It gets most interesting at the end where Geron calculates the average investment per company in the last decade. Intel Capital invested $10.4 billion in 1,185 companies, which makes an average of $8.78 million per company. Year-to-date, it has invested $472 million in 72 companies, which makes an average of $6.6 million per company, and announced $40 million investments in 10 projects, which calculates to $4 million per company.

Intel Capital’s case may be an evidence for a trend of venture capitalists opting for more smaller-sized and earlier-stage deals, as reported by research firm CB Insights.

This is likely because starting an Internet company has become exponentially cheaper. Mark Suster from Both Sides of the Table has a neat chart on the fifth page of his slides, showing the figure drop by 99.9 percent to a mere $5,000 because of developments like open source models, cloud computing and developers using their own expertise to start a tech company.

Venture capitalists may also be funding a larger number of companies in earlier stages and with smaller checks because they are afraid of missing out on the next Google or Facebook. For safeguarding, they sometimes ask entrepreneurs to sign a pro-rata contract, which gives them the option to purchase additional equity of the same proportion as they bought during the seed stage. For example, if a VC provides a seed funding for 20 percent equity, they may exercise their option to buy another 20% during the second round of capital raising if they think the company is doing well or let the small check evaporate if not.

But some start-ups may fall into the trap of driving away future investors if they have too many pro-rata contracts that were not activated. It signals that the VCs that have poured seed funding into the company probably doesn’t think it is doing well, when the VCs may simply have too many start-ups to mind, considering they are signing more deals in more than two years.

Venture Hacks has a lengthy and comprehensive discussion between Chris Dixon, Mark Suster and Naval Ravikant on the pros and cons of this method, from both the entrepreneur’s and investor’s side.

An old one stood out to me in the context of Occupy Wall Street. Here is an engrossing discussion of meritocracy and an attempt at shaping “A Kinder, Gentler Philosophy of Success” by Alain de Botton, who wrote the book on (not) enjoying your work.

Whichever side you stand on, the speech is relevant and brings up many intriguing ways of rethinking the meaning of success. Oh, and do stay on after the applause.

How about this: large banks like Citi, Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan and Bank of America reported shiny third-quarter earnings, but not so much from stellar performance as from booking profits on their own worsening credit. In other words, they aren’t doing as great as their earnings say.

The banks are recording gains from debt valuation adjustments (DVA, also CVA). That means, say I have a mortgage and my credit score worsens because I’ve been demoted to freelance from full-time. The value of my mortgage decreases. And on the theory that I can repurchase that mortgage at a lower price, because of its worsening quality, I can (theoretically) make a profit. I can’t buy back my mortgage but banks can buy back their debts.

Morgan Stanley bought back $2 billion of their own debt and earned $100 million. They also booked $3.4 billion in accounting gain from DVA, which makes up $1.12 of their reported $1.14 earnings per share.

Citi and JP Morgan booked $1.9 billion in DVA gains while Bank of America recorded $1.7 billion. Goldman Sachs‘s $450 million gain from DVA is minuscule by comparison, but that’s because it hedged potential DVA gains to prevent wild swings in its earnings.

Just what CEO of Morgan Stanley Steve Gorman means when he calls their third-quarter DVA a “bizarre accounting anomaly” and said it may swing the opposite way in the next quarter.

Financial News calculated that taking the DVA effect out of the earnings of America’s five largest investment banks would wipe out their entire cumulative pre-tax profits. Have a neat chart:

The 99 percent may be happy to know that the big banks aren’t doing that much better than the rest of us, unless the accounting acrobatics provoke more drumming instead.

Just in case, Matt Levine at DealBreaker disagrees and has a great explanation of DVA, which is half the reason for this link. The other half is for the most liked comment on his post:

Guest:
I can’t wait until OWS protesters start to complain about this.

So… maybe not.

India’s economic headwinds are starting to “subside,” prompting Nomura Holdings Inc. to turn positive on the market on a one-year view.

The brokerage is changing its “bearish” stance on the market amid the “significant” underperformance of Indian stocks this year and as inflation momentum shows signs of slowing, analysts led by Prabhat Awasthi wrote in a report today. They predict growth will slow and demand will fall due to monetary tightening and delays in policy-making, which would help cool the increase in prices.

Read more at Bloomberg.com.

Emerging-market investors should raise their stock holdings, Morgan Stanley said, citing “attractive” valuations and the prospects of a “stronger” second-half performance for Asian and developing-nation shares.

The brokerage lifted its equity allocation to 56 percent of assets from the 54 percent recommended in October, analysts led by Jonathan Garner wrote in a report today. They increased their end-2011 forecast for the MSCI Emerging Markets Index by 1 percent to 1,305 and for the MSCI Asia Pacific excluding Japan Index by 2 percent to 550, according to the report.

Read more at Bloomberg.com.

In a year when stocks around the world are getting cheaper, Indonesian shares are growing more expensive as surging profits lure Asia’s biggest investors.

The Jakarta Composite Index’s 11 percent advance this year lifted its valuation to 15 times estimated profit, the highest level among 45 benchmark stock gauges tracked by Bloomberg and a record 36 percent premium to the MSCI All-Country World Index. Price-earnings ratios fell in every other market, declining by an average 15 percent, data compiled by Bloomberg show. The index dropped 0.4 percent to 4,122.086 as of yesterday’s close.

Amundi Asset Management, Bank Julius Baer & Co. and Baring Asset Management, which oversee more than $1 trillion, say premium valuations in Jakarta are justified at a time when debt crises threaten growth in the U.S. and Europe and the biggest emerging nations lift interest rates to curb consumer prices. Indonesia is among the top countries in Templeton Asset Management’s investment list, Mark Mobius, executive chairman of Templeton’s emerging markets group, said in a Bloomberg Television interview today.

Read more at Bloomberg.com.

Singapore overtook Hong Kong as a more expensive city for expatriates for the first time, driven by a stronger currency and higher rents, according to Mercer’s Worldwide Cost of Living Survey.

The island-nation was ranked the eighth-most expensive city worldwide, rising from the 11th spot last year following a “substantial increase” in housing costs, Mercer said in an e- mailed statement today. Hong Kong dropped one level to ninth place, the survey showed.

Read more at Bloomberg.com.

PT Bakrieland Development, Indonesia’s second-biggest property developer by assets, said its partner Dubai World may pull out of a real estate project in Jakarta and expects a decision within three months.

Limitless LLC, a property developer owned by Dubai World, agreed in September 2008 to invest in the project, valued at $1.7 billion at the time, and has delayed its investment following the global credit crisis, Bakrieland’s Chief Executive Officer Hiramsyah Sambudhy Thaib said. Limitless said it’s assessing its options for the venture.

Read more at Bloomberg.com.

The challenge they might face is aptly described by FT’s beyondbrics: “Indonesia: more cars, no roads,” but lamentable infrastructure is a snag compared to the risk of bubbly consumer credit.

Car dealers in Indonesia have been waging a pricing war that pushed down payments to practically zero, fueling car sales while increasing the risk of defaults. This is in addition to an underutilized personal credit rating system, with only one out of five Indonesians accounted for by the Credit Bureau.

Now the central bank has warned that it may impose regulations to tamp the explosive growth in auto and property lending, which ride on providing easy credit to low-income borrowers (sound familiar, anyone?). But such a move means that others like Rachman, a farm worker from West Java who earns about 1 million rupiah each month, won’t contribute to auto sales by buying his 12.5 million rupiah motorcycle.

With 80 per cent of auto purchases made through bank loans, car makers may want to take their eyes off the road and check on the state of Indonesian consumer credit.

Revised on September 18, 2011.

The crisis in Japan has had a major impact on its economy but a minor one elsewhere, underscoring the country’s slipping prominence in the global economy.

The earthquake, tsunami and ensuing nuclear crisis that plagued the northeastern coast of Japan have caused immeasurable human toll. Early predictions of its economic impact in Japan were also immense. World Bank estimated the loss to be upwards of $235 billion while Capital Economics cut the country’s GDP forecast to zero from one percent. But trade numbers from March show that the impact on the world economy is minor.

Last year, Japan lost its standing as the second-largest economy in the world to become third after China, marking the country’s shrinking significance in the global economy. The country remains as the fourth-largest trading partner for the U.S., but its share of U.S. total trade has fallen to 5.6 percent in March 2011 from 8.5 percent in 2004.

Japan relies on their trade surplus to drive economic growth, exporting mostly automobiles, semiconductors and other high-technology equipments. But its exports shrank by 2.2 percent for the first time in 16 months, while imports rose by 11.9 percent between February and March. Exports are expected to continue to decline in April, which prompted Japan Foreign Trade Council chairman Shoei Utsuda to predict that the country will report its first trade deficit since January 2009.

Despite the heavy blow that the disaster has dealt against Japan’s trade surplus, the country’s trade with the U.S. still grew in March. Imports from Japan rose by 12.4 percent while exports to Japan rose by 9.3 percent.

“Japan still needs what we ship to them, mostly chemicals, agriculture and other food stuff, while Japanese imports to the U.S. mostly consist of components and electronics that are not necessities, so we will see companies buying them from elsewhere to keep production going,” said Russell Price, senior economist of Ameriprise.

Supply chain disruptions caused much of the worry following the disaster, especially for automakers, but recovery has been faster than first predicted.

Toyota reported that its output was also cut by more than half, but they recently announced a new timeline for faster recovery than first expected. They will return to three quarters of normal production by June and full production by November. Soon after the disaster occurred, the company had difficulty procuring 500 parts, now they are only missing 30.

“While we’ve had disruptions, we were still producing vehicles that are in the pipeline,” said Javier Moreno, spokesperson for Toyota. “So we’ll be sending out the products as soon as we have all the parts.”

General Motors may even benefit from the supply gap left behind by its Japanese competitors. Their U.S. sales surged by 26.4 percent in April while its first quarter earnings tripled from last year.

Despite a 7.7 percent dip in April sales from March, the auto dealer industry is optimistic that the adverse effect of the Japan disaster will be made up for in the long run. The National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA) predicts a 20 percent growth this year with April already seeing a year-to-year increase of 17.7 percent.

“A small percentage will wait for the models they want, but the majority of people simply need a car and they will buy the models available,” said Albert Gallegos, international industry analyst for NADA. “It’s just demographics; there are more people in the market and there is pent up demand after two years of low sales. Whoever can meet that demand, wins.”

Japan is a large exporter of cars and computer chips to the U.S. and the largest importer of U.S. pork and third largest of beef in value, consuming mostly premium cuts. In February, U.S. pork exports to Japan have increased by 27 percent in February year-to-year while beef exports increased by 75 percent.

The U.S. livestock industry may even benefit from the crisis because the areas affected by the disaster amount to about 2 percent of the Japanese economy, but make up 12 percent of beef production and 16 percent of pork.

“Japan mostly buys chilled not frozen products and those spoil more easily, so there was more urgency to get them to the end user,” said Jon Schuele, spokesperson for the U.S. Meat Exports Federation (USMEF). “So we did see a drop in sales during the crisis, because of issues with infrastructure and transportation. People weren’t sure they could get the products to the consumers.”

Sales have rebounded since then and are resuming their growth trajectory from before the disaster. USMEF predicted in January that total meat exports to Japan would grow by 23 percent this year, which will not be revised despite the crisis.

Japan’s recovery from the disaster is happening at a faster rate than first predicted, though the country has a long way to go toward restoring its economy. A few analysts predicted that rebuilding efforts may help boost Japan’s slow growth, but the government will need to spend about $124 billion toward reconstruction, adding to its already large sovereign debt. Yet the rest of the world has little to worry about.

“The crisis here is very much a Japanese one,” said Bill Witherell, chief global economist of Cumberland Advisors.