Outsourcing with Chinese Characteristics
Historically, there have been two ways for a software outsourcing industry to develop in a country: through domestic demand, and through foreign demand. The US, Japan, and other developed countries are prime examples of the first option. Large domestic customers - financial services firms, manufacturers, retailers, government organizations, the military - slowly turn to outside vendors to fulfill steadily more comprehensive technological functions. At first, outsourcing firms are brought in as consultants for specific projects, such as the roll-out of a new software system. Or they come in to handle a specific task, such as email management.
Emerging China Editorial (September 2007)

Error in Singapore Forced Unwinding of 110,000 Trades
The Singapore Exchange recently faced the same operational risk consequences as the Tokyo Stock Exchange and others in having deal with the aftermath of a miskeyed order.
Securities Industry News Feature (August 2007)

Is China Too Hot to Handle?
An average of 300,000 new brokerage accounts for investing in mainland equities and mutual funds were opened daily in the second quarter of this year, according to official statistics. By the end of June, retail brokerage accounts totaled more than 105 million. On some days, investors opened as many as half a million new accounts.
Waters Feature (August 2007)

Competition Looms
Alternative trading systems and crossing networks for equities are ramping up their presence in Asia this summer and while the exchanges are not likely to feel the searing heat of competition just yet, they would be wise to heed these harbingers of fragmentation.
Waters Feature (July 2007)

Citi, FTSE Bring Indexing to Vietnam
Not every security in Vietnam is open to foreign investors, but there are enough to make for an index. Citigroup and FTSE Group teamed up to launch the country's first equity index for foreign institutional investors on May 22.
Securities Industry News Feature (June 2007)

Liquidnet Trying to Blaze Asian Trail
Not If, for alternative trading systems and electronic communications networks, Asia is the final frontier, then Liquidnet wants to be the civilizing force. Except for a few big brokerages that match customers' orders internally in Japan, such as Credit Suisse and UBS, and a recent push by agency brokerage Instinet, much of Asia is uncharted territory in terms of alternative, automated equity trading venues, and demand for them is mounting.
Securities Industry News Feature (June 2007)

Hidden Dragon
For five years, starting in 2001, the Chinese stock market headed down. Investors pulled out their money; brokerages went bankrupt. Then the Chinese government instituted a series of far-reaching reforms and the market started to rebound, quickly regaining the territory it had lost, and hitting record highs.
Waters Feature (June 2007)

DTCC Signs MOU With Chinese Counterpart
Depository Trust & Clearing Corp. of New York and its Chinese counterpart, the China Securities Depository & Clearing Corp., have signed a memorandum of understanding, launching formal cooperation in areas of information exchange and "projects of interest," the companies said last week after sealing the agreement June 8 in Beijing.
Securities Industry News Feature (June 2007)

Asia's Alternatives
In many respects, Asia has been following the U.S. and European lead on matters of market structure and regulation as Asian laws and technologies steadily edge closer to the world standards developed elsewhere. With the recent spate of memorandums of understanding among Asian exchanges, not to mention those between these regional markets and others in the West, Asia may be following a similar path of exchange consolidation as well.
Securities Industry News Feature (May 2007)

Competitiveness Move: Japan Looks to Merge TSE, 3 Other Markets
In Members of Japan's Council on Economic and Fiscal Policy, the country's top economic policy body headed by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, met last week to discuss combining four exchanges to make the country's markets more competitive internationally.
Securities Industry News Feature (April 2007)

China Puts Foreign Securities Firms on Hold
The China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) has said that it will issue no new licenses to brokerages set up as joint ventures with foreign firms until the country's market reforms are completed. In a Sept. 13 statement, the agency gave no indication of when the ban will be lifted.
Securities Industry News Feature (September 2006)

TSE, in Trading Upgrade Step, Nears Vendor Selection
The Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE) finished accepting bids this month to rebuild its troubled trading system and is preparing to select a vendor by year-end. The exchange did not disclose the names of the candidates; full implementation is planned for 2009.
Securities Industry News Feature (September 2006)

Broker-Exchange Battle Goes Global
The U.S. pattern of stock-exchange consolidation, which has recently spawned a flurry of new investments by market participants in alternative or smaller trading venues, is repeating itself on two continents. Just as NYSE Group and Nasdaq Stock Market are integrating acquisitions and looking to Europe for expansion while competition is stirring at home, new industry-backed ventures are mounting challenges to the dominant Australian and U.K. exchanges.
Securities Industry News Feature (September 2006)

China faces labor shortage, rising wages
A plentiful supply of cheap labor, mostly rural migrant workers, has been one key force driving China's rapid economic growth in the past two decades. A comparative advantage in labor costs has turned the nation into a global manufacturing center and furniture-making powerhouse.
Furniture Today Feature (August 2006)

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Trombly Ltd. News

SPEAKING

Maria Trombly is available for speaking engagements through the ChinaBiz Speakers bureau.

The week of March 17, 2008 Trombly was a daily guest on the Culture Matters television show, broadcast by International Channel Shanghai. The topic of the week was blogging and online privacy.

On March 13, Trombly gave a presentation at Wolff & Tan's Energ-iX entrepreneur seminar about corporate marketing.

On March 5, 2008, Trombly gave a presentation at the Petfood Forum Asia about global and Asian petfood sales trends.

CLIENTS

In the spring of 2008, we began covering the Chinese entertainment industry for The Hollywood Reporter.

In the summer of 2007, we began covering China for Elsevier's PharmAsia News, a publication of their FDC Reports division.

As of August, 2006 Trombly Ltd. now provides daily news briefs for CardLine Asia-Pacific and weekly news reports for China FC Week.

As of August, 2006 Trombly Ltd. now provides daily news briefs for CardLine Asia-Pacific and weekly news reports for China Finance & Currency Week.

In January, 2006 Trombly Ltd. is founded, providing emerging market coverage to Securities Industry News, a New York-based weekly Wall Street newpaper, and other financial publications at SourceMedia.

OFFICE MOVE

In October 2006, Trombly Ltd. moved to new, larger offices in the Xintiandi area of Shanghai.

CAREERS

Trombly Ltd. is always hiring. If you can figure out which staff we need -- and who to contact about the job -- you might be the person we're looking for.

Editor Testimonials

China Accreditation

In early November 2004, the Chinese government accredited Maria Trombly as an official correspondent of the Securities Industry News. Source Media (formerly Thomson) now joins a short list of media organizations with Chinese bureaus. | Securities Industry News article on her posting

President's Award
Tampa (Sept. 17, 2003) — Outgoing SPJ president Robert Leger awarded the 2003 President's Award to Maria Trombly at the Society of Professional Journalists' national convention in Tampa this September. She was honored for her volunteer work as chair of one of the organization's national committees. | Read

Talking Portraits Productions

Maria is an award-winning journalist and is currently the Asian Bureau chief and global technology correspondent for Security Industry News. She has quite an exciting background-born in the former Soviet Union, raised and educated in America, served as a watr correspondent in Chechnya and then returned to the US to cover another type of revolution: how the Internet is changing the way the works. | Talking Portraits show-Episode 42