Stock Market News & Stocks to Watch from StraightStocks » Foreign Markets

Indian Markets Open the Foreign Floodgates

The Daily Reckoning — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 18:00:11 +0000

Ease of access is a staple of market booms. It’s hard to imagine American stocks, for example, surviving these days without support from retail, institutional and international investors alike. In the same way, much of China’s incredible market boom is thanks to Hong Kong, whose exchange opens the gate to millions of investors who want [...]

Indian Markets Open the Foreign Floodgates originally appeared in the Daily Reckoning. The Daily Reckoning, offers a uniquely refreshing, perspective on the global economy, investing, gold, stocks and today's markets. Its been called "the most entertaining read of the day."

An Economy on Life Support

Bill Bonner — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 20:20:16 +0000

h1 class="entry-title"Waterford, Ireland /h1 pOur faith is weakening. That is, our faith that the government will be able to cause inflation, sooner or later. Let’s review our own narrative: strongdeflation now, inflation later./strong/p div class="entry-content" pstrongbr / /strong/p pIt’s very simple. Maybe too simple. After a half a century of credit expansion, we now have a credit contraction. In this sense, everything is happening as it should./p pThere was a crash and credit crunch at the end of last year. Then, the feds panicked. They fought back with monetary and fiscal stimulus. Rates were cut to nearly zero. The Fed flooded the system with cash and easy credit – buying up Wall Street’s bad investments…propping up bad banks…and guaranteeing trillions worth of bad debt. And the federal government passed a stimulus#8230;/p/div

ProShares Launches Four New Leveraged International ETFs

ETF Daily News — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 15:18:56 +0000

ProFunds Group, the world’s largest manager of short and leveraged funds, announced today that it is launching four new ProShares ETFs, the first designed to seek twice the daily returns of indexes covering developed foreign markets, emerging markets, China and Japan. The new ETFs will be listed on NYSE Arca today. “With some international markets posting [...]

Emerging Markets Infrastructure: “The” Issue from Morgan Stanley’s Head Researchers

Jonathan O'Shaughnessy — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 18:24:10 +0000

“We view this theme, the build-out of the developing world as it closes the infrastructure gap with the developed world, as one of the – if not the – most important themes in global investments, for the coming decade.” This is a quote from the featured story on Morgan Stanley’s main website -a report entitled: “Emerging [...]

IBM’s Global CEO Study

Jonathan O'Shaughnessy — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 21:43:24 +0000

Hello all, It has been some time since the last post, but I wanted to mention that the last post was published on SeekingAlpha (Here) For this post, I wanted to highlight IBM’s biennial global CEO study. Last month IBM took out a few full page ads in the June 23rd issue of Fortune advertising their [...]

Top World Companies Increasingly Outside of the US: A Look at Fortune’s Global Top 500

Jonathan O'Shaughnessy — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 21:16:47 +0000

The leading story this morning on CNNMoney was Fortune’s Global 500 – Its annual compilation of the top 500 companies in the world. As always, the report categorizes companies with a high amount of granularity: the report lets visitors analyze companies by location, fastest growing, most profitable, by industry, CEO’s, largest employees, etc. This [...]

Collection of Global Economic and Emerging Market Blogs

Jonathan O'Shaughnessy — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 00:12:50 +0000

Hello all, Things are progressing here at Emerginvest quite well, but this week has been mostly development on behind-the-scenes code, so there isn’t too much too report. Aside from that, we know that you, our users, enjoy our site for one reason: a shared passion for global financial trends and emerging markets. In light of that, [...]

IsraelNewsletter.com Israel News 7/8/2008

Zack Miller — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 11:22:15 +0000

Jacada (JCDA) signs another material deal — this time it’s a follow-on deal with Nationwide Insurance.Â According to the release, “This most recent contract extends the use of the Jacada solution to the Property and Casualty Direct Sales and Service group, [...]

Words from the Wise: Gone Fishing (in Switzerland)

Prieur du Plessis — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 19:53:38 +0000

I find myself in the Swiss Alps this weekend, spending a few days with my family in the picturesque village of Veysonnaz. While tranquillity reigns and the family delights in having my attention for a change, the bad news for readers is that "Words fro...

Country Selection

Roger Nusbaum — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 12:21:00 +0000

Happy July 4th!

A reader asked for my two cents on foreign country selection.

This may be difficult to articulate into something that usable because there is an element of gut feel at times and also a lot of my groundwork was laid quite a few years ago and so now it is more about following developments.

The way I view things the best type of country is one that offers the best chance for diversification and that means countries that are at different points in their economic cycles and by extension different stock market cycles.

This doesn't always hold up (Oz down a lot this year, Norway down slightly, Canada (EWC) up a hair and Brazil (EWZ) up a little) but over time it works often.

Another category of country would be developed countries that right or wrong I think have a chance to outperform the US over the course of the stock market cycle. For me this only means Europe. Latin America is all emerging. Asia ex-Japan is all emerging (eh, maybe I'm wrong about Singapore). Oceania I think of more in the commodity-based economy segment.

Here selecting countries is about following many countries and choosing a few. Where developed Europe ex-Norway is concerned I have preferred to avoid Germany as the stats have generally stunk for most of the decade. This has been wrong a fair bit over the last five years but there have been other developed countries that have done as well or better with better stats.

I follow economic trends, currencies (the ones in Europe that have their own), interest rates and hopefully the story on the ground. This is not that difficult as there is plenty to read about this. Most of my learning about these countries like what makes the economy tick, what they make (if anything) or quirky things like Finland having a lot of forest land happened awhile ago and as mentioned above there is more monitoring of these places than new learning about them (but still some learning obviously).

Emerging markets are a little different. I have tried to learn about a lot of places but I find myself researching new (to me) places all the time--and I've mentioned them on the blog from time to time as well. In here I would include frontier markets too.

Having CNBC Asia on every day until my wife screams uncle makes following Asia much easier to do. Generally their programming has a lot of meat on the bone.

One thing about all of this is that just about every foreign country has fewer moving parts than the US so they are easier to understand (this comment is not meant to imply low volatility). Chances are you understand Turkey a lot better than you think.

Emerging markets tend to be more purposeful like using a mining stock for Brazil but also can be gut feeling like with preferring a bank for Chile. A couple of folks have Taiwan but there I capture it with an ETF because I get what I need without single stock risk; that is a lot of tech and quite a bit of yield.

Now despite the obvious need, I am not aware of any Bolivian toll road ETFs in the works anywhere.

One thing to remember here is that in the last few years foreign markets have dramatically outperformed US markets which creates the opportunity for confusing genius with a bull market. This is something not to lose sight of if foreign markets have been kind to you in the last few years.

The last thing to point out here is that foreign investing is like any other part of the portfolio. There will be some things that you get right and some you get wrong. I spend a lot of time on this but I have been criticized before for not knowing anything and some have implied that it seems like I know a lot. Well compared to some folks I'm sure don't know much but to others I probably do know a lot. That doesn't matter for me and more importantly the amount you know should not matter to you either. Learn as much as you can and proceed in a manner that allows you to sleep.

Israeli cleantech making its way to US Congress

Zack Miller — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 09:18:30 +0000

Globes out today with an article about Project Better Place CEO, Shai Agassi’s recent address to the House of Representative’s Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming. Agassi, an Israeli uber-entreprenuer who had sold his software firm to German software giant SAP, had pretty compelling statitics backing his new venture — a venture focused [...]

EURUSD: U.S. Interest Rates Unchanged. Now What?

Michael Michaud — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 12:38:00 +0000

On June 25, at 2:15 PM, the Federal Reserve did the expected and left U.S. interest rates unchanged at 2%, albeit "signaling rising worries about inflation risks." (The Wall Street Journal)

Going into the announcement, the general expectation of the analysts quoted in the financial media was for the USD to "come under a little bit of pressure'' after the news. And it did: The buck first gained, but then lost to the euro, pushing the EURUSD exchange rate about 100 pips higher in the afternoon.

The question now is: Was that all of the "pressure" the USD would see, or is there more to come?

Well, with the Fed's decision out of the way, all eyes now are on the European Central Bank that meets next week to decide on interest rates in the Eurozone. And the ECB has been talking "inflation," hinting they may not sit on their hands like the Fed did on June 25.

We will leave it up to fundamental forex analysts to decipher the trend in the EURUSD based on all these hints and allegations. The focus at Elliott Wave International's Currency Specialty Service is strictly technical; it's Elliott wave patterns in forex markets' charts that we're trying to interpret.

24 hours a day, EWI's Currency Specialty Service brings you updates for all the major forex markets. Get instant access to the forecasts now.

Here's an intraday comment that Currency Specialty Service editor Jim Martens posted for subscribers on the morning of June 25, before the Fed's announcement:

11:09 ET/15:09 GMT
[Market Insight]

Start clearing a spot for me to stand on your desk because I'm headed there!

Going into news, I could not ask for a better set up. Let me explain why. The chart [of the U.S. Dollar Index] shows a clear five-wave decline.

That decline failed to move beneath the prior low at 73.04, so I see the decline as just the first wave in a larger decline sequence. So I'm bearish [the USD] just from that knowledge. The subsequent recovery looks corrective, and it retraced to the upper end of the Fibonacci [resistance] area; that could be all of the correction. Everything is bearish [for the dollar]. Thinking about the available wave patterns, it looks as though a flat correction is unfolding. A flat would ideally end with the dollar sneaking above 73.38 – maybe on news – in a C wave. The pattern is proven wrong above 73.652.

So, we have all the ingredients: a bearish wave pattern, an expectation of where the next top should form (just above 73.38), and we know where the outlook is wrong (above 73.652).

I'm always asked about putting the Wave Principle to use. This is a perfect example.

A perfect example, indeed.

Click here to review Elliott Wave International's Currency Specialty Service

Good day and good forex trading!

Company Uncovered: AudioCodes (AUDC)

Israel Investor Newsletter — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 09:12:45 +0000

This interview was published in its entirety for subscribers of our premium newsletter, Israel Opportunity Investor, the only investment newsletter focused on uncovering opportunities in Israeli stocks traded in the U.S. ***************************************** Can you tell us a bit about AudioCodes? Nachum Falek, CFO: AudioCodes (Nasdaq: AUDC) is a telecommunications firm focused entirely on Voice-over Internet Protocol, or [...]

Emerging & Developed Mkts Country Weights

Richard Shaw — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 21:34:00 +0000

Knowledge of the country weights in the emerging and developed markets indices can be helpful in specifying allocations within the equity portion of a portfolio. For those clients who wish to allocate primarily on a country basis (as opposed to a sector basis, for example), our general philosophy is to begin the design process from the [...]

Home Prices and Consumer Confidence Traverse Record Lows

Money Morning — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 23:35:38 +0000

By Jason Simpkins Associate Editor Another fresh round of economic data was released yesterday (Tuesday) with the prognosis looking dire for the U.S. economy. Home prices as measured by the... Money Morning is here to help investors profit handsom...

Emerginvest Prepares to Open Beta Registration

Jonathan O'Shaughnessy — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 17:17:43 +0000

Hello! My name is Jonathan O’Shaughnessy and I am the Director of Marketing for Emerginvest. I echo Andrew’s sentiments about how exciting it is to be readying the website for our full beta launch. After officially joining the company full time at the end of May, it has been a whirlwind of activity filling out our [...]

Exporting ingenuity: Israeli mobile tech, software and…food?

Zack Miller — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 07:50:43 +0000

At IsraelNewsletter.com, we like to focus on Israeli impact on public markets. Whether it’s the 100+ Israeli companies listed in the U.S., M&A, or strategic partnerships, Israel technology is making its way into the global Fortune 100. While IOI analyst Katsman continues to like G. Willi Foods (WILC) for their leading kosher export business (see what [...]

Foreign Stocks; Deteriorated Environment?

Roger Nusbaum — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 12:20:00 +0000

There was an article in the NY Times Sunday titles "For Foreign Stocks, The Sure Bet Is Over." As is often the case the headline writer sensationalized the article a tad but there are some important things to think about if you are one to invest in foreign equities one way or another.

A few years ago there were some especially cheap areas in foreign and emerging and many of those areas are no longer cheap. I saw elsewhere that Petrobras (PBR) used to trade with a mid single digit PE ratio, then a couple of years ago it had close to a US market multiple and now it's higher than the US market. This isn't necessarily a reason to buy or sell the name, if oil does go to $200 in short order, as some think, PBR is likely to go along regardless of the valuation.

PBR is an example for many emerging market stocks that are no where near as cheap as they used to be. This should not be a shock to anyone, in the last five years emerging markets, as measured by iShares Emerging Market (EEM), are up by 250% versus less than 50% for the S&P 500. The risk for emerging markets, obviously, is greater after a 250% run.

Zero exposure creates a very big bet but if you have any exposure now you are taking more risk than five years ago and so should you have more or less exposure than you did five years ago?

Developed Europe appears to be economically vulnerable, very vulnerable, these days. The housing problems in some places might be worse than in the US, the rolling over of some economic data from the continent seems worse than the US, many commentaries paint the UK as being in dire straits making the pound an obvious sell. One commentator very amusingly said if he could figure out how to do it he would sell the pound against the pound.

The Shanghai Composite, as most folks know, is down over 50% in nine months, generally worse than other Asian markets. Is China an outlier, in terms of magnitude, or a leader of sorts and so other big declines will soon follow?

In simple terms there are maybe two big macros out there right now. One is that there is a global slowdown occurring in many places that we can perhaps attribute to excesses galore and escalating inflation. The other macro is the commodity boom and whatever that will ultimately turn out to be. Sorting those out might mean some countries do poorly and some do well or maybe all countries buckle under the weight of inflation in certain prices and asset (house) deflation.

For purposes of this post I am not trying quantify or give an opinion on what these things will mean. These are some of the issues that world markets have to confront. While market always confront risks, foreign has been a one way trade that has offered fantastic outperformance. In that light a set back seems reasonable. That is not a call for US equities to do better than foreign but that save for several in their own world destinations, don't let global equity price declines catch you off guard.

Demand for stocks is unhealthy now and most people understand that. In this environment, while the risks for foreign are greater than the were the more important thing, in my opinion, is one way or another having taken some sort of defensive action in the portfolio be it more cash than normal, inverse ETFs, puts, whatever.

There are times to go along for the ride up (most of the time) and times where defense makes more sense. Defense has been the key for quite a few months now and could be for a while longer.

Israelis offshoring engineering to America

Zack Miller — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 09:38:01 +0000

As the shekel continues to advance against most major currencies and especially against the US dollar, Israeli exporters are suffering. As Katsman wrote recently about software integrator, BluePhoenix (BPHX), currency issues are partly to blame as certain firms feel the pinch on shekel-based research costs and the double-whammy of a macro slowdown. I’ve heard of Israeli [...]

More energy in Czech stock market index PX.

Vlada Kynsky — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 15:57:00 +0000

Shares of the last and the biggest IPO in Czech history New World Resources has risen by 45% since share issue in less than 2 months. Buying power in last week came from growing commodities prices and also due to possible approval for mining in the pit Debiensko in Poland.

On 23rd of June NWR is part of index PX with weight 11%. Together with energy giant CEZ (25% weight of PX) they make up more than the third of index PX. More or less the same share is for banks (37%) represented by Erste Bank and Komercni Banka.

From now on it is obvious that the performance of Czech stock market index PX will be determined by commodities prices more than it used to be.

Related tickers: (IEER.L), (GUR), (CEE),

Why Emerging Markets Are So Volatile

Richard Shaw — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 15:38:43 +0000

We are sometimes asked why emerging markets are so much more volatile than developed markets. The answer is that, due to their relative size, money flows between them cause most of the volatility effect. Consider a real world situation that most of us have seen — a stream emptying in to a pond and another stream [...]

Foreign-trained MBAs making impact on Israel business scene

Zack Miller — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 14:05:03 +0000

Israelis business used to be characterized by brilliant technologies looking for a problem to solve. No longer. With MBA programs in Israel growing and more and more Israelis seeking training abroad, Israel management is seeing a tremendous upgrade in non-army qualifications, experience, and training. Kellogg School of Management has been running a successful EMBA program [...]

Islamic Funds Avoid the Financial Meltdown

Richard Shaw — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 04:43:51 +0000

Barron’s June 16, 2008 featured an article, Keeping the Faith, about how funds adhering to Islamic (Shariah) investment principles have avoided the greatest effects of the current credit crisis. We found the same tendency to be true in a study we performed for Business Islamica Magazine of Dubai, U.A.E in 2007. (download PDF version of article [...]

What Tiger Woods and Israeli Pharma Teva have in common

Zack Miller — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 16:48:50 +0000

A little flattery typically goes a long way. Katsman and I base most of our research from on-the-ground work we’re doing on Israeli stocks that trade in the U.S. As many who follow the sector know, it really helps in terms of information and data flow to be based in Israel. So, [...]

Abu Dhabi Investment Authority

Roger Nusbaum — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 12:58:00 +0000

From BusinessWeek; Apparently the ADIA wants to simplify its portfolio by having less hedge fund exposure and more index fund exposure with the following allocation.

These sorts of things are always useful and interesting. They allocate more to equities than Mohamed El-Erian did in his recent Barron's interview.

ADIA is indexing a lot of their portfolio after a consultant studied the portfolio and pointed out that most of their active managers were lagging their respective benchmarks.

This was a catalyst for ADIA to index 60% of the portfolio to come more in line with some of the better known US endowment funds (60% was the number in the B-week article, I'm not sure if that is how much any of the endowments actually commit to indexing).

El-Erian allocated 42% to regular equities versus a range for ADIA between 54% and 71% and it is also not clear how much of ADIA's equity exposure would go to the US versus El-Erian's 15%.

Accessing the equities and bonds are obviously easy to do (talking access not necessarily quality of selection). The alternative category is sort of wide open. It seems that most of the products that are targeted to this segment have times where correlation is low and other periods where it is high. There are a couple of things out there though seem to have done a good job more often than not that shouldn't be that difficult to find for anyone interested.

The real estate segment is one that for me that might be evolving into one of the farm stocks perhaps combined with a more traditional REIT or other type of real estate stock. The catalyst for this, well actually two catalysts, are the concern that REITs correlation to financials went up at the worst possible time and the big macro theme (which I think will have legs for the long term) of food becoming progressively more important.

Private equity is always tricky. There are a lot private equity things that aren't really private equity and for the things that are really PE exposure the market can always do funky things via fear and greed that would be beyond the holder's control that could distort the effect.

Infrastructure as a distinct allocation, as discussed previously, sort of depends on what is selected. Buy Foster Wheeler (FWLT), are you really capturing a separate asset class or just a stock you think will do well? I would say the former. If you buy Malaysian toll road company Plus Expressways (5052.KL or PEXWF.PK) are you really capturing a separate asset class or just a stock you think will do well? I think the latter but an argument could be made the other way.

The ADIA allocation seems like it would be easier to implement both practically and psychologically. A key difference is that by only allocating 42% to equities I wonder if El-Erian is questioning whether equities might stop working altogether. If so I would disagree with that notion and just mention again that even if US equities average smaller returns other destination will offer "normal" returns.

The ADIA allocation seems to be just their spin on how to build a diversified portfolio. Obviously commodities are missing, perhaps captured elsewhere in their total portfolio (remember the above just represents a portion) and I would say a little bit in foreign currency might be right for some folks too.

Post bar-mitzvah, 3 better uses for ex-Comverse CEO’s money

Israel Investor Newsletter — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 12:13:51 +0000

The Wall Street Journal loves to poke fun at corporate execs living large on the lam. Kobi Alexander, Comverse’s (CMVT) Namibian-dwelling ex-CEO, is not spared any ribbing in today’s Page 1 of the WSJ (sub. required). Seems that Mr Alexander put on a lavish bar mitzvah party for his son recently which included flying in [...]

Good time had by analysts at Zoran’s (ZRAN) analyst day

Zack Miller — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 10:19:24 +0000

Zoran (ZRAN) held an analyst day yesterday at its Sunnyvale, CA headquarters. Well attended by Wall Street, analysts generally left the event confident on the firm’s growth drivers and strategy but still very worried about the macroeconomic milieu at present. Deutsche Bank believes in the Zoran story as it believes the firm will continue to [...]

How the New Oil Crisis Affects You

Sean Brodrick — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 07:30:00 +0000

In ancient times, when mapmakers came to uncharted territory, they would scrawl: "Here There Be Dragons." Flash-forward to the 21st Century; oil markets went into uncharted territory on the ...

Prepare Yourself For the Coming Fall Pt 2.

Graham Summers — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 22:34:04 +0000

In Friday’s essay I warned that stocks were headed for an ugly autumn. Looking at Friday’s action—the S&P 500 fell 3%— it’s possible the trouble is already here. As I’ve mentioned several times on these pages, the market rally post-Bear Stearns was largely facilitated by phony economic data courtesy of the US government, the Federal [...]

Israel in the top 10 capital markets worldwide?

Zack Miller — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 08:22:56 +0000

Smart investors know how to look at company provided projections. You’ve got to take them with a grain of salt. So, when Israel’s Finance Ministry begins making bold projections, you probably require at least a bucket full. Speaking at the Globes Capital Markets Conference, Ministry of Finance Director, Yarom Ariav, said that he could realistically see [...]

Two Israeli firms team up to fight fraud

Zack Miller — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 07:02:03 +0000

What do you get when a leading revenue management firm teams up with leading telecom billing solutions provider? A pretty neat fraud detection and prevention solution with an expert delivery team. Reporting in Globes this morning, ECtel (ECTX) announced a collaboration with Amdocs (DOX) in which ECtel will team up with Amdoc’s system integration services to market [...]

Bulling up for some real TA-25 exposure for U.S. investors

Israel Investor Newsletter — Tue, 27 May 2008 11:46:45 +0000

U.S. investors have tried for the past few years to access the growth in the Israeli market without a true index vehicle for doing so. The Amidex35 is probably the most accurate vehicle for those looking to get exposure to Israel as a whole. It’s an interesting index, splitting total market cap between Tel [...]

Google getting hot on geothermal and Israel

Zack Miller — Thu, 22 May 2008 05:52:59 +0000

As we wrote last week, numerous business and political bigwigs were in Israel for Shimon Peres’s conference celebrating Israel’s 60th birthday. While we sat in on various sessions and working groups, given our bent for Israeli technology, we really enjoyed a session dedicated to the future of the Internet attended by the pioneers of [...]

Company Uncovered: Silicom (SILC)

Zack Miller — Wed, 21 May 2008 12:33:32 +0000

An interview with Silicom (SILC) was featured as part of our new subscription newsletter, Israel Opportunity Investor. You can find out more about the product and the opportunities we cover at www.israelnewsletter.com ****************************** Can you tell us a bit about the history of Silicom (Nasdaq: SILC)? Avi Eizenman, Founder and Chairman of the Board: When we founded [...]

Israel Ingenuity: Interview with Eze Vidra, VCCafe.com

Zack Miller — Mon, 19 May 2008 13:34:33 +0000

Tell us a bit about yourself. Eze Vidra, VCCafe.com: I’m originally from Argentina. My parents moved to Israel with me in 1987 when I was just a kid. I grew up in Israel and did my army service. I moved to the US about 4 years ago. I’ve now been in Northern [...]

Internet in Israel: Google, Yahoo, and MySpace all chime in

Zack Miller — Thu, 15 May 2008 12:23:55 +0000

As we wrote about President Bush’s address yesterday, IOI is spending two days at the President of Israel Shimon Peres’s Facing Tomorrow conference. While yesterday’s events centered around political issues, today’s festivities focused more on the business environment in Israel. Google (GOOG) founder, Sergey Brin kicked off a panel focused on the future of the [...]

George Bush to U.S. delegates: ‘Spend freely and behave yourselves’

Zack Miller — Wed, 14 May 2008 19:57:18 +0000

As my partner, Aaron Katsman, wrote about yesterday, IOI is spending two days at the President of Israel Shimon Peres’s Facing Tomorrow conference. Before I write about how U.S. President George W. Bush addressed the delegation of businessmen/women, philanthropists, state leaders and ex-state leaders, I wanted to say that you can get a feel at these [...]

Israel Q1 Earnings Roundup

Israel Investor Newsletter — Tue, 13 May 2008 07:57:35 +0000

012.Smile (SMLC): “The firm noted that revenue decline reflects a significant year-over-year decline in revenues from hubbing services and a 14% year-over-year decline in the average shekel-dollar exchange rate.” (see article here). Earnings release here. See what IOI has written about SMLC and why some asset managers think it’s cheap. Voltaire (VOLT): Stock up [...]

Global stock markets – return and valuation scorecard

Prieur du Plessis — Fri, 09 May 2008 06:13:11 +0000

Global stock markets have experienced a relatively strong recovery since the middle of March. Although markets in general are still well below previous highs, it makes for interesting reading to reflect on the extent of the correction and subsequent ra...

Miller and Katsman on CNBC’s Squawk Box

Israel Investor Newsletter — Wed, 07 May 2008 12:14:57 +0000

IOI’s Zack Miller and Aaron Katsman were interviewed by CNBC’s Squawk Box. CNBC is here in Israel celebrating Israel’s 60th Birthday. See the video here. Please see our Disclaimer HERE. NEW! Introducing Israel Opportunity Investor, our monthly subscription-only newsletter. Stay ahead of the game and make smart decisions in Israel stocks. Go here to learn [...]

Israel Q1 Earnings Roundup: Gearing up for Israel’s 60th

Zack Miller — Tue, 06 May 2008 13:01:16 +0000

Lots of Israeli companies reporting earnings. Here are some highlights: Perrigo (PRGO): Tightened up 2008 guidance higher and beat revenues projections. Earnings release here. Early look at the stock is that investors aren’t impressed. See our recent commentary on PRGO’s generic nicotine gum. Teva Pharmaceuticals (TEVA): Earnings report here. Quarter over quarter growth looks [...]

Bookkeeping: Taking some Gafisa (GFA) off Table

Trader Mark — Thu, 01 May 2008 01:10:53 +0000

I have no idea what has gotten into Brazil today as the iShares Brazil (EWZ) is up nearly 9%; that’s the large caps index.. but Gafisa (GFA) is up 14% and since I just added to this Monday in the $38s [Bookkeeping: Adding Gafisa] I am going to cut back a bit here in the [...]

Geography of non-US Stock Markets

Richard Shaw — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 03:52:35 +0000

There are 67 countries between the United States, Canada, EAFE, emerging market and frontier market countries. It may be helpful to you if you visualize the geographic relationship between those countries when you think about making country, region or development stage country investments. The pie chart shows the relative market cap size of the US, [...]

China Update

Roger Nusbaum — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 18:00:30 +0000

Last week I mentioned that China was down a lot and I questioned whether it might make sense to dip a toe back in. After a couple more down days it has had a couple of very big up days. The move is being attributed to a decrease in a tax that was recently increased [...]

Company Uncovered: BluePhoenix Solutions (Nasdaq: BPHX)

Zack Miller — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 15:49:19 +0000

An interview with BluePhoenix (BPHX) was featured as part of our new subscription newsletter, Israel Opportunity Investor. You can find out more about the product and the opportunities we cover at www.israelnewsletter.com *************************************************** David, Can you tell us about your company? David Leichner, Chief Marketing Officer: BluePhoenix Solutions (Nasdaq: BPHX) is a leading provider of [...]

Riots In Egypt

Roger Nusbaum — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 16:14:50 +0000

You probably have heard about the riots going on in Egypt over the rising price and rationing of bread (wheat). I only know what I read (here and here). Knowing what is really happening there is difficult as function of being far away and news accounts sometimes don’t correctly capture the essence of these things. [...]

Israeli Startups Snatched up like Worms

Zack Miller — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 16:04:45 +0000

Is it me or does it seem that Israeli startups are hotter than a stolen tamale? IBM (IBM) announces it’s buying ANOTHER Israeli startup. This time its FilesX, a company providing data recovery and back-up solutions for business continuity. This is on top of Big Blue’s purchase of XIV earlier this year. It does seem [...]

Israel Opportunity Investor News Roundup 4/9/2008

Zack Miller — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 14:13:55 +0000

Elbit Systems (ESLT) wins a multi-year contract from Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Company to supply new generation Head-Up Displays (HUDs) for the new F-16 aircraft. Comverse (CMVT) wins Norway deal. Amdocs (DOX) bought broadband cable solutions provider Jacobs RimellLtd. for approximately $45 million to build its operations support systems (OSS) offering. El Al raising prices by [...]

Umm, let’s shut down the Tel Aviv stock exchange…

Zack Miller — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 13:43:39 +0000

The Tel Aviv stock exchange said it canceled trading today (Monday, April 7) over a labor dispute. Hello? I know Israel struggles with labor issues with unions frequently stifling free commerce. I’m all for workers’ rights but how does a stock exchange just not show up for work one day? The truth is that the [...]

Country Bets Are Also Sector Bets … and more

Richard Shaw — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 21:36:59 +0000

Country equity funds differ in a number of ways. They vary in sector weights, currency exposures, political risks, stock market liquidity risks, interest rate and inflation risks, and other factors. To illustrate the point, let’s look at the different sector weights in six passive country index ETFs from Barclays for the Americas. ILF (Latin America) [...]

Israel Opportunity Investor News Roundup 4/3/2008

Zack Miller — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 13:36:10 +0000

It’s been a busy week for Israel investors. For those subscribers to our new subscription newsletter, Israel Opportunity Investor, they’ve seen one portfolio company, Gilat Networks (GILT), announce an acquisition for a premium. While we hate to brag and say “we told you so”, well, we told you so. Read more about how merger arbitrage [...]

NYT: To See a Stock Market Bubble Bursting, Look at Shanghai

Trader Mark — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 12:54:38 +0000

I haven’t talked about China in a long while from an investing point of view since its been a vortex of destroyed capital. But when I read this sort of article it reminds me of all the stories I read in 2001-2002. When I was reading the exploits going on in China the past 2 [...]

AOB Releases 2007 Earnings

Timothy Roe — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 00:54:50 +0000

American Oriental Bioengineering (NYSE: AOB ) a Shenzhen-based manufacturer and distributor of plant-based pharmaceutical and nutraceutical products, reported its fourth quarter and full year 2007 earnings yesterday. For the fourth quarter, revenues were US$57.3 million, up 39% from the fourth quarter in 2006. Net income rose 39.7% to US$15.2 million for a net margin of [...]

Solution to Our Currency: Oil

Todd Sullivan — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 17:33:17 +0000

Most folks hail the low dollar vs foreign currencies as making our exports cheaper for foreign buyers, thus helping our economy. True, but it also has a very real negative effect that currently is doing far more damage. The price of oil (USO) from Saudi Arabia, Iran an the rest of the world is priced [...]

China v India the Past 2 Months

Trader Mark — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 00:35:55 +0000

I mentioned in an entry in mid October how Indian stocks seemed to be getting very little attention I am always amazed to see how the ratio of Chinese to Indian financial stories is in a ratio of 20:1 – when you have 2 economies of similar scope, size, and strength – yet one seems [...]

Credit Deterioration Reaches Israel

Zack Miller — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 15:53:49 +0000

As my colleague, Aaron Katsman, opined on just a few months ago, Israel would not be immune to the subprime mess that began in the U.S., and through complicated collateralization, spread throughout the world. At the time, news spread quickly in Israel that a leading developer, Heftziba, was becoming insolvent and that its onerous debt [...]

Interview: Mark Modius on China

Prieur du Plessis — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 16:08:28 +0000

Is the Chinese stock market in a bubble, or are the lofty valuations simply a reflection of the country’s superior growth prospects? Who better to ask than Mark Mobius, Franklin Templeton’s roving emerging markets expert. Q: Is it time to take profits in the Chinese stock market? Is the current trend sustainable or is it [...]

Highlights From Cimatron’s Conference Call

Zack Miller — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 14:29:02 +0000

As we’ve said repeatedly, Israel has a stable of really interesting microcap/smallcap companies trading under most investors’ radars. Cimatron (CIMT) is one of these plays worth a look. Sporting a micro-cap of less than $25M, Cimatron provides investors with a profitable microcap with cash on the books, poised to see some nice growth in the [...]

Investment in Chinese Hospitals to Reach $60 Billion

Timothy Roe — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 21:25:32 +0000

Speaking recently at a healthcare industry conference, Jiang Tao, Executive VP of Hua Xia Healthcare Holdings, Ltd. (HKG: 8143) stated that, based on a series of surveys and interviews performed byt the company, he anticipates a surge of investment in Chinese hospitals and hospital management companies. He stated that recent healthcare reform discussions underway in [...]

Moving Assets Out of US

Roger Nusbaum — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 18:56:05 +0000

I think I have read in five different places that Jimmy Rogers is moving all of his assets out of US dollars. He is said to favor Chinese yuan, Japanese yen and Swiss francs. No doubt you are also aware he favors a whole myriad of commodities too. The argument that says the US is [...]

Investing in Kazakhstan

Roger Nusbaum — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 17:36:56 +0000

As I read this report from Jyske Bank Kazakhstan has a sovereign wealth fund from taxes collected from exporting oil that is worth $18 billion. It appears that the fund is more about maintaining stability for the country than for investing but it will probably morph into an investment vehicle if resource prices remain high. [...]

Global Markets: Pop ‘n Drop Pattern?

Prieur du Plessis — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 17:37:47 +0000

Have global stock markets run into a cul de sac? Bulls with long and short horns alike will probably admit that the rally since August 17, 2007 (i.e. when the US Fed cut the discount window rate) was probably “too much too fast”. The bar charts below show how global mature stock markets, as represented [...]

Dangers of the Chinese Market

Faisal Laljee — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 14:23:01 +0000

I hate to be a party pooper, but the Shanghai Stock Exchange, along with all the China stocks, and Chinese IPO’s remind me of the Nasdaq exhuberance of 2000. Granted China is growing at 10%, but does that justify a multiple of 80 that is currently sported by the Shanghai stock exchange compared to the [...]

China Bubble Mania

Roger Nusbaum — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 16:41:15 +0000

This is the chart for China Digital TV Holding Company (STV) which IPO’d last Friday as best as I can tell. The IPO price was $16 and it closed Tuesday at $51.08 up $11.59. The day of the IPO, Friday, it was up 75%. There have been others, both in the US and Shangai, that [...]

Wal-Mart’s China Plans

Todd Sullivan — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 14:55:35 +0000

Wal-Mart (WMT), the world’s largest retailer, has announced plans to more than double its stores in China in the next 5 years in an effort to tap the growing personal wealth of the country’s over 1 billion people. The planned expansion will enable the company to increase its reach beyond its current 84 stores across [...]

A Comparison of US & Asian REITs

Richard Shaw — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 15:49:18 +0000

U.S. REITs are still too expensive as guaged by the spread between their yields and the yields on 10-yr U.S. Treasury Bonds. Asian REITs are more reasonably priced in terms of that measure — perhaps more appopriately representing the risk differences between a real estate and intermediate term government bonds in the home country. The [...]

Fundamentals in Country Fund Rankings

Richard Shaw — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 16:46:39 +0000

If you are considering investing in single country funds, you should learn about the country in a fundamental way, not just by reviewing fund performance and portfolio statistics. Just as you should know about the fundamentals and character of any company in which you invest. You need to know what the countries you invest in [...]

Chinese Oil Market Outlook

Trader Mark — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 17:13:38 +0000

CNOOC (CEO) is a stock in my watch list which I did not pull the trigger on. There are a couple of ways to play the China oil angle: China Petroleum & Chemical (SNP) - this is a mix of a chemical company and refiner PetroChina (PTR) - gas/oil/refining CNOOC (CEO) - gas/oil Due to [...]

Alcoa to Sell Stake in Aluminum Corp of China

Trader Mark — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 14:26:55 +0000

This is quite interesting news. Alcoa Inc., the world’s top aluminum maker, is selling its entire stake in Aluminum Corp of China Ltd (HKSE:2600.HK – News; Chalco) for approximately US$2 billion. -Alcoa Inc. (AA), the world’s top aluminum maker, is selling its entire stake in Aluminum Corp of China Ltd (ACH), for up to US$2 [...]

US Companies Shrinking in Comparison

Richard Shaw — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 14:13:04 +0000

United States companies were once the overwhelming majority of very large market-cap companies. That has been changing for some time. Total U.S. free-float market cap is less than 50% (about 46%) of world free float market-cap, and even less of total world market-cap if free float is not considered. This week Barron’s published a list [...]

Recent Global Stock Market Performance

Prieur du Plessis — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 15:48:23 +0000

Global stock markets regained much of their credit squeeze losses during the second half of August 2007 to end the month only in slightly negative territory. The MSCI World Index was down -0.3% and the MSCI Emerging Markets Index lost -2.2%, but ten of the 54 indices in the accompanying table still managed to end [...]

Float Yuan: China’s Only Answer

Turley Muller — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 19:28:01 +0000

The Wall Street Journal reported that the CPI in China jumped 5.6% for the month of July. Food prices are mostly to blame with meat products rising 45%. China’s Central Bank has been attempting to head-off inflationary pressures by raising short-term rates for the forth time this year. On August 22nd, the one-year rate banks [...]

Still Bullish on Hong Kong

Trader Mark — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 14:42:24 +0000

I mentioned iShares Hong Kong last week as an interesting play with a new catalyst – the opening of that market to the speculative middle class Chinese who are making the 1999 NASDAQ crowd look tame by comparison. From CBSMarketwatch this morning: - HONG KONG (MarketWatch) — Hong Kong shares rose to a record high [...]

Next Big Play in China: Pork

Trader Mark — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 19:03:53 +0000

With fertilizer companies and agricultural stocks in general booming due to the development of emerging markets – an interesting story caught my eye. Smithfield Foods (SFD) announces a deal to export 60 million pounds of pork to China by the end of December, due to a shortage there due to disease. From the news reports [...]

Bad News for the Solar Sector & China Sunergy

Trader Mark — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 21:38:10 +0000

There are some seriously poorly performing stocks in the solar sector, especially the smaller Chinese PV makers – and the way things are going some of these players won’t be around for the long haul. Out today is news from China Sunergy (CSUN), an IPO from May of this year and the news is poor [...]

Subprime Effects Felt Worldwide

Richard Shaw — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 14:26:04 +0000

We can still remember when people were telling us that the subprime crisis was confined to U.S. housing — that it was not a big deal in the final analysis. Well, the final analysis is not in yet, but oh were they wrong. Not only is the subprime crisis not confined to U.S. housing — [...]

Global Market Performance Roundup

Prieur du Plessis — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 16:44:31 +0000

What you see may not be what you get, especially when analyzing historical stock market performance. One would be excused for thinking that global stock markets were on an uninterrupted upward path when considering their good gains in US dollar for the three months ended July 31, 2007. But that is only part of the [...]

Top 10 Global Stocks

Faisal Laljee — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 15:39:11 +0000

The title says it all. Global economy is on the rise with never-before-seen demand for natural resources and their applications. Indeed bridges, roads, rails, pipes, filters, pumps and other such systems, which often make up the difference between a third world economy and the western world, are being put to use in every corner of [...]

Hot China Plays

Faisal Laljee — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 18:53:37 +0000

Back in May, I posted a piece on the Top 10 China plays. While I am happy to report that within 2 months, that portfolio of 10 stocks is up almost 14%, I believe its time for some changes. Since the post, FXI – the default China 25 index is up 21% primarily due to [...]

The Future of Kazakhstan’s Market

Roger Nusbaum — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 15:53:10 +0000

One aspect of my approach to portfolio management is to look down the road a few years to think, in big picture terms, what client accounts might look like. I have written many times about Iceland and Vietnam as investment destinations but for now don’t have wide exposure for clients but expect I will over [...]

Foreign Markets Introduction

Jim Musselwhite — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 19:12:06 +0000

This category is for the discussion of all things Foreign. Posts on the topics of exchanges in Asia, Europe, South America, and all individual stocks and news within these exchanges will be placed here.