Shares in Chilean glass products maker Cristalerias de Chile–which has a market capitalization of roughly $700 million and produces glass bottles and containers mainly for the food and beverage industry–rose 15% on Friday after the firm announced an agreement to sell its 20% stake in cable television operator VTR–the nation’s largest cable-television and broadband provider–to Celfin Capital for $303 million (roughly 7x EBITDA, per one analyst). A week earlier the company placed two series of five-and 20-year inflation-linked bonds worth a total 41.46 billion Chilean pesos ($75.3 million). One condition of the VTR sale is its possible future listing on the local stock market. VTR is currently in the process of bidding on a 3G wireless license which would allow it to enter the mobile telecoms market starting in 2010.

Cristalerias shares are still undervalued and thus make

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p style="text-align: left;"By Claus Vistesen: Copenhagenbr //pp style="text-align: left;"(please click on pictures for better viewing)br //pp style="text-align: left;"br //pp style="text-align: center;""Being a Keynesian means being a Keynesian in emboth/em the good and bad times."/p p style="text-align: center;"emAndres Velasco (Finance Minister in Chile) [1]/em/p pbr //ppIt has been a while since I last had a thorough look at Chile (a href="http://chileeconomy.blogspot.com/2008/10/chiles-economy-in-perspective-october.html"here/a and a href="http://chileeconomy.blogspot.com/2008/08/economic-growth-in-chile.html"here/a); more specifically, the last time I had Chile under the loop was in October 2008 and thus around the time when the global economy was about to enter two quarters (Q4-08 and Q1-09) of absolute horror. Whether we are past the worst at this point in time is debatable and I am, personally, skeptical with regards the narrative of second derivatives and green shoots, but it is hard to deny that it does represent a narrative and a fairly strong one too. In this context I thought ...

Note: This is a beta version. I will probably be going over it a couple of times before I am completely happy with it. Moreover, please note that all pictures can be seen in a bigger format by clicking on the which will open a new window or tab

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"Being a Keynesian means being a Keynesian in both the good and bad times."

Andres Velasco (Finance Minister in Chile) [1]

It has been a while since I last had a thorough look at Chile (here and here); more specifically, the last time I had Chile under the loop was in October 2008 and thus around the time when the global economy was about to enter two quarters (Q4-08 and Q1-09) of absolute horror. Whether we are past the worst at this point in time is debatable and I am, personally, skeptical with regards the narrative of second

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div class="body" pBy Claus Vistesen: Copenhagenbr //ppYes, I know. Everybody is talking about a recovery and how the worst is over and investors are still bathing in the soothing calm of longest bear rally so far in this crisis. But seriously, you don't believe a href="http://www.economist.com/printedition/displayStory.cfm?Story_ID=13527685"that this will last/a do you? Well, even if you do, this will not be the topic of this entry [1]./p pRather, I thought it would be interesting to have a look at one of the (relative) success stories in the midst of the economic mire in which we find ourselves. The economy in question is Chile, and apart from a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109amp;sid=aKqLXbopcqLAamp;refer=home"Bloomberg's report/a that Finance Minister Andres Velasco, after having been "burned" back in November, is now almost a rock start the point is well worth pondering./p pem(cut and paste at my discretion)/em/p blockquote pThe Chilean peso has ...

Yes, I know. Everybody is talking about a recovery and how the worst is over and investors are still bathing in the soothing calm of longest bear rally so far in this crisis. But seriously, you don't believe that this will last do you? Well, even if you do, this will not be the topic of this entry [1].

Rather, I thought it would be interesting to have a look at one of the (relative) success stories in the midst of the economic mire in which we find ourselves. The economy in question is Chile, and apart from Bloomberg's report that Finance Minister Andres Velasco, after having been "burned" back in November, is now almost a rock start the point is well worth pondering.

(cut and paste at my discretion)

The Chilean peso has risen almost 10 percent against the dollar this year to become the best-performing currency among emerging markets.

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While most finance wonks opine that dominant indices will need to double bottom (at the very least) before a secular, bull rally can take form, many also agree that the first-mover advantage in such a global rally will start in both commodities and emerging markets.

One such firm could be Sociedad Quimica y Minera de Chile (NYSE:SQM), a Chilean chemical manufacturer that deals in specialty fertilizers (its principal revenue source), iodine and iodine derivatives (used to produce polarizing film for LCD screens and contrast media), lithium and lithium derivatives (vital to the production of rechargeable batteries powering modern electronics and hybrid cars worldwide), potassium nitrate (to make glass or enamel coatings for refrigerators and bathtubs), and industrial chemicals.

SQM thus taps into two growing industries–agriculture and “green” technology. A report issued last month noted that:

Chile is the leading lithium producer in the world with

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Interesting story in this week’s Economist (”Preparing for tougher times”) underlines a plethora of dour economic forecasts for Latin American economies heading into 2009: In the past two months, Latin America has seen its stockmarkets crash, currencies wobble and credit start to dry up. That comes on top of falling exports and the plunge in the prices of the commodities it sells to the world. Twisting the knife, less money is being sent home by Latin Americans working abroad. Specifically: As recently as October, the IMF expected growth in the region next year of 3.2%.  This week the World Bank forecast 2.1%.  The same day Morgan Stanley, an investment bank whose Latin American research team is among the more pessimistic about the region, cut its forecast for the seven largest economies in 2009 from growth of 1.5% to a contraction of 0.4% ...

Bring up “frontier markets” and most investors envision a potpourri of nations primarily located in Africa or the Middle East. Not so fast, my friend. A closer inspection of the growing number of frontier mutual funds and ETFs, for instance, shows that at least in regards to some of them, there is very little correlation to the aforementioned regions. Consider the Claymore/BNY Mellon Frontier Markets ETF (NYSEArca: FRN). The fund uses an indexing approach and seeks to more or less replicate, before fees and expenses, an equity index called The Bank of New York Mellon New Frontier DR Index. What does that mean? A close inspection of the fund’s holdings shows that Poland (25.07%), Chile (23.55%) and Egypt (14.78%) account for a majority of the top country weightings, and moreover that financials account for 41.61% of the sector weighting. Per Matthew McCall, ...

Chile Country OutlookClaus Vistesen: CopenhagenExecutive Summary and Outlook on key indicatorsThere are many lenses and perspectives through which to look at economic development. In this note, the process known as the demographic dividend is conceptualized in a Chilean context. The analysis shows how Chile during the past two decades has benefited from the dividend proxied by the increasingly favorable trend in overall age structure of the society. By some measures Chile’s demographic dividend is ending in these very years, but by adapting a slightly broader definition of the optimal working age and subsequent productivity profile it appears that Chile still finds itself in the proverbial sweet spot. Coupled with the favorable windfall from copper exports and the subsequent transformation of this into an unprecedented net wealth position of Chile’s public accounts, the economy looks on a very solid footing to face whatever travails which ...

Chile's central bank raised its target interest rate to 8.25 percent, the highest in almost a decade, as policy makers show their determination to win the fight against inflation. The bank's five-member board, led by President Jose De Gregorio, is trying to contain consumer price increases that are triple its target. The bank said today that the speed of further rate increases depends on economic statistics, dropping a clause from last month's statement that said raising the rate is the ``most likely'' scenario.``The future course of the policy rate foresees further adjustments to ensure that inflation converges with the target, at a rhythm that will depend on new information gathered and on its implications for projected inflation,'' the bank said in its statement.Inflation last month was within expectations, the bank said. Core inflation, which excludes food and fuel, remains high, ...