a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_7ZckZ-8naz0/Ss4gP1iqayI/AAAAAAAAC38/NikeELuPZUg/s1600-h/NZX+EWA.JPG”img style=”margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 123px;” src=”http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_7ZckZ-8naz0/Ss4gP1iqayI/AAAAAAAAC38/NikeELuPZUg/s320/NZX+EWA.JPG” alt=”" id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5390281260451654434″ border=”0″ //aAs a follow on to this morning one reader noted that iShares Australia can be a proxy for New Zealand.br /br /I would disagree. The chart posted in one year but if you play around with other time periods I believe you will see what I see which is that EWA, which several clients own, is quite a bit more volatile than the NZ 50 which is the benchmark index for New Zealand.br /br /Despite the two often being lumped together the economies are quite different. New Zealand doesn’t really have much in the ground that it mines and then exports to other countries. It is more centered on farming, animals and animal byproducts (like milk exports to China). Australia has a fair bit of wheat but it is the mining companies that far more move the needle than things like Graincorp (GNC.AX) or ABB Grain (ABB.AX).br /br /The positive attribute to New Zealand from the top down is that it is different type of economy than the US but not commodity/oil based and NZ is almost always less volatile than the US. In building a portfolio that takes in numerous countries while avoiding others you need many different types; more volatile/less volatile, surplus/deficit, emerging/developed and so on.div class=”blogger-post-footer”img width=’1′ height=’1′ src=’https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8532070-3034026020972594021?l=randomroger.blogspot.com’//div

Last 5 posts by Roger Nusbaum

• The Big Picture for the Week of November 15, 2009 - November 14th, 2009
• Process Drilldown - October 23rd, 2009
• Sunday Morning Coffee 10-18-09 - October 18th, 2009
• Wednesday Roundup - October 7th, 2009
• The Big Picture for the Week of October 4, 2009 - October 3rd, 2009