Francisco Madero was a revolutionary Mexican leader in the fight for property rights in the early part of the 20th century. Madero, a longtime politician, upset the very powerful seven-time Mexican President Porfirio Diaz by running against him in the 1910 election.

Diaz was willing to give up his presidency, but apparently not to Madero. Diaz imprisoned Madero on election day. Madero broke out and escaped to Texas, where he published his “Letter From Jail” — a manifesto for suffrage and term limits.

In this letter, the hint of agrarian reform and socioeconomic changes was enough to start the Mexican Revolution and seat him as the new president in 1911. While his presidency was a failure, his principles lived on.

After a bloody revolution from 1910- 1921, Mexico started implementing many of Madero’s suggestions, including free land distribution to peasants and constitutional social rights. These changes helped Mexico’s GDP grow sixfold between 1940-1970.

Nearly

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The first quarter results show the trends the companies will take in the succeeding quarters. Companies will continually lower costs through divestitures and workforce reduction and pay cut. Revenue generation strategies will be consolidation through mergers and acquisition and outsourcing.

General Motors Corporation (Public, NYSE:GM) reported net loss amounting to $6 billion while Ford Motor Company (Public, NYSE:F) with only $ 1.4 billion which was better than analyst projection. Similar with the automotive industry, the technology industry was also dominated by major losses. Hewlett-Packard Company (Public, NYSE:HPQ) reported a 3percent decline in revenue of $27.4 billion, so did Lenovo Group Limited (ADR)(Public, OTC:LNVGY) with a quarter loss of $264 million. Outsourcing providers were no exceptions as well; Convergys Corporation (Public, NYSE:CVG) with $21 million loss and TeleTech Holdings, Inc. (Public, NASDAQ:TTEC) with 8 to 10 percent decline in revenue.

However, there

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A Huge currency rally… The games people play now…RBA leaves rates unchanged…Brazilian real is the daily winner! And Now… Today’s Pfennig!

Good day… Hola! And a Terrific Tuesday to you! Well, today is Cinco De Mayo… It’s a fun day so go have some fun! I few years ago, I talked about Cinco De Mayo, and some guy took exception to it, and called me a really nasty name… So, I won’t get all flowery about the day, except to say, go have some fun!

Of course, to me, the saying “go have some fun” is a staple of my being! Especially these days! I realize that I need to have “more fun”, but work, and all that gets in the way, darn it! HA!

OK, enough of that! Well! You should have seen that currency rally yesterday! WOW! The Big Dog, euro, traded all the way to 1.34 and change, saw profit

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Even with the hype of a possible flu pandemic, the markets managed to remain positive through the week. Mexico will take the lead as we make the next critical move next week.

As a guy that has spent way too much time in rough water, I absolutely detest the clichéd phrase “a perfect storm,” but when it is apt I cannot help but use it. So here goes. This week has been a perfect storm for Mexican investors.  It physically hurt to write that sentence.

As if a bloody and growing drug war was not enough, Mother Nature threw Mexico a deadly flu outbreak and a 6.0 earthquake earlier this week. It was enough to force investors to flee back across the border.

Hard hit were the country’s pig producers like Smithfield Foods (NYSE:SFD), its cement makers like Cemex (NYSE:CX) and of course, its airports like Pacific Airport

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How much was the global economic crisis made possible by a savings glut in emerging countries? While popular sentiment is to lambast securitization, bankers and even capitalism per se, a more nuanced view of the matter (and one widely embraced by economists of varying ideologies) embraces the appreciable role of emerging economies in inflating the world’s asset prices (though to be fair, said economies were awash in private capital flows from more developed nations).  And while emerging countries were stung just as hard (if not harder, due to capital outflows) as developed ones from the crisis, their long-term fundamental health is not questioned.  Among other changes which will be evident in international finance’s new paradigm, notes Mohamed El-Erian, chief executive and co-chief investment officer of Pimco, the bond investment manager, is that “multiple growth engines, largely from the developing world, will replace the single engine of growth

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An exciting opportunity just came up: I'm on my way to check out a new gold mining project south of the border. So stay tuned, andnbsp;I will fill you in on what I dig up as soon as possible.brbrRegards,brbrSean

Just a few days ago, OPEC President Chakib Khelil told a French television station the awful truth that U.S. consumers don't want to hear. "I foresee prices probably between $150 and $170 this summer," Khelil said. At the same time, Libya announced it may cut production because the market is "oversupplied." Oil Minister Shokri Ghanem said: "We don't see any need for more oil. There is plenty of oil in the market." Libya pumps about 1.71 million barrels per day (bpd) of oil, out of total OPEC output of 32.12 million bpd. That means Libya could easily take away the 300,000 barrels in new production that the Saudis promised just a week ago. The Libyans, along with the rest of OPEC, want prices where they are now ... or higher. Why? Because they want ...

Paul Kedrosky over at Infectious Greed has one of those graphs where truly the saying “a picture is a worth a thousand words” speaks volumes. It truly is amazing how China dwarfs everyone – they are doing 10x more than any peer. In fact if I eyeball it, if you add every other country in the world together as one entity; it appears China would be consuming more. As I keep repeating, this economy is like an out of control Ferrari racing on oil slick mountain roads. How to keep control of the steering while is not something I’d wish on anyone.

(click to enlarge)

One name I’ve followed for a long time, is Mexican cement maker Cemex (CX) which is one of the world’s giants (#3 in the world). Unfortunately they are so intertwined with the US market, the …

By Jason Simpkins Associate Editor Mexico’s central bank unexpectedly raised its benchmark interest rate by a quarter percentage point to 7.75% Friday, warning that the rate of inflation may exceed its previous forecast. “The recent inflation dynamic is worrying,” Banco de Mexico’s five-member board said in a statement. “The balance of risks for inflation has worsened.” Consumer prices in Mexico jumped nearly 5% in May from a year earlier, the biggest jump since 2004, according to Bloomberg News. The government has issued a price freeze on tortillas, cooking oils, beans and roughly 150 other items this year to ensure its population is adequately fed. The decision surprised many analysts as it flouted the country’s president, Felipe Calderon, who has hinted that borrowing costs are already too high. Still, inflation demanded Mexico’s attention as soaring food and energy costs have resulted in ...

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)
EWZ (Brazil)
ECH (Chile)
EWW (Mexico)
EWC (Canada)
ISI (USA)

You can see from the chart that the sector weights vary considerably from country-to-country.

Canada and Brazil with a heavy energy weight will tend to do well when oil is high, but less well or poorly when oil declines. However, Canada also has a large financial company exposure to the current global credit crisis. That has dulled the advantage of being heavy in energy compared to Brazil which has less financial company exposure.

Mexico is heavy in telecommunications which did and may create strength when major new …