You can read the whole story here.

I’ve long been a big proponent of investing in so-called Asian frontier countries. As Cris points out, “These smaller countries complement China and India. They should benefit from the rise of their larger neighbors and the region as a whole, while offering exposure to different themes and sectors.”

In fact, when I talked to Franklin Templeton’s outgoing emerging market fund manager Mark Mobius earlier this year, he was in the process of putting more of his own personal money into these miniature high-growth markets (you can read that story here, but you’ll need to have access to Index Publications’ subscription-only monthly ETFR publication).

Cris highlights Vietnam as a location rich in the potential for returns. I think he’s right. After tumbling around 70 percent in value early last year, the market has staged a bit of a recovery so far this year, and stocks look attractive there now.

The Market Vectors Vietnam (NYSEArca: VNM) exchange-traded fund, which was launched only last month, is already up 12 percent. That’s the kind of dynamic place Vietnam is, with huge swings and wild statistics. What do you expect when half the population is under 25?

Indeed, one of the things that makes Vietnam so appealing right now is that it was only recently that the country took a dive. In emerging markets investing, you often find that a giant correction after a bubble brings with it all sorts of useful policy and financial innovations that, ultimately, lead to more stability and continued growth. This was the case with Thailand after 1997.

With that in mind, I found it unfortunate that Cris spent so much time discussing Malaysia and so little on Thailand. Thailand has gone through something of ruckus lately, with a militant left-wing government seizing power from a democratically elected right-wing one.

While it’s not exactly desirable to have a forced government in place, the country’s new prime minister, Abhisit Vejjajiva, is an impressive leader. Educated at Oxford University in England, Vejjajiva is a calmly spoken, economically sharp policymaker with a heavy international focus.

Unemployment in Thailand is now falling and gross domestic product growth is on course to climb again slightly. Property prices are rising, too, particularly in the south of the country and in Bangkok, its capital.

With the iShares MSCI Thailand Index Fund (NYSEArca: THD) up 76 percent year-to-date, just 16 percent below its 18-month-ago price of $50 a share, there’s good reason to believe that this ETF has found the support it needs to continue to outperform traditional emerging market benchmarks.

It’s often been said that Asian frontier markets are something of a 2010 story. With such impressive strength in large emerging markets this year, I think we are on course to hit that forecast.

Daimler stated that its Mitsubishi Fuso division would shut a bus production plant at Oye near Nagoya in Japan by mid-2010 and also close a truck plant near Bangkok in Thailand by the end of 2009.

The company also indicated that it would restructure its retail network in Japan to adjust capacity to a weakening market.

The above-mentioned jobs cuts at Mitsubishi Fuso would be carried out through voluntary leave, retirement, and other means.

Daimler also said that its overall fixed costs would be reduced by 25% as a result of its latest actions.

Meanwhile, Daimler, a Zacks #4 Rank ("Sell") company, dipped almost 5% today on low volume of 233,000, against the daily average of 829,000.

For anyone who didn't catch it on March 12, comedian Jon Stewart put to shame many hard-nosed financial journalists when he caught CNBC's Jim Cramer in outright lies about his scamming ways running hedge funds.

Stewart, host of Comedy Central's "The Daily Show," also blasted Cramer for his less-than-substantive antics on CNBC's "Mad Money" show. 

We should all stand up and applaud Stewart's performance. But he took it too far when talking about how his elderly mother had bought into the industry's long-term investing mantra.

Stewart should've stayed on-topic, drilling Cramer and not letting him off the hot seat. Instead, he ventured too far afield when relating the apparent drubbing his mom took in the markets during the ongoing recession.

Although ex-journalist Cramer is the sort of slumdog millionaire we all should be wary of taking too seriously, he could've redeemed himself a smidgen by pointing out to Stewart that long-term investing shouldn't take the rap.

My Parents ... And The Importance Of Sound Advice

Sitting by the computer watching on Comedy Central's site the next day (see clip here), I couldn't help thinking about my parents. They're both around the same age as Stewart's mom, and while their portfolio has taken a hit as a result of this economic mess, it's still nowhere near a double-digit loss.

As some of you might remember, there was a lengthy review on IU.com's discussion boards a while ago about whether my parents should dump their (unnamed) adviser, who was unresponsive to requests for information about their allocation plan. To make a long story short, most pros and amateurs alike agreed that an unresponsive and overaggressive adviser wasn't worth keeping.

So we dropped the adviser and moved their portfolio to Vanguard. Not only did we save thousands of dollars in yearly fees to fund companies, but we also discovered an amazing statistic while hunting through the maze of paperwork and accounts the adviser had set up: My parents, in their mid-80s, had something like 80% of their assets in stocks!

We since have merged their portfolios into an easy-to-manage 70% bond allocation. By the end of last year, that was up to 80% bonds as the stock portion fell and the fixed-income index funds held their ground. With a large portion in munis, the portfolio is doing even better this year.

Back to Jon Stewart. He was correct in pointing out that investing requires monitoring and it's not as easy as it looks. But when he made the leap to condemning long-term planning, he clearly was ranting—and well beyond his comfort zone.

Someone should let Stewart know that long-term asset allocation isn't an industry-inspired plot to hold investment dollars longer. It's an ages-old strategy with a wealth of academic knowledge behind it that savvy veteran investors have long embraced.

It just takes some thought and preparation. How you allocate assets is critical. In fact, the longer-term focus your portfolio takes, the more due diligence is required in terms of making sure you've got the right plan of attack.

Consider if you had a simple two-ETF portfolio. For all domestic equities, let's take the Vanguard Total Stock Index ETF (NYSE: VTI). With bonds, let's go with the iShares Barclays Aggregate Bond ETF (NYSE: AGG).

The table below shows how asset allocation impacts this simple portfolio's returns on a percentage basis, both over the short and longer term (through 3/17/09):

Information received since the Federal Open Market Committee met in January indicates that the economy continues to contract. Job losses, declining equity and housing wealth, and tight credit conditions have weighed on consumer sentiment and spending. Weaker sales prospects and difficulties in obtaining credit have led businesses to cut back on inventories and fixed investment. U.S. exports have slumped as a number of major trading partners have also fallen into recession. Although the near-term economic outlook is weak, the Committee anticipates that policy actions to stabilize financial markets and institutions, together with fiscal and monetary stimulus, will contribute to a gradual resumption of sustainable economic growth.

In light of increasing economic slack here and abroad, the Committee expects that inflation will remain subdued. Moreover, the Committee sees some risk that inflation could persist for a time below rates that best foster economic growth and price stability in the longer term.

In these circumstances, the Federal Reserve will employ all available tools to promote economic recovery and to preserve price stability. The Committee will maintain the target range for the federal funds rate at 0 to 1/4 percent and anticipates that economic conditions are likely to warrant exceptionally low levels of the federal funds rate for an extended period. To provide greater support to mortgage lending and housing markets, the Committee decided today to increase the size of the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet further by purchasing up to an additional $750 billion of agency mortgage-backed securities, bringing its total purchases of these securities to up to $1.25 trillion this year, and to increase its purchases of agency debt this year by up to $100 billion to a total of up to $200 billion. Moreover, to help improve conditions in private credit markets, the Committee decided to purchase up to $300 billion of longer-term Treasury securities over the next six months. The Federal Reserve has launched the Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility to facilitate the extension of credit to households and small businesses and anticipates that the range of eligible collateral for this facility is likely to be expanded to include other financial assets. The Committee will continue to carefully monitor the size and composition of the Federal Reserve's balance sheet in light of evolving financial and economic developments.

And some more fro Bloomy ...

The Federal Reserve plans to buy $300 billion in Treasury securities and acquire more mortgage and agency debt in an effort to bolster housing and hasten the end of the recession.

“To provide greater support to mortgage lending and housing markets, the Committee decided today to increase the size of the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet further by purchasing up to an additional $750 billion of agency mortgage- backed securities,” the Federal Open Market Committee said after a unanimous vote in Washington today. “Moreover, to help improve conditions in private credit markets, the committee decided to purchase up to $300 billion of longer-term Treasury securities over the next six months.”

Chairman Ben S. Bernanke is opening a new front in monetary policy after unemployment climbed to 8.1 percent and economists forecast the economy will shrink through the middle of the year. Fed officials also kept the benchmark interest rate at between zero and 0.25 percent and said it will consider expanding the Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility to include “other financial assets,” the statement said.

“We are not even close to the bottom and therefore the Fed is engaging in a massive quantitative easing,” William Poole, former president of the St. Louis Fed, said in an interview today with Bloomberg News. “We still have a very serious recession in front of us,” said Poole, now a senior economic adviser to Merk Investments LLC in Palo Alto, California, and contributor to Bloomberg News.

So, time to buy some equities and other risky assets on the dip here? Not to mention to sell that buck for all its worth at least for erm a tick or two. Well, with respect to my small chart above Macro Man seems to be surprised of the relative timidness of the move; 

Im amazed
Eur should be 1.40
Crude should be 60
GC should be at new highs
SPX 850

simply, does the mkt know who they are messing w/?

On a more serious note Berner and Greenlaw from Morgan Stanley have some interesting remarks on the Fed and the next step of buying treasuries. Ok, on we go!