Factoids. By the waters of Babylon, there we sat down and we invented tacking geometry over time, about 1600 years before it was supposedly discovered. The Babyonians were watching Jupiter in the skies, AKA the god Murdoch, no relative of Rupert who just reappointed his son James back into managing a chunk of the empire after letting him go during the UK hacking crisis.

King Tut’s wet nurse’s mummy has been found. She also was his sister. Nobody besides his sister was good enough to be pharaoh’s wet nurse (or wife.) You can go to the Velasquez exhibit to see what that leads to.

Now for the real news:

The latest acronym for emerging market investors is MICKs, which stands for Mexico, India, China, and (South) Korea. It replaces BRICS because of the rotten outlook for Russia and Brazil. Take any such mnemonic with a tablespoon of salt. But note that we are presently over-invested in 3 of the quarter, but not China.

Japan surprised the world by imposing negative interest rates to try to end the decades-long deflation in its economy, after a 5:4 vote at the Bank of Japan. It also will lower rates further to trigger inflation and growth if needed. This came after pre-move central bank denials even at Davos, which is usual.

Bond yields in Japan crashed after the CB headed by Harukiro Kuroda decided to charge banks for placing money with the Bank of Japan. Annual yields on 20-yr bonds fell to 0.82% and 10-yr ones to 0.11%, levels not seen since the start of this millennium. Bank stocks fell but the Tokyo market overall decided that this was a good thing for stocks, and they rose there. Euro markets and Britain also rose.

For some reason this triggered an attack on central banks by Marc Faber, who earlier was dropped by the Barron’s Roundtable. Rupert Murdoch is also behind Fox TV refusing to do a deal with The Donald over who would moderate yesterday’s debate.

The Chicago purchasing managers index for Jan. came in at 55.6, showing a strong economy. Whether this applies for the whole USA will be known next week.

More for paid subscribers follows from Bermuda, Brazil, Britain, Colombia, Denmark, Ireland, Japan, Panama, South Korea, and The Netherlands, including two annual reports.

*Harry Geisel writes about Bermuda reinsurer Validus Group (VR) which reported after the market close Thurs. “VR did not make as much money in 2015 as in 2014 in the type of earnings/sh favored by analysts, ‘net operating income available to Validus.’ For 2015 it was $4.74, down 6.6% from the $5.08 of 2014.

But this was a lot better than most competitors.

“Moreover the key combined ratio was 79.7% in 2015 and up from 73.6% the year before. This marks how much its investments and premiums produced, and higher is better. It again beat most rivals.

“CEO Ed Noonan, a ‘glass-is-half-empty’ pessimist, called VR results ‘strong despite competitive pressures.’

“VR also treats us shareholders well. They pay a 3% dividend and bought back 6 mn shares in 2015 at a mere nickel on average over book value, $42.33. This adds up to an astonishing total buyback since the program began of 160.5 mn shares. Gloomy Noonan is disciplined so when he can’t find a reinsurance deal with good return he simply buys back more shares.