Wary Arab silence over Iran deal; Swiss reject cap on bosses' pay; The looks of another tech bubble; Big data changing cost of insurance

1 Wary Arab silence over Iran deal (Dawn) Iran's nuclear deal with global powers has been met with wary silence from Arab states, with Iran's only two Arab friends Iraq and Syria welcoming the accord but others keeping their opinions to themselves. All Arab countries apart from Syria and Iraq are ruled by Sunni Muslims who mainly regard Shia Iran as a foe and have been deeply uneasy over the prospect of any rapprochement with the West that would benefit Tehran. Arab leaders worry that the deal, under which Iran is being given relief from sanctions in return for curbs to its nuclear programme, signals a thaw in the 30 years of hostility between Tehran and Washington which will give Iran more regional clout.

The Gulf Arab rulers oppose Iran on countless fronts across the region, including Syria, where they fund and arm rebels fighting against Iran's friend, President Bashar al-Assad. They accuse Tehran of fomenting unrest in a range of countries including Yemen, Bahrain, Lebanon and Iraq. Iran denies such meddling. By contrast, Iraq, which has a Shia-led government and is the only Arab state that is openly friendly with both the US and Iran, was quick to praise the agreement. "The reaching of a deal between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the six international powers is seen as a major step for the region's security and stability levels," Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said in a statement.

Saudi Arabia and other Sunni-ruled countries have expressed unease in recent months over what they see as a recalibration of US policy, especially since Washington abandoned plans in September to strike Syria to punish it for a chemical weapons attack on a Damascus suburb.

http://www.dawn.com/news/1058265/wary-silence-from-arabs-over-iran-deal

2 Swiss reject cap on bosses' pay (BBC) Swiss voters have rejected a proposal that would have limited executive pay to 12 times that of the lowest paid. The referendum saw 65.3% vote against the plan with 34.7% in favour. The country is home to a range of giant businesses, including pharmaceutical companies Novartis and Roche, the insurance groups Zurich and Swiss Re and the banks UBS and Credit Suisse. The rules would have given Switzerland the world's toughest pay rules and some of the lowest executive salaries.

Business leaders said that would limit foreign investment and the government was also opposed to the proposal. There has been widespread public anger at revelations that some of Switzerland's chief executives are earning more than 200 times what their employees take home. Some Swiss have been further irritated that these high levels of pay are being given to executives whose firms have been cutting jobs.

Although this proposal has been defeated, the issue of high salaries and a widening wage gap has not gone away. Early next year, Switzerland will hold another referendum on a guaranteed minimum wage. Switzerland's system of democracy means citizens can call nationwide votes on issues that concern them.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-25076879

3 The looks of another tech bubble (Nick Bilton in The New York Times) It sounds like heresy around here. But here goes: Is this another tech bubble? Back East, the Wall Street money is starting to worry that it feels like 1999 all over again. Money-losing technology companies are going public at you’ve-got-to-be-joking prices. The founders of Snapchat are getting multibillion-dollar offers — and turning them down. And the Nasdaq composite index, a visible symbol of the ’90s dot-com boom and bust, is a sneeze away from 4,000, a level it last reached just before, well, you know.

It this time different? Out in Silicon Valley, many insist it is. But for the average investor, there are reasons for caution. Since the dark days of 2008, the Nasdaq has risen more than 150 percent, twice as much as the old-school Dow industrials. Money has been pouring into social media stocks. Last week, Twitter had risen nearly 60 percent since it went public only a few weeks earlier.

Many technology entrepreneurs and venture capitalists say there is little to worry about. Which tells you something about bubbles and Silicon Valley. It is difficult to know when any bubble is going to pop until it does. And in Silicon Valley, with its inherent optimism in brighter tomorrows, the view tends to be that the way is always up.

 “What’s likely to happen is that there will be a huge winner-takes-all outcome, where one or two companies and investors will be successful,” said David Santschi, chief executive at TrimTabs Investment Research in Sausalito, Calif. “But as a result, there will be a lot of companies that are just going to go poof.” And a lot of people’s money will go poof with them.

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/11/24/disruptions-if-it-looks-like-a-bubble-and-floats-like-a-bubble/?ref=business&_r=0

4 Big data changing cost of insurance (Kim Gittleson on BBC) Car insurance firms like Progressive in the US, to Tesco Bank in the UK and Generali Group in Italy, are currently in a race to convince consumers that letting them monitor their driving behaviour is actually a good thing. This is because the technology, while not new, has only become affordable recently. Also, consumers are just getting used to the idea of being tracking and having their data collected. Proponents say this shift will reshape the insurance business.

"The way we've done insurance now compared to what we can do is sloppy," says Mike Fitzgerald, senior analyst at Celent, a research firm. "We're taking tens of thousands of people and saying they all have the same risk profile when in fact they don't. Most people are actually overpaying."

This is because traditional insurance looks at averages, as opposed to specifics. You fill out a form saying you're a certain age, and drive a certain type of car, and are a specific gender - and that's basically all the data car companies have to assess your riskiness as driver. Better big data technologies, like the telematic driving data collected by car companies or even information gathered from social media profiles, can help augment that risk profile.

"If I'm a driver that doesn't drive that frequently, and I have a pattern that would indicate that I drive more carefully than an average person with my profile, then I may be able to save 30-40% on my car insurance, and that's pretty significant," explains Joe Reifel, a partner at A.T. Kearney, a consulting firm. The future, most analysts agree, is to create a continuous feedback loop between insurers and consumers, so that consumers will react to the big data analyses that insurers do on them and change their behaviour accordingly.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-24941415