Even Donald Tsang Yam-kuen weighed in on the debate while gracing the conference with his presence. The Guardian, which interestingly describes Tsang as 'a leading Communist official in Hong Kong,' notes that he told Bloomberg 'the territory would 'absolutely' welcome HSBC if it decided to move headquarters'.

But do we really care where HSBC locates its HQ unless you are a shareholder? The earth did not move when HSBC moved its HQ from Hong Kong to London. All we should really care about is that wherever it is, it produces a reasonable service at a reasonable price to its customers, and don't do anything stupid with our money, like blowing it on insane subprime mortgage schemes.

Wrong man at the top

Reluctant as we are to draw attention to mistakes that appear in other publications, given the danger of stepping on thin ice, sometimes we can't resist. The Daily Telegraph reported that Rupert Goodman, chairman, FIRST, and Lord Hurd of Westwell were the hosts at a breakfast meeting held recently at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in honour of Sir David Tsang, chief executive, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, and ministers. As the satirical magazine Private Eye liked to say, shurely shome mishtake, in that the paper is confusing our chief executive with Shanghai Tang's David Tang.

The WikiLeaks take on Rusal

The listing of Russian aluminium company Rusal gets a mention in WikiLeaks. The cable of some 1,200 words is headlined 'Rusal IPO in Hong Kong: All risk no reward for HKEx?'

HKEx? The cable said: 'Rusal's questionable corporate governance, precarious debt profile, and its chief executive's alleged ties to organised crime delayed HKEx approval for more than a year before a complex debt restructuring deal and appointment of two local independent directors facilitated HKEx approval.' It adds: 'HKEx is willing to accept the reputational risk of listing a company with Rusal's problems to help diversify its China-centric market.'

It then quotes HKEx executive vice-president Lawrence Fok as being disappointed with the Securities and Futures Commission for restricting trading in the shares to professional investors. The cable notes Fok's concern at the time that Rusal's restricted listing would discourage other Russian companies from seeking to list in Hong Kong. He also dismissed the suggestion the exchange would profit from the listing, given the lengthy and expensive vetting process and as most trading would occur on Paris' Euronext. 'The SFC's restrictions might encourage other Russian companies to look again at the London Stock Exchange, where they faced less scrutiny,' said Fok.'

It took almost a year for the stock to breach its listing price of HK$10.80 then soar to a high of HK$14.10 in April this year. But despite yesterday's 3 per cent jump, it is languishing at HK$8.06.

See-sawing on the dollar

What to make of investment guru Jim Rogers' ambivalence over the US dollar? For years, he's been saying he's 'incredibly pessimistic' on the currency. Now he says he probably owns more dollars than he's owned in years. What's going on? Basically he's long because everyone is so pessimistic about its prospects, but thinks that when that happens it's a good time to take the other side. One reason for holding the dollar is the problem in the euro zone, which he believes will see people buy the dollar. He says: 'It's absolutely the wrong thing to do, but if they do I might make some money. I think of it as a long-term disaster but people still think of it as relatively safe.' Thus speaks the guru.