A Selective Investment in Scandinavia As evidence of commercial interest in developing an ETF for the Nordic region, Global X Management has recently filed for such a product, based on the FTSE Nordic 30 Index. The Global X filing specifies that, "The underlying index tracks the performance of the 30 largest and most liquid companies in Sweden, Denmark, Norway, and Finland. The Adviser uses a passive or indexing approach to try to achieve the Fund’s investment objective." In contrast, the ETFI Nordic Region PerformIdex is a semi-active ETF proposal with quarterly rebalancing among all companies in Sweden, Denmark, Norway, and Finland with market caps over $1 billion USD. Currently, 92 companies qualify for the index with only the top 40 rated stock ...

Top 10 Rated Nordic Companies Nordic Region: Stats for All 116 & Top 40 Companies Nordic Region: Breakdown by Country As evidence of commercial interest in developing an ETF for the Nordic region, Global X Management has recently filed for such a product, based on the FTSE Nordic 30 Index. The Global X filing specifies that, "The underlying index tracks the performance of the 30 largest and most liquid companies in Sweden, Denmark, Norway, and Finland. The Adviser uses a passive or indexing approach to try to achieve the Fund’s investment objective." In contrast, my NordiCaps Top 40 Rated ETF proposal is ...

There is certainly a lot of commotion at the moment not least surrounding the rescue plan to shore up the two biggest US mortgage lenders Fannie and Freddie Mae, but also, and if we stay in the US we had the collapse of IndyMac, in Spain Martina-Fadesa is in the ropes and in Denmark we have Roskilde Bank. Especially, the last event prompted me into action as I decided to have a closer look at the Danish economy and where it might be heading. In many ways Denmark is similar to other credit crunch struck economies not least in the context of experiencing a severe unravelling of a housing boom. As we saw last week this is now beginning to have collateral damage. Yet, Denmark is also a bit different not least because the economy is going into this crisis with a positive balance both on the ...

It is almost too easy, on a day like this, to paraphrase Shakespeare's old play about deceit and greed in the city of Helsinore. This time however it is not the venerable city of Helsinore which is under the spotlight but another old Danish city or more specifically the bank which carries its name. At this point the details are naturally quite scarce but what is clear is that Roskilde Bank has requested the central bank for a liquidity guarantee. Roskilde Bank A/S has announced to the OMX Nordic Exchange that in connection with the regular review of loans and guarantees in prepa-ration of the semi annual report, the management of the bank has found that write-downs have to be made on a significantly larger scale than what has previously been assumed. The amount and scope of the write-downs are not known at this point but will be made ...

By Martin Hutchinson Contributing Editor Forbes Magazine has come out with its list of "Best Countries for Business" - and Denmark ranks as the world’s most business-friendly market. But unless an investor is looking to set up shop in one of these countries, you wouldn’t expect this list to be all that valuable. After all, it’s one thing to know that when a company operates in a business-friendly market, its employees and corporate officers will be well treated, and the company itself will be afforded respect. But does that necessarily allow us to predict whether or not investments in that country will appreciate in value? The truth may actually surprise you. Okay, it’s mean to leave you in suspense until the end. You can find out whether a good business climate is correlated with economic growth by comparing the country’s ranking ...

So where did the boom of the past couple of years get to?

Did Mr Bear really eat it, or was it some other mythical creature?

The CDO perhaps, or the creature from the subprime swamp?

Inflation is a worry, no matter the type of economy. Oil prices are rising and acting like a demand eater, just as rising interest rates have been doing here.

Oil surged over $US146 a barrel, then eased, stocks swooned, interest rates rose in Europe.

The Lex column in today’s Financial Times warned:

“In the anatomy of this bear, however, the cycle of earnings downgrades has barely begun. Globally, trailing earnings are down barely 5 per cent from a lofty peak – against the average historical slump of 25 per cent – and the damage remains concentrated in the beleaguered financial sector.”

A re-rating of resources shares here, seen yesterday in the market, is a big …