Well, it is not as if I relish rubbing salt into old wounds, but this quote from the a href="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/8bb0da5a-c7dc-11de-8ba8-00144feab49a.html"latest piece by Ben Hall in Paris and Ralph Atkins in today's Financial Times/a is just too good to resist.br /br /blockquoteFrench manufacturing output rose at its fastest rate for nine years, according to a survey on Monday, confirming that France has become the economic powerhouse of continental Europe. Purchasing managers’ indices for manufacturing showed France performing significantly better than the continent’s other main economies – thanks to robust domestic demand./blockquotebr /br /a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_ngczZkrw340/SvASaIFOk2I/AAAAAAAAPjI/Xa0wjOVFc3A/s1600-h/france+manufacturing.png"img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 213px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5399836193272533858" border="0" alt="" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_ngczZkrw340/SvASaIFOk2I/AAAAAAAAPjI/Xa0wjOVFc3A/s400/france+manufacturing.png" //abr /br /Plenty of food for thought in this paragraph it seems to me. As a href="http://spaineconomy.blogspot.com/2009/10/french-rebound-continues-in-october.html"foreshadowed in this earlier post/a, it is the French economy - and not the German one - which is rebounding sharply, and this ...

I concluded a post on stock markets over the weekend saying: “After equities’ seven-month climb, stock markets certainly look vulnerable for a decline. Two downside reversal days - on Wednesday and Friday - would seem to indicate that stocks could commence a pullback to work off the overbought condition, allowing fundamentals to reassert themselves.”

Global stock markets, as well as other risky assets, closed sharply lower over the past few days as concerns mounted over the sustainability of the global economic recovery and the outlook for central bank policy.

The performance of the major asset classes is summarized by the charts below, with the top one showing the period from the March 9 stock market lows until October 19 peak and the second one the subsequent period. The numbers indicate an all-change pattern in the performances as risk aversion re-entered financial markets and government bonds and the US

...

This analysis is from John Derrick, U.S. Global Investors Director of Research. The market has rallied dramatically since the March 9 low, with the biggest beneficiary of this rally being low-quality companies. This intuitively makes sense, given that companies with the most troubled outlooks are the ones most likely to have a strong recovery when the dire outcomes predicted at the bottom of the crisis failed to transpire. Quality may have different meanings to different investors, but in a recent research piece, Citigroup ranked performance based on multiple definitions of quality. Samp;P earnings quality ranking, debt-to-capitalization ratio and return on equity were used as proxies for quality. The research universe was the small-cap Russell 2000 Index, but I believe broader market conclusions can be drawn as well. Based on Samp;P earnings quality rankings, companies with C or D (the two lowest categories) ratings returned about 55 percent over the past six months, while the ...

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My Picks for Thursday September 24, 2009, are:

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RHT, Red Hat Inc.

RHT is the leader in enterprise Linux and is the most recognized open source brand in the world. Solutions include Red Hat Enterprise Linux, JBoss Enterprise middleware, and a broad range of management and services: consulting, 24×7 support, Red Hat Network. RHT’s global training program operates worldwide and features RHCE, the global standard Linux certification.

**RHT’s second-quarter net income rose to $28.9 million, or 15 cents a share, up from net income of $21.1 million, or 10 cents per share in

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Recently, Motorola Inc (MOT) was awarded a contract to supply EuroDOCSIS 3.0 digital video modems to UPC Broadband for its pan-European network. UPC Broadband is the European division of Liberty Global Inc (LBTYA), the largest cable TV operator in Europe.  Using Motorola’s SBV6120E EuroDOCSIS 3.0 voice and data solution, UPC will deliver high-speed (120 Mbps) data and IP voice and services to its customers in The Netherlands, Austria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia and Switzerland. The SBV6120E is part of Motorola's complete portfolio of bandwidth-expanding EuroDOCSIS 3.0-certified technologies.  EuroDOCSIS 3.0 standard is based on 8 MHz channels whereas U.S. DOCSIS 3.0 standard is based on 6 MHz channels. Motorola’s DOCSIS 3.0 solutions enable cable operators to cost-effectively introduce new value-added services, increase bandwidth for feature-rich services, generate higher return on investment, and increase revenues.  Although the financial terms of this contract haves not been disclosed, ...

I will be in Slovenia next week as I am taking a group of South African business people on a fact-finding mission to this uber-beautiful country. I am leading the delegation in my capacity as Honorary Consul of Slovenia for South Africa. (Click here for the Consulate’s website, including photographs of some of the most beautiful spots in the world.)

If you happen to be in Ljubljana on Monday, September 7, let’s get together at a special day the Slovenian Chamber of Commerce and JAPTI have organized to facilitate interaction between our delegation and Slovenian business people. Numbers are filling up quickly, so please let me know as soon as possible if you are interested in joining us. You can reach me via the “Contact” button in the top-right hand corner of the Investment Postcards site.

Blog posting will be slow (and totally absent

...

The performance of a number of global stock markets is given in the table below in local currency terms for different measurement terms ended August 31. The numbers speak for themselves, but it is noteworthy that the MSCI World Index (+3.9%) and MSCI Emerging Markets Index (-0.2%) followed separate paths in August as China, Hong Kong and India underperformed.

Click here or on the table below for a larger image.

Top performers during August included Austria (+11.3%), Ireland (+10.9%) and Venezuela (+10.6%). At the bottom end of the performance rankings countries included China (-21.8%), Hong Kong (-4.1%) and India (0%).

The key moving-average levels are also given in the table above. With the exception of the Chinese Shanghai Composite Index, which fell below its 50-day moving average about two weeks ago,

...

Emerging Europe investing is staging a comeback. In the past couple of months, stock markets in the region have posted big rallies. The index for Lithuania has shot up 58 percent since June 30, while the indexes for its Baltic neighbors Estonia and Latvia have climbed 33 percent and 27 percent, respectively. In Central Europe, the key stock indexes for the Czech Republic and Hungary are both up 26 percent in the third quarter through Friday, and Polandrsquo;s index has gained 20 percent. All of these stock markets suffered mightily in the global credit crisis as their overheated economies stalled, their currencies dropped, and the cost of loans denominated in dollars and euros skyrocketed. Now it appears that intervention by the International Monetary Fund, combined with a growing belief that the worst of the financial woes and global recession are behind us, may have mitigated the regionrsquo;s risk profile and lured investors back. Not that ...

Emerging Europe investing is staging a comeback. In the past couple of months, stock markets in the region have posted big rallies. The index for Lithuania has shot up 58 percent since June 30, while the indexes for its Baltic neighbors Estonia and Latvia have climbed 33 percent and 27 percent, respectively. In Central Europe, the key stock indexes for the Czech Republic and Hungary are both up 26 percent in the third quarter through Friday, and Polandrsquo;s index has gained 20 percent. All of these stock markets suffered mightily in the global credit crisis as their overheated economies stalled, their currencies dropped, and the cost of loans denominated in dollars and euros skyrocketed. Now it appears that intervention by the International Monetary Fund, combined with a growing belief that the worst of the financial woes and global recession are behind us, may have mitigated the regionrsquo;s risk profile and lured investors back. Not that ...

PWRM, Power 3 Medical Products Inc, PWRM.OB

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Power3 Medical Products, Inc. CEO Helen R. Park

Interviewed by Wall Street Transcript

 

Tuesday August 18, 2009

************************************************************** Power3 Medical Products, Inc. CEO Helen R. Park Interviewed by Wall Street Transcript

Provided company update on commercialization of NuroPro® CLIA Test

Power3 Medical Products, Inc. (OTCBB:PWRM), (www.power3medical.com), announced that the company’s CEO, Helen R. Park, M.S. was interviewed by the Wall Street Transcript, TWST, an on line magazine on Wednesday of last week.

Ms. Park provided a company update on the state of the clinical trials for Neurodegenerative disease diagnostic tests and for breast cancer diagnostic tests. Specifically,

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