Random Blog

From The Wall Street Journal, Lenovo is now scrambling to borrow exposure from NBA. Unfortunately, brand is not something that NBA can bring to Lenovo, brand is a long time accumulation of, most importantly, quality and reliability. Even if everybody hear about Lenovo, still few will buy Lenovo computers. Considering Lenovo’s dire profit margin, this marriage with NBA can only pull Lenovo to the red.

Lenovo Signs Deal With the NBA In Bid to Build Brand Awareness

By Jane Spencer

Chinese computer maker Lenovo Group Ltd. signed a multi-year marketing partnership with the National Basketball Association, as the company takes steps to build global brand awareness.

The deal comes as Lenovo is in the early stages of weaning itself of the IBM brand name. Last year, Lenovo emerged as the world’s third largest personal-computer maker behind Hewlett-Packard Co. and Dell Inc., after purchasing International Business Machines Corp.’s PC division for $1.25 billion.

As part of the deal with IBM, Lenovo earned the right to use IBM’s brand name until 2010 on its products. But the company isn’t allowed to use IBM’s name in marketing campaigns. As a result, the company is ramping up its efforts to build Lenovo’s name recognition in the U.S. and Europe, where most consumers are still far more familiar with the IBM name. Outside of China, more than 80% of Lenovo products still carry the IBM brand name.

From The Wall Street Journal, China Posts Rules on Index Futures

The China Financial Futures Exchange published draft rules on stock-index futures on its Web site, setting a minimum-access threshold that analysts said could deter some investors.

Under the draft rules, each investor would deposit funds equivalent to 8% of the value of the derivatives contract, which analysts said would put the minimum threshold at about 34,400 yuan, or about $4,350.

The rules also stipulate that a single investor can hold no more than 2,000 lots of single-month futures contracts at one time.

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According to the draft rules, published yesterday for public comment, China’s first stock-index futures will be based on a unified index that groups 300 large-capitalization stocks on both the Shanghai and Shenzhen exchanges. The rules also stipulate that the price of stock-index futures can’t rise or fall by more than 10% in one day from the previous close.