Stock Market News & Stocks to Watch from StraightStocks » Dubai

View Systems, Inc. (VSYM.OB) Announces Substantial ViewScan Order from the UAE

QualityStocks — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 19:51:26 +0000

View Systems Inc., a security and teledata solutions provider, announced today an initial order for 40 ViewScan units from Belcom, a company based in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Belcom, which conducts business in the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia, is one of the fastest growing telecom, IT, and security services firms [...]

CAEI Posts Q3 Loss – Analyst Blog

Zacks Market Commentaries — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 17:19:15 +0000

China Architectural Engineering Inc. (CAEI) posted a net loss of 16 cents per share for the third quarter, compared to a net profit of 18 cents in the prior-year period. The net loss in the quarter can be attributed to lower contract revenue, adjustment to estimated gross revenue of the Dubai Metro project, and increase in raw material and overhead costs. Full loss provision of the project in Doha, and losses from the discontinued construction works in the closed Shenzhen office also contributed to the earnings disappointment in the quarter.

Quarterly revenues of $25.6 million were down 54% year over year primarily due to the Dubai Metro dispute. The company said that its dispute with the master contractor of the Metro Red Line Project in Dubai, led to an adjustment to estimated gross revenue of the project, and resulted in lower recognized revenue in the quarter from that project. Also, the company's refocus on the domestic market and near completion of major international projects were partly responsible for the year over year decline in revenue.

The first phase of the Dubai Metro was officially opened in early September. Through its subsidiary Techwell Engineering Limited, CAEI had completed a majority of the construction by the end of the second quarter. However, with less than 5% of the contract remaining to be completed, Techwell was removed by the project’s master contractor, who also called for and received payment of $2.1 million in performance bonds and $7.3 million in advance payment bonds that were issued on Techwell's behalf for the project.

The master contractor believes that it had paid in excess of the construction work performed. CAEI believes that it has fulfilled the requirements of the contract and has a reasonable opportunity to collect the amounts due to Techwell from the master contractor. The dispute resolution remains uncertain.

The company noted that demand in China has strengthened while overseas demand remains challenging. CAEI said that it will concentrate its resources in the domestic market for the remainder of 2009 and beyond. Over the next few years, the company expects to benefit from the stimulus package of $586 billion announced by the Chinese government.

Historically, CAEI has been a large recipient of government projects. Given the company’s research and development capabilities and strong relationship with the Chinese government, we believe the company will benefit significantly from the government’s investment in infrastructure.
Read the full analyst report on "CAEI"
Zacks Investment Research

Abyaar net profit surge could spur sukuk

Jason G. Wulterkens — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 15:42:06 +0000

Kuwait-based Abyaar Real Estate Development Company (Abyaar), which develops and manages properties in the UAE and in Dubai in particular, recently announced a net profit for the first nine months of 2009 of KD5 million ($17.5 million) and an EPS of 6.90 fils (a subdivision of currency used in many Arab countries, where KD1 roughly [...]

Energy Blast – Nov 3, 2009

Robert Amsterdam — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 10:08:46 +0000

Russia has reached a new record high in monthly oil production, at more than ten million barrels a day in October, maintaining its position as the world's biggest oil producer. Rosneft is at the forefront of the increase with production...

Competition, yield dilution may hamper Air Arabia in 2010

Jason G. Wulterkens — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 16:03:15 +0000

UAE-based budget carrier Air Arabia, the Arab world’s largest listed carrier, announced its intentions to build a new hub in Egypt that would offer connections to Europe, Africa and the Middle East, one month after formalizing a partnership with Egypt’s Travco Group, the Middle East’s largest travel and hospitality group. “At a time when the [...]

“New Normal” for Dubai means back to borrowing?

Jason G. Wulterkens — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 16:28:11 +0000

Dubai’s government returned to the open bond market upon a growing sense that the notoriously ‘profligate’ emirate–as at least one analyst has previously criticized it in comparison to its more steady, oil-fueled sibling Abu Dhabi–can be trusted not to default on its $80bn or so of outstanding debt. On the heels of last week’s [...]

Axial Vector Energy Corp. (AXVC.PK) to Sign MOU to Integrate Ultra Clean Axial Vector Engines and Generators for Public Transport

QualityStocks — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 13:12:03 +0000

Axial Vector Energy Corporation (AVEC) announced this morning that it has been invited to sign an MOU to integrate its ultra clean Axial Vector Engines and Generators into Dubai Public Transport. RTA, which is owned by the Government of Dubai, plans and executes all public transportation systems in the emirate of Dubai. RTA is committed [...]

Greetings from Qatar!

Chris Mayer — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 12:04:56 +0000

pQatar is a red-hot economy. Last year it grew around 18% and this year it ought to grow another 16%. We saw the headlines in the emGulf Times/em in the lounge while waiting for our transfer to Dubai./p pstrongQatar’s greatest asset is its natural gas reserves./strong In fact, the largest gas field in the world is here. Its discoverers were disappointed when they found it in 1971. They were looking for oil./p pThe boom Qatar now enjoys is the result of some daring investments in liquefied natural gas (LNG) back when people thought doing such a thing was a little batty. Faisal Al Suwaidi, the head of a href="http://www.google.com/finance?q=Qatargas"Qatargas/a, deserves the props for his wager, which have paid off handsomely. Today, Qatar produces about one-quarter#8230;/p

Acxiom Expands in Middle East – Analyst Blog

Zacks Market Commentaries — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 16:00:42 +0000

Acxiom Corporation (ACXM) recently announced that it has acquired DMS (Direct Marketing Services), a premier provider of direct marketing services in the Middle East-North Africa (MENA) market.

This acquisition will enable Acxiom to enter the markets of Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates. The company plans to service its current global partners who plan to expand in the Middle East as well as regional marketers in that region.

The new Acxiom MENA organization will serve global and regional clientele from offices in Jeddah and Dubai. The operation will be led by DMS Managing Director Yousef Hamidaddin, who becomes CEO of Acxiom MENA.

Other terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Acxiom Corporation integrates data, services and technology to create and deliver customer and information management solutions for companies. Acxiom has a customer base that includes firms in the financial services, insurance, information services, and direct marketing, publishing, retail and telecommunications industries.

The company plans to expand its footprint and boost top-line. The recent economic slowdown adversely impacted the top-line as most clients delayed or curtailed their marketing spending.

The biggest concern is the sensitivity of the company’s sales to a slowdown in the economy. Information technology (IT) spending still remains heavily focused on cost savings. While the recent cost cutting measures undertaken by the management are holding up the margins, the declining top-line remains a concern. The outlook in the near term remains challenging as marketing spend continues to be dismal and not expected to revive before 2010.

Spending by credit card marketers is down significantly as a result of tightening credit standards, a decline in home values, and the mortgage meltdown. Specifically, the volume of existing home sales has declined for the past two years. These factors could negatively affect marketing by financial services institutions for years to come.
Read the full analyst report on "ACXM"
Zacks Investment Research

Axial Vector Energy Corp. (AXVC.PK) Management Advisory Team

QualityStocks — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 15:11:08 +0000

Axial Vector Energy Corp., a leader in energy conversion efficiency, is fortunate in that it is run by one of the most seasoned international management and advisory teams, with over a century of combined experience. This is critical in starting and growing a company, obtaining the required capital, locking in the rights to key products [...]

Yahoo! Refocused – Analyst Blog

Zacks Market Commentaries — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 17:34:32 +0000

Yahoo! (YHOO) CEO Carol Bartz is bent on refocusing the business, improving its image and bringing in some cash. Management has taken a number of actions to position the company for achievement of these objectives.

The first was the disposal of non-core assets and acquisition of small-business targets that could help it augment its new business focus. To this end, the company has disposed off its 39% stake in China ’s largest e-commerce company, Alibaba.com, for $150 million.

It has also put up for sale the Yahoo Small Business assets. Rumor has it that the company expects $350-500 million for the business, which has been the main hurdle so far. Renewed talk indicates that the sale could be completed soon. The small business division provides domains, email, Web hosting and other merchant services to customers.

The company has made a couple of acquisitions this year. The first was the U.S.-based company, Xoopit, for $20 million. Xoopit was a start-up company with a technology that facilitates the sharing of content from in-boxes with social-networking sites. Xoopit’s specialization in mail applications, indexing and content discovery is expected to enrich the Yahoo! mail experience.

The acquisition of Dubai-based Maktoob.com, the world's first free Arabic/English Web-based email service, furthers the company’s growth strategy for emerging markets. The acquisition will allow the company to combine the Yahoo! experience with Arabic language, content, programming and services.

Maktoob has grown into the leading online Arab community with more than 16.5 million unique users across Jordan, Kuwait, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. The World Bank estimates that there are 320 million Arab speakers around the world, so there is significant growth potential. Additionally, online advertising in the region is expected to grow 35-40% this year, according to Madar Research.

In order to build the brand image and re-instate Yahoo! in the minds of consumers, the company is planning to spend around $100 million on a massive advertisement campaign that will play across multiple platforms and nine countries over a period of 15 months. The program, which is being dubbed “Its Y!ou," will launch in the U.S. on Tuesday, to be followed up in the U.K., India, Brazil, Canada, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Korea and Taiwan. Apart from showcasing several new and enhanced features, the program aims to attract users to its e-mail, instant messaging and software for mobile devices.

Earlier this year, the company also announced a shared search agreement with Microsoft (MSFT), which converts the company’s business to a cash cow. However, regulatory approval of the deal is pending.
Read the full analyst report on "YHOO"
Read the full analyst report on "MSFT"
Zacks Investment Research

PAPA, IFUS, BEHL Stock-PR Hot Pinks Stock Headlines September 4, 2009

Stock-PR — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 11:45:46 +0000

Aero Financial is pleased to announce today that the company has acquired the controlling equity stake in Papa Bello Enterprises (OTC Pink Sheets: PAPA) through a private transaction with Papa Bello CEO, Chase Canfield. Under the terms of the transaction, Aero Financial purchased 20,000,000 shares of Papa Bello common stock from Mr. Canfield. About Papa Bello [...]

Prince Alwaleed Remains Richest Saudi

Michael E. Brisky — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 17:01:00 +0000

As an investor I've always been interested in, Prince Alwaleed carries an interesting story. His Citigroup investment has been well documented, first as a wild success, and then, well we all know what happened to Citigroup in 2008. I read his biography and reviewed it awhile back (a href="http://briskycapital.blogspot.com/2007/11/book-review-alwaleed-by-riz-khan.html"Click here to read review and purchase book/a).br /br /Today, I found a a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087amp;sid=aGiKNISJrIkc"piece from Bloomberg /agiving us an update on how he has survived the recession. So far, it looks like he's done well:br /br /br /blockquotepAug. 29 (Bloomberg) -- Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, Citigroup Inc.’s largestbr /individual investor, was ranked the richest Saudi national by Arabian Business,br /even after losing 4.6 percent of his personal wealth in the past year.br /br /Alwaleed’s assets are valued at $16.3 billion, compared with $17.1 billionbr /last year, the Dubai-based magazine said today in its 2009 Saudi Rich List,br /citing the accounts of Kingdom Holding Co., the prince’s investment company.br /br /The global credit crisis, lower oil prices and a decline in demand for crude have hurt investment and energy companies operating in Saudi Arabia. Kingdom Holding’s second-quarter profit slumped 83 percent as returns on Alwaleed’s investments in stock markets and hotels fell.br /br /“Today, some of his more ambitious investments are showing the strain ofbr /the global economic slowdown,” Arabian Business said. “The depreciation in valuebr /of his 5 percent stake in Citigroup, for example, has been well-documented.”br /Citigroup lost 73 percent of its value in the past 12 months as investmentbr /losses eroded its capital.br /br /Alwaleed, nephew of the late King Fahd bin Abdulaziz al- Saud, stands outbr /among more than 2,000 Saudi princes because he has made money. After earning abr /bachelor’s degree from Menlo College near San Francisco, he returned to thebr /Persian Gulf and parlayed an inheritance of less than $1 million into a billion-br /dollar fortune in the 1980s, mostly through real-estate investments, accordingbr /to Riz Khan’s biography “Alwaleed: Businessman, Billionaire, Prince”(Williambr /Morrow, 2005).br /br /Apple, Time Warnerbr /The prince, 54, built his fortune by investing in brand- name companies he considered undervalued, including Apple Inc., News Corp. and Time Warner Inc. Forbes magazine estimated he was worth $13.3 billion in March, ranking him 22nd among the world’s billionaires. This year, Alwaleed’s investments haven’t kept pace with the Saudi benchmark. Shares of Riyadh-based Kingdom Holding have declined 4.3 percent. The Tadawul All-Share Index, the largest market in the Middle East by market value, has gained 19 percent.br //ppKingdom Holding’s assets are valued at $7.26 billion, while the Prince owns $3.18 billion of real estate and $1.56 billion of media assets such as LBC and Rotana Holding, Arabian Business said, citing his financial accounts. Alwaleed’s other major assets, including an Airbus A380, are valued at $1.7 billion.br /br /The value of the prince’s cash remains confidential, the magazine said, adding that “we are assured it has not changed significantly since we were allowed to see the verified total figure in December.”br //p/blockquotediv class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/819581243324579563-110738121857279604?l=briskycapital.blogspot.com'//div

Forget BRIC… These Emerging Economies Hold the New Keys to Growth

Chris Mayer — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 20:32:43 +0000

pIt’s become widely accepted when talking about emerging economies to focus on the so-called BRIC countries - Brazil, Russia, India and China. But there is a very important region that gets lost in that discussion./p pAnd it’s a region that holds the key to growth opportunities that could eclipse the growth in the BRIC countries./p pIn fact, this region collectively has a bigger economy than Brazil, Russia or India already. And in terms of growth, it is growing faster than any of these countries. In terms of population, it’s bigger than the U.S. and nearly as populous the EU. It holds 60% of the world’s proven oil reserves and nearly half of its natural gas./p pThat last clue probably gives it away. I’m#8230;/p

I’m Still Bullish on Frontier Markets

Michael E. Brisky — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 13:30:00 +0000

I want to preface this by saying I'm not as bullish on "frontier markets" as I am on "emerging markets". (I define frontier markets as Africa, the Middle East, Eastern Europe; I define emerging markets as the BRIC countries, and a few others). But while the frontier markets were marked down especially hard in 2008, I'm still bullish on their outlook. Many are resource rich, and with political stability, their economies will grow. Keep in mind also that I have a very long time horizon until retirement, and can afford to be patient with investments like these. I do own T Rowe Price's African and Middle East Fund (a href="http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=tramx"TRAMX/a). A recent development for them (within the past year) is that they were allowed to buy shares in Saudi Arabia, which is one of the most attractive countries to invest in in that region. Although for the time being these countries mostly follow oil prices and the subsequent boom of the economy in areas like Dubai, I feel over time we'll continue to see more diversification, which will attract more investors.br /br /I saw this note out from Goldman Sachs regarding UAE banks today (a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087amp;sid=az46SDUmvS5A"via Bloomberg/a):br /br /blockquotepUnited Arab Emirates’ banks may rise an average of 30 percent in a year as earnings “remain attractive” and valuations catch up with the emerging markets average, a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/quote?ticker=GS%3AUS" t_above="true" t_static="true" t_fontcolor="#000000" t_fontface="Verdana,sans-serif" t_bgcolor="#ddedd9" t_width="110" t_delay="50"Goldman Sachs Group Inc./a said.br /br /Valuations of six out of the top seven U.A.E. banks that Goldman Sachs covers are likely to improve to 1.2 times their estimated 2010 book value from about 1 as they catch up with the peer average in Turkey, Russia and South Africa, Goldman Sachs’ analysts led by a href="http://search.bloomberg.com/search?q=William+A.+Mejiaamp;site=wnewsamp;client=wnewsamp;proxystylesheet=wnewsamp;output=xml_no_dtdamp;ie=UTF-8amp;oe=UTF-8amp;filter=pamp;getfields=wnnisamp;sort=date:D:S:d1" t_above="true" t_static="true" t_fontcolor="#000000" t_fontface="Verdana,sans-serif" t_bgcolor="#ddedd9" t_width="110" t_delay="50"William A. Mejia/a said in an August 21 report e- mailed today.br /br /Shares of the banks, which include a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/quote?ticker=ADCB%3AUH" t_above="true" t_static="true" t_fontcolor="#000000" t_fontface="Verdana,sans-serif" t_bgcolor="#ddedd9" t_width="110" t_delay="50"Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank PJSC/a, a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/quote?ticker=FGB%3AUH" t_above="true" t_static="true" t_fontcolor="#000000" t_fontface="Verdana,sans-serif" t_bgcolor="#ddedd9" t_width="110" t_delay="50"First Gulf Bank PJSC/a, a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/quote?ticker=DIB%3AUH" t_above="true" t_static="true" t_fontcolor="#000000" t_fontface="Verdana,sans-serif" t_bgcolor="#ddedd9" t_width="110" t_delay="50"Dubai Islamic Bank PJSC/a and a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/quote?ticker=UNB%3AUH" t_above="true" t_static="true" t_fontcolor="#000000" t_fontface="Verdana,sans-serif" t_bgcolor="#ddedd9" t_width="110" t_delay="50"Union National Bank PJSC/a, have already risen by 55 percent this year, although they are still about 50 percent lower than they were a year ago, the report said. a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/quote?ticker=EMIRATES%3AUH" t_above="true" t_static="true" t_fontcolor="#000000" t_fontface="Verdana,sans-serif" t_bgcolor="#ddedd9" t_width="110" t_delay="50"Emirates NBD PJSC/a, the nation’s largest bank by assets, and second-ranked a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/quote?ticker=NBAD%3AUH" t_above="true" t_static="true" t_fontcolor="#000000" t_fontface="Verdana,sans-serif" t_bgcolor="#ddedd9" t_width="110" t_delay="50"National Bank of Abu Dhabi PJSC/a, will face higher non-performing loans this year and a “more challenging” funding environment that will hurt growth, the report said. Although borrowing costs will stay high and slower loan growth will hurt revenue, banks’ “profitability levels in general will remain attractive,” the analysts said.br /br /“There is little to suggest U.A.E. banks should trade at a significant discount to global peers,” the report said.br /br /Goldman Sachs raised its rating on Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank and Dubai Islamic Bank to “neutral” from “sell” and cut National Bank of Abu Dhabi to “sell” from “neutral.” It reduced its rating on First Gulf Bank to “neutral” from a “buy.”br //pp /p/blockquotediv class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/819581243324579563-3154839122610596836?l=briskycapital.blogspot.com'//div

Aeropostale Momentum Continues – Analyst Blog

Zacks Market Commentaries — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 18:11:20 +0000

Aeropostale Inc.’s (ARO) fiscal second-quarter net income surged 83.3% year over year to $38.6 million. Earnings per share came in at 57 cents, beating the Zacks Consensus Estimate by a penny. The performance was also higher than the company’s upgraded guidance of 54 cents to 55 cents per share announced earlier this month.

The specialty retailer for teenagers recorded a robust 20.1% year-over-year growth in sales to $453 million driven by a 12% expansion in same-store sales. The result was also helped by an 8% growth in weighted square footage as the company added 48 stores across the U.S., Canada and Dubai, compared to the year-ago quarter.

Low-priced teen retailers such as Aeropostale and Buckle Inc. (BKE) have been able to negotiate recessionary headwinds successfully by offering value to price conscious customers. On the other hand, a more expensive competitor, Abercrombie & Fitch Co. (ANF), has recorded a 30% decline in quarterly same-store sales.

Aeropostale’s gross profit grew 31.6% year over year to $165.7 million, while margin swelled 320 basis points (bps) to 36.6%, primarily due to higher merchandise margins coupled lower distribution and transportation costs. SG&A expenses decreased 170 bps as a percentage of sales to 22.4%, on account of better store management and control over corporate expenses. Accordingly, operating income surged 82.6% year over year to $64.4 million, while operating margin swelled 490 bps to 14.2%.

Cash and equivalents at the end of the quarter was $245.5 million, compared to $70.8 million in the year-ago quarter. During the quarter, the company deployed $16.1 million towards capital expenditure and $13.5 million to repurchase 381,000 shares under a $600 million buyback program. Inventory at the close of the quarter was $201 million, up 9% year-over-year in total and up 3% per square feet.

Aeropostale, a specialty retailer of casual apparel and accessories, principally targets 14 to 17 year-old young men and women and also sells merchandise through its e-commerce website. The company recently ventured into the 7 to 12 year-old segment by launching a new concept, P.S. from Aeropostale, taking on the children’s line of Abercrombie & Fitch.

The company also stated that during the quarter it closed the remaining 11 stores of its underperforming Jimmy'Z concept. The company currently operates 887 of its namesake stores across the U.S., 37 in Canada and 7 P.S. from Aeropostale stores.

Moving forward, management expects the momentum to continue in fiscal third quarter and accordingly predicted earnings of 76 cents to 78 cents per share, which is higher than the Zacks Consensus Estimate of 75 cents.

Meanwhile, the Zacks Consensus Estimate on the company’s earnings for the fiscal year ending January 2010 has climbed 7 cents over the past month to $2.94 per share.
Read the full analyst report on "ARO"
Read the full analyst report on "BKE"
Read the full analyst report on "ANF"
Zacks Investment Research

DrStockPick.com Stock Report! 8/17/09, NIHK, CLSN, LEAP, UDR, RBA, RIMM

Dr. Stock Pick — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 11:45:55 +0000

DrStockPick.com Stock Report! Monday August 17, 2009 ************************************************************** Nighthawk Systems, Inc. (OTC BB: NIHK), a leading provider of wireless and IP-based control devices and solutions, announced today that it has voluntarily filed a Form 15 with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission to suspend the Company’s SEC reporting obligations. With the filing [...]

Patchi float not just for sweet tooths

Jason G. Wulterkens — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 03:37:44 +0000

Beirut’s “luxury” chocolate chain Patchi, recently named by brand consultancy Wolff Olins as one of the world’s five most successful new brands from emerging markets, recently hired financial advisers for a primary listing in Dubai and a secondary listing in London that will see up to 49% of the company floated. The firm generated [...]

DreamWorks Animation SKG, Inc. (Nasdaq: DWA): Stock of the Day

Investment U — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 15:10:26 +0000

DreamWorks Animation SKG, Inc. (Nasdaq: DWA): Stock of the Day Judith Martin, The Investment U Research Team One o’clock on a Saturday. What to do? For less than the cost of just one mango margarita, you could be in an air-conditioned theater with friends or family for the matinee showing of a summer blockbuster. This is where I’ve been [...]

DrStockPick.com Stock Report! 7/30/09, GVP, SXT, LUV, UTHR, CAL, BA

Dr. Stock Pick — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 18:16:45 +0000

DrStockPick.com Stock Report! Thursday July 30, 2009 ************************************************************** GSE Systems, Inc. (NYSE Amex - GVP), a leading global provider of real-time simulation and training solutions to the power, process, manufacturing and Government sectors, will hold a conference call on Monday, Aug. 10, 2009, at 4:30 p.m. Eastern Time to discuss results for the [...]

RevPARs down overall across ME

Jason G. Wulterkens — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 16:45:49 +0000

Per hospitality research firm STR Global and Deloitte & Touche Middle East, Middle East hotels in 22 cities in the region during the first half of 2009 witnessed an average 10.9% decrease in occupancies and a 17.2% drop in revenue per available room (RevPAR), an industry benchmark. Among the worst RevPAR performers were Dubai (down 35%) [...]

Axial Vector Energy Corp. (AXVC.PK) Provides Shareholder Update

QualityStocks — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 13:28:41 +0000

Earlier this month, Axial Energy Corp.’s President and CEO issued the following update to shareholders: Dear Shareholders, On Wednesday, June 24th, our new financial advisors Global Operations, LLC purchased the remaining AVEC shares owned by Emirates International Capital Advisory (EICA). They have made this investment for investment purposes only and we are pleased by this positive development [...]

Du’s role in synthetic UAE mobile duopoly holding back Etisalat?

Jason G. Wulterkens — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 02:59:51 +0000

Per its recently published quarterly results, du, a Dubai-based integrated telecom services provider, reported an increase of 156,000 new subscribers (giving it a total of 2.9 million active mobile customers), in addition to a 12% increase in revenues on the previous quarter and a greater than doubling of profits. With an estimated 30% of [...]

And Then There’s This…Friday, July 24th, 2009

Contrarian Profits — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 19:30:03 +0000

pGold added about five bucks to its price from the time that trading began in the Far East Thursday#8230;and the London a.m. gold fix. Then from there, it gave back seven dollars going into the p.m. gold fix#8230;and after that, it gained over eight dollars until half past lunchtime in New York. Then a really serious seller showed up taking nine bucks off the price between then and the close of electronic trading in New York. It was pretty choppy trading all around#8230;and it was obvious that every rally ran into serious resistance. The same could be said for silver.br / But according to the usual New York gold commentator [who is strongnot/strong Dennis Gartman, by the way], volume in gold was heavy#8230;estimated#8230;/p

Commodity Trading and Commodity Market Developments

Investment Education Staff — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 09:19:36 +0000

Global commodity trading now takes place on a growing platform of modern, transparent commodity exchanges across all time zones. Using agreed frameworks of rules and regulations and standard contract designs we now see a wide range of commodities traded between end users and primary producers. The result is that it is now much easier to buy and sell across the range of basic commodities from orange juice to gold bullion, from crude oil to coffee beans.

DreamWorks Animation SKG, Inc. (Nasdaq: DWA): Stock of the Day

Investment U — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 15:37:16 +0000

DreamWorks Animation SKG, Inc. (Nasdaq: DWA): Stock of the Day Judith Martin, The Investment U Research Team For less than the cost of just one mango margarita – I won’t get into the cost of the popcorn – you could be in an air-conditioned theater with friends or family for the matinee showing of a [...]

The Monster of Chechnya

Robert Amsterdam — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 13:54:37 +0000

I regret to pull such a long excerpt, but Tom Parfitt's column at the Guardian is very interesting today, and contains a number of personal observations you won't find in any of the wire reports on the recent tragic events...

Audit the Fed, China’s New No. 1, Short Canada? and More!

Contrarian Profits — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 16:00:28 +0000

pIdiocracy in action: Congress blocks bill to audit the Fed#8230; No surprise: American loan defaults hit record… Surprise: Could Canadians be next? China takes another “World’s No. 1” from U.S. #8230; a href="http://www.contrarianprofits.com/articles/author/dan-denning/" class="alinks_links"Dan Denning/a, Byron King on recent triumph and tragedy in the oil patch#8230;/p p strongGreat news: The Federal Reserve will retain its right to operate in secrecy. /strong/p tr p align="center"/p /tr p align="center"“Thank God for Rule 16!”/p pLate yesterday, the Senate majority put the kibosh on a last-hour provision in the 2010 spending bill that would audit the Fed. Not because it’s a bad idea… but because of the arcane Rule 16, which prohibits policy legislation from being added to spending bills. (The kind of “rule” that’s only evoked when the majority gets uncomfortable.)/p p“The Federal Reserve will create and disburse#8230;/p

Gold Slips, Platinum Dips as Dollar Firms

Contrarian Profits — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 17:30:00 +0000

pGold fell in Europe on Wednesday and platinum dropped below $1,100 an ounce for the first time since May 18 as the dollar firmed against the euro, making precious metals more expensive for holders of other currencies./p pHard commodities weakened across the board, hit by global economic concerns and worries a potential clampdown on speculation in U.S. energy and commodity trading could hurt buying of the asset class./p pSpot gold slipped to a low of $915.20 an ounce and was bid at $918.00 an ounce at 1414 GMT, against $923.30 an ounce late in New York on Tuesday. Meanwhile platinum was at $1,109 an ounce from $1,132, having touched a low of $1,099./p pThe dollar climbed broadly as growing risk aversion prompted buying of the#8230;/p

June 24: ETF News Digest

IndexUniverse Staff — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 18:06:45 +0000

Dubai Exchange Benefits From Oil's Improved Fortunes

The Dubai Mercantile Exchange announced today that it has hit record levels of trading.

The exchange's chairman credited the uptick to positive market sentiment for oil and a move by the "Dubai Department of Petroleum Affairs to shift to a forward pricing model based on the DME Oman Crude Oil Futures Contract."

You can read the exchange's press release here.

Questions For BlackRock

Scott Burns of Morningstar has some interesting questions for BlackRock as it prepares to swallow Barclays Global Investors and its popular iShares brand.

Among them: What does it mean for iShares investors and what designs does the active management firm have for the ETF marketplace?

(He notes in the article that iPath ETNs aren't included in the deal. Wonder where he got that?)

You can read the story here.

BOX Going For The Gusto

The Wall Street Journal reports that the Boston Options Exchange is eliminating fees for three popular ETFs. It's the start of an effort by BOX to increase its market share in the expanding options business.

It's also a nod to the significant role of ETFs among investors using such strategies.

You can read the story here.

Changes To Money Market Funds

The Securities and Exchange Commission is expected today to announce its plans to reform money market funds. It'll be interesting to see how that might impact ETFs, which up to now haven't been able to designate themselves in such a fashion due to existing—and some would say outmoded—rules.

A MarketWatch.com account by Sam Mamudi previewing the news can be found here.

“Big companies looking to go public” in Dubai, says Borse chairman

Jason G. Wulterkens — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 16:11:43 +0000

The recent resurgence of Dubai’s Financial Market’s (DFM) general index (it has fallen 61% since last summer, but is up 42% since March and roughly 28% YTD)–coupled with tighter lending standards–will likely cause more firms to publicly float their shares, surmised Essa Kazim, executive chairman of Borse Dubai. Firms are historically reticent to utilize capital [...]

The UpTurn Inc. (UPTR.PK) Led by a Strong Management Team

QualityStocks — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 15:49:35 +0000

The UpTurn Inc. is developing an innovative online real estate matchmaking exchange where residential real estate market participants are matched with each other based on their individual profiles and intended roles in the market. The UpTurn intends to serve all participants in the residential real estate industry. The company is led by a very strong management [...]

New Saudi bond market opens

Daniel Broby — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 11:39:00 +0000

Saudi Arabia new bond market opened yesterday. Foreigners can tap the new investment tool in the Middle East's largest economy for the first time. The first bond session yesterday involved SR21billion (Dh20.5bn), including SR16bn bonds by Saudi Arabian Basic Industries CorporationSaudi Arabian Basic Industries Corporation and SR5bn by Saudi Electricity CompanySaudi Electricity Company.br /br /Dubai and Abu Dhabi have spearheaded one of the largest bond issues in the region over the past two months. br /br /The launching of a bond market in Saudi Arabia is the latest in a series of moves announced by the CMACMA to develop its financial market.div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/3742382075154765669-6943915335560222108?l=danfonds.blogspot.com'//div

Bahrain’s sukuk is priced low, but will be absorbed nonetheless notes manager

Jason G. Wulterkens — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 01:12:13 +0000

According to Mohieddine Kronfol (pictured left), managing director of Algebra Capital, a Dubai-based investment firm, pricing of Bahrain’s $750m, five-year sovereign sukuk (Islamic bond) issue–which is being managed by Calyon S.A., Deutsche Bank and HSBC and is expected to yield somewhere 340-350 basis points above similar maturity U.S. Treasuries–is on the “low end of expectations” [...]

Gulf’s nascent bond market will soon be tradable

Jason G. Wulterkens — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 02:01:42 +0000

A short piece in this week’s Economist focuses on the Gulf’s “nascent” bond market, which comprise only 3% of the world’s capital markets (debt in general makes up one-third). Global sukuk sales halved last year and were pretty moribund in the first quarter of 2009. That said, recent activity suggests not only resilience, [...]

Yuan to Jump on the Golden Bandwagon?

Mogambo Guru — Thu, 28 May 2009 20:45:09 +0000

pMaybe the fact that central banks, banks and governments around the world are acting like monetary idiots explains why gold is shooting up in price; or maybe that it is going up in price explains why there is such a new interest in gold; or maybe it just explains why people are as disrespectful of the dollar, as am I./p pAnd there are lots of them, as I gather from Jim Willie at GoldenJackass.com, who is warning us to keep an eye on the Chinese, and that we should expect them to move “toward creation of the Chinese yuan as a global reserve currency,” which is certainly interesting from a geo-political perspective, but which becomes Very, Very Interesting (VVI) when he#8230;/p

Air Arabia

Daniel Broby — Thu, 28 May 2009 13:57:00 +0000

Silk Invest has Air Arabia in its Arab Falcons fund. We met with the company's Director of Finance and Administration to review how things were going in the light of the recent uptick in oil prices (a big component in any airlines costs). br /br /The company has a natural fuel hedge. In effect, when oil price is high, margins are down but revenues go up as the economy is strong. That said, the company hedged 50% of its fuel for this year at USD 55. Good news.br /br /The biggest takeaways are that this is actually a different business model from the European low cost airlines. Firstly, only 30% of tickets are sold through internet. The company has an extensive general sales agent network that adds a fee to the basic prices it distributes. This is difficult to duplicate and is very powerfull in the GCC and India where internet penetration is low. Another big difference is that the Middle East does not close airports at night. As such, the company flys 24/7. Its planes fly 14 hours a day, the highest in the world. (that is twice most other airlines!!!) Its distances are longer on average, versus the small 'hops' in Europe. This means four flights a day, instead of six. As a result, turnaround times are less critical. The other big difference is that it is a 'dry airline'. As such, it does not get revenue from drink sales. By the way, this is not a negative, its customers like that! That said, it gets 2% revenue from excess bagage sales. The final difference is that Sharjah airport owns 17% of company, so new competitors flying our of Dubai can't compete on price as it gets discounted landing fees.div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='//blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/3742382075154765669-553648690088988352?l=danfonds.blogspot.com'//div

Higher Oil Prices Keep Producing Economies Afloat

Michael E. Brisky — Tue, 26 May 2009 13:54:00 +0000

This is a fairly well-known fact, but the fates of newly emerging economies like Dubai have been closely tied with the price of oil. Although the slowdown in the UAE has been well documented, the projection of higher oil prices does bode well for economies like these. Bloomberg picked up on this a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109amp;sid=aiEExZkE_oS4amp;refer=home"theme in an article today/a:br /br /ulliCrude prices that have stabilized above $50 a barrel mean the Middle East’s oil-rich economies are likely to pull out of the global financial crisis sooner than the rest of the world. Saudi Arabia, the largest Arab economy and the world’s biggest oil exporter, is attracting renewed interest from investors including leveraged-buyout firm KKR amp; Co. Qatar and Abu Dhabi have returned to international capital markets. /liliStock markets are rallying across the region, led by Saudi Arabia, whose a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/quote?ticker=SASEIDX%3AIND" t_above="true" t_static="true" t_fontcolor="#000000" t_fontface="Verdana,sans-serif" t_bgcolor="#ddedd9" t_width="110" t_delay="50"Tadawul All Share Index/a ended last week up 26 percent for the year to date, after tumbling 56.5 percent in 2008. /li/ulblockquotep“The expected resilience of oil prices puts the Gulf countries in a relatively privileged position compared to Europe and the U.S.,” says a href="http://search.bloomberg.com/search?q=Eckart+Woertzamp;site=wnewsamp;client=wnewsamp;proxystylesheet=wnewsamp;output=xml_no_dtdamp;ie=UTF-8amp;oe=UTF-8amp;filter=pamp;getfields=wnnisamp;sort=date:D:S:d1" t_above="true" t_static="true" t_fontcolor="#000000" t_fontface="Verdana,sans-serif" t_bgcolor="#ddedd9" t_width="110" t_delay="50"Eckart Woertz/a, an economist at the Gulf Research Center in Dubai. “In 2010, that is likely to lead to some resumption of growth, unlike in developed-market economies.” /p/blockquotepThe article has plenty more detail, and touches on Dubai's real estate and construction slowdown as well. Strength in these economies will continue to rebound as long as A) there is a demand for oil, and B) Oil prices stay above $60/barrel. Over the next decade, those two are both pretty likely. /ppDisclosure: Long T Rowe Price Africa and Middle East Fund (TRAMX). /pdiv class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='//blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/819581243324579563-6521995662908470954?l=briskycapital.blogspot.com'//div

So You Think It’s Rough Here? – Analyst Blog

Dirk Van Dijk — Fri, 22 May 2009 17:35:51 +0000

Highlights include Caterpillar, Inc. (CAT), Manitowoc Co., Inc. (MTW) and The Boeing Company (BA).

Next Friday we will get the first revision to the first quarter GDP report. I am not expecting any major changes to it. The economy slowed at a 6.1% annualized rate, or an actual decline of 1.6%, following an almost identical decline in the fourth quarter. Those back-to-back declines were enough to make the unemployment rate jump from 6.2% in September to 8.5% in March (and 8.9% in April).

Pretty ugly, but it could be worse. We were actually one of the best-performing major industrialized economies in the first quarter. The old Axis powers had a particularly rough time of it, with Japan down 4.0% or at a 15.1% annual rate, while Germany dropped 3.8% or at a 14.4% annual rate and Italy fell 2.4%, or at a 9.3% rate. The Euro zone as a whole dropped 2.5% (9.6%). The UK fell 1.9% (7.4%).

The only big advanced economy to outperform ours was France, which fell "just" 1.2%, or at a 4.7% annual rate. Thus, the U.S. is actually increasing its share of the world economy, although not as much as China is, since it is still seeing positive growth of about 6.0% annualized (if you believe their statistics).

This is going to make it more difficult to get a sustained recovery going since there is no obvious locomotive to pull the world economy. While we have benefited in the sense of better GDP growth from an improvement in net exports, this has been because our imports have plunged faster than our exports have fallen. Of course, our imports are someone else's exports, which partially explains our better relative position. However, there does not seem to be a lot of import substitution going on -- it is simply a reflection of lower demand and inventory reduction.

It is also bad for profits since many S&P 500 firms get more than half their revenues from overseas. Capital Goods suppliers, which either export a lot or which have substantial overseas operations, seem particularly vulnerable. With demand down and capacity sitting idle around the world, why expand capacity?

Yes commercial real estate (CRE) is weak here, but it is booming relative to CRE in Dubai. OK, Dubai was the poster child for excess over the last decade, but what about more established places? Well, as we speak there are over 9 million square feet of empty office space in London, and that is forecast to rise to 12 million square feet by the end of the year. Sales of firms like Caterpillar (CAT) and Manitowoc (MTW) are likely to be casualties.

Air traffic is down around the world, as highlighted by the massive loss just reported by British Airways. That does not bode well for Boeing (BA). It also means that you cannot really hide out in overseas markets, since they are facing even more severe economic headwinds than we are.
Read the full analyst report on "CAT"
Zacks Investment Research

Six Flags Inc. (SIXF.OB) May be a Sleeper Waiting to Happen

QualityStocks — Mon, 18 May 2009 15:16:28 +0000

Given today’s economic conditions, closer to home entertainment seems to be a logical investment opportunity. In most respects, this is a solid concept that could pay off. However, it may prove a bit less so as overall spending is reduced. Variability is the unknown, but in either case consumers will spend closer to home at [...]

Fitch dour on GCC banks’ retail lending

Jason G. Wulterkens — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 21:10:57 +0000

A recent report issued by Fitch Ratings concludes that the more challenging operating environment has negatively affected prospects for retail banking in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC, consisting of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE), although the degree of severity will vary. Fitch views the potential risks from retail lending as high [...]

Global Investment News Briefs Thursday April 23, 2009

Contrarian Profits — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 14:09:56 +0000

pMF Cuts Global Outlook; Brazil Hedge Fund Sells Banks, Homebuilders; February Home Prices Up 0.7%; Home Prices in Dubai Could Fall 70%; Apple Tops Forecasts; Feds Search Siemens’ Offices; Freddie Mac CFO Found Dead; E-Bay Beats Street /p ul type="disc" liIn its latest global outlook, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) slashed the growth forecast for every major country and urged more recovery actions. The IMF said the global economy a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/ousiv/idUSTRE53L32C20090422"will likely contract 1.3% this year/a and post a 1.9% gain next year, strongemReuters /em/strongreported./li /ul ul type="disc" liMercatto Estrategia FI, a Brazilian hedge fund that is beating 97% of its peers, a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601086#38;sid=auUWGiDWn7xk#38;refer=latin_america"is selling assets of the country’s largest homebuilders and banks/a, saying they are overvalued, strongemBloomberg /em/strongreported. “Since we’ve lived through a liquidity crisis, it shook up the#8230;/li/ul

On Iraq and tomato paste

Jason G. Wulterkens — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 16:19:04 +0000

The latest Economist has an interesting piece on Iraq’s growing private sector, which may have all the potential in the world, but is untested, and also exists on shaky political and social ground. “Under Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship, the state controlled everything from interest rates to jobs at the bloated state-owned enterprises (SOEs) that dominated [...]

Axial Vector Energy Corp. (AXVC.PK) JV, PETRO-AVEC LLC, Expands Licensing Negotiating Team to Add Extensive Middle East, Asian and Russian Oil Industry Expertise

QualityStocks — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 12:15:15 +0000

Axial Vector Energy Corporation announced earlier this morning that its PETRO-AVEC LLC Joint Venture appointed Dubai-based oil executive Dr. Mazin Samman, former Managing Director of United Oil Investments/Hadramout Refineries Company in Dubai, to its international licensing negotiating team. Dr. Mazin Samman has great expertise in bringing experts together from various continents, governments, companies and organizations to [...]

Bioshaft Water Technologies Inc. (BSHF.OB) Finds Itself in a Position to Offer Communities Less Expensive Solutions to Water Treatment

QualityStocks — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 14:29:39 +0000

Some have said that nothing is certain but death and taxes. One might add to this list the need for clean water. Although this isn’t an issue in much of the world, most developed countries find the need for clean and treated water a necessity. As an investment, this clean and treated water actually turns [...]

Microsoft Gulf partnership seeks to help startups “create a vibrant business landscape in the Arab world”

Jason G. Wulterkens — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 19:30:33 +0000

Microsoft Gulf signed a memorandum of understanding this past week with The Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Foundation for the Dubai-based education group to become a network partner for the software firm’s BizSpark program, which is currently available to privately held startups building a software-based product or service that have been in business for less [...]

New Dubai rent index reflects greater price drop

Jason G. Wulterkens — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 14:03:02 +0000

Dubai’s Real Estate Regulatory Agency (Rera) recently reported its official rent index for the month of April and disclosed a 10 to 15% drop in rental prices. However, a new unofficial index, compiled by Landmark Advisory, which shows an up to date picture of the market (Rera’s relies on figures from July 2008, when the market was at its [...]

Dubai International Financial Centre Grants EastNets License to Operate in the Financial District of Dubai

QualityStocks — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 11:02:45 +0000

EastNets caters to more than 850 financial institutions, corporations and government agencies worldwide by providing a variety of payments and compliance solutions and services. The Dubai-based company today announced it has received a license from the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) to operate in, and serve, the companies located in the financial district. Nasser Al [...]

Emirates Capital of Dubai Agree to Finance Axial Vector Energy Corp.’s (AXVC.PK) New Joint Venture with Petrosonics

QualityStocks — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 15:35:31 +0000

Axial Vector Energy Corporation announced today that Emirates International Capital Advisory (EICA) will be financing the recently announced Joint Venture between Petrosonics LLC and AVEC called PETRO AVEC. The $7 million dollars of debt financing provided by Emirates Capital will be secured against AVEC’s ownership interest in the JV. EICA will be entitled to full [...]

Carlyle eyes the Frontier

Jason G. Wulterkens — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 16:07:58 +0000

Private equity giant Carlyle Group completed raising its first Middle East and North Africa (MENA) fund, Carlyle MENA Partners, with equity commitments of $500 million. Per the firm’s site, the fund will invest primarily in “healthy, growing companies in various sectors, including energy, financial services, healthcare, industrial, infrastructure, technology and transportation [...]

Emerging economies eye gold reserves as dollar fears rise

Alex Stanczyk — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 21:06:43 +0000

By John Irish and Luke Pachymuthu DUBAI, March 2 (Reuters) - Major emerging economies are seeking to raise their central banks’ gold reserve holdings as fears of a sharp depreciation in the U.S. dollar mount, senior industry officials said on Monday. Investors have been piling into gold [...]

Dubai bail out

Daniel Broby — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 11:30:00 +0000

The Dubai government which has built up a $80bn debt whilst diversifying its economy, recieved a $10bn federal loan from the UAE – in effect Abu Dhabi.br /br /The federal loan will be enough for Dubai to refinance its immmediate debt but Dubai still has to refinance or repay $15bn this year in maturing loans and bonds.

And Then There’s This…Friday, February 27th, 2009

Contrarian Profits — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 20:11:17 +0000

pGold didn#8217;t do much in Far East trading until later in the day in Hong Kong. A small rally started that got hit shortly after London opened. Every little rally attempt [including the little one in Hong Kong] got sold off by some not-for-profit seller before it could develop any legs to the upside. The top in the gold price was at the London open#8230;and the low of the day was at the London close. From the London close, gold rallied about $15 right into the close of electronic trading on the Globex at 5:15 in New York./p pSilver, which I mentioned yesterday was the metal that the bullion banks are really after, got it in the neck again. It traded#8230;/p

And Then There’s This…Tuesday, February 24th, 2009

Contrarian Profits — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 20:05:58 +0000

pAs per normal, every little rally attempt in early Far East trading in Sydney got firmly sold off#8230;and by the time that London opened for business on Monday morning, gold was down about $12. /p pFrom there#8230;it and silver rose until about lunchtime in London#8230;the silver fix. Then gold and silver both got sold off again until just before the London p.m. gold fix#8230;which turned out to be the lows of the day for both metals#8230;and then away they went to the upside. Silver#8217;s vertical spike at lunchtime in New York got hammered#8230;and gold kind of died quietly at the same time. Gold was never allowed back over $1,000#8230;and silver#8217;s new high price [for this move] was not allowed to stand#8230;as#8230;/p

PureSpectrum, Inc. (PSPM.PK) is “One to Watch”

QualityStocks — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 18:59:29 +0000

PureSpectrum, Inc. is a technology company that developed patent-pending ballast and dimming technology for artificial lighting. Headquartered in Savannah, Georgia, the Company is focusing on encouraging the adoption of energy efficient lighting solutions through superior performance. PureSpectrum’s technologies represent a breakthrough in power conversion circuitry. The Company believes their solutions have the potential to speed [...]

Nomura Securties on UAE’s property sector

Jason G. Wulterkens — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 01:50:01 +0000

Property prices in the UAE will likely drop by another 15% (adding to the 25% decrease in the fourth quarter of 2008), according to a report issued by Nomura Securities, an investment bank. “The property sector is maturing at breakneck speed and a shakeout will see more casualties, with this year marked by [...]

Two Buffett-Backed Railroad Stocks Ready to Soar

Contrarian Profits — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 20:09:37 +0000

tr HIDDEN VALUE /tr tr pDear reader,#160; /p pHas Barack Obama gone wild? #160; /p pThat#8217;s the way it seems from our humble offices in Buenos Aires. #160; /p pEvery day we look at the news#8230; and we see more evidence that the Obama love affair is fading. More about what that means in just a minute.#160; /p pThe fact is the halo above Obama#8217;s head was bound to fade. He#8217;s entering power just when the economy is spiraling downwards.#160; /p pThis decline inevitably affects everything.#160; /p pAccording to Barry Ritholtz#8230;#160; em #8220;Earnings are down over 60% over the past 17 months, making this the biggest decline on record.#8221;/em#160; /p pAnd then Barry pointed to an article from the New York Times#8230;/p ul pem#8220;IN the last 82 years #8212; the history of the#8230;/em/p/ul/tr

Sri Lanka the new Arab tourist hotspot?

Jason G. Wulterkens — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 22:42:09 +0000

Sri Lanka saw a 24% surge in Middle East tourists in 2008, according to figures released by the Sri Lankan Tourist Promotions Bureau (SLTB). The country saw the strongest increase in UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Lebanon and Iranian visitors–making the Middle East the fastest growing source market for the country. “Sri Lanka’s tourism industry is [...]

And Then There’s This…Friday, February 6th, 2009

Contrarian Profits — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 20:01:11 +0000

pFor at least the last two weeks, without exception, gold has been sold off the moment that Globex trading opened in the Far East. Thursday morning was no different. From there, gold and silver didn#8217;t do a thing until the usual 3:00 a.m. New York time, when a nice rally commenced in both metals. But if you note the Kitco gold chart carefully, there was some not-for-profit seller, selling this London rally every time it looked like it showed too much #8216;irrational exuberance#8217; to the upside. This happened five times during London trading. Ditto for silver. The peak in gold came about half an hour after the Comex open. From there, it got sold off until around half-past lunchtime in#8230;/p

Emerging Market Debt Crunch Looms…

Sean Maher — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 10:31:00 +0000

div align="justify"I warned of the bubble in emerging market economies and assets last Summer but it seems that investors are still complacent regarding the risks of ongoing contagion from the credit crisis leading to widespread default. emstrongJust this week we have seen Kazakhstan devalue its currency by 18% and Russian sovereign debt downgraded by Fitch to BBB/strong/em with a negative outlook. Unless markets (and commodity prices) improve fast, emstrongRussia could well run out of reserves within two years. /strong/emAs shown in the charts below, the country has $60bn of foreign debt maturing in 2009 alone, amid a slump in the Ruble. Is this 1998 redux? As I noted last August in a href="http://deadcatsbouncing.blogspot.com/2008/08/russian-roulette-could-moscow-spread.html"span style="color:#cc0000;"Russian Roulette/span/a, the hubris being shown by the Putin regime politically and Russian oligarchs financially was a classic prelude to collapse. /divdiv align="justify"emstrongTaiwan, Mexico (/strong/emwhich is on the verge of anarchy, see a href="http://deadcatsbouncing.blogspot.com/2008/09/mexico-next-failed-state.html"span style="color:#cc0000;"Mexico: Running out of Oil and Options/span/aemstrong), Korea and Turkey all face huge external refinancing demands this year/strong/em. Among smaller nations, Dubai has run up relatively huge external debts to recreate itself as a kitsch tourist playground and looks likely to need a bailout from its neighbours. External debt falling due for imminent repayment is one way of looking at sovereign debt risk, but another is to look at the foreign liabilities/wholesale funding needs of the domestic banking system. On this basis, the Baltic states, Iceland, Colombia, the Ukraine and Kazakhstan all look extremely vulnerable. emstrongAnd who is most exposed to a domino default scenario in emerging market debt? European banks who carry over $500bn of exposure/strong/em on their books, and by implication the Euro. span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"strongemThis article continues at /em/strong/spana href="http://deadcatsbouncing.blogspot.com/2008/08/russian-roulette-could-moscow-spread.html"span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;color:#990000;"strongemwww.deadcatsbouncing.com/em/strong/span/aspan style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"strongem /em/strong/span/divbr /a href="http://deadcatsbouncing.blogspot.com/2008/08/russian-roulette-could-moscow-spread.html"/abr /br /br /a href="http://deadcatsbouncing.blogspot.com/2008/08/russian-roulette-could-moscow-spread.html"/adiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/DeadCatsBouncingMusingsOnTheMarkets?a=xJQo1b.Q"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/DeadCatsBouncingMusingsOnTheMarkets?i=xJQo1b.Q" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/DeadCatsBouncingMusingsOnTheMarkets?a=oDHcD6.Q"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/DeadCatsBouncingMusingsOnTheMarkets?i=oDHcD6.Q" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/DeadCatsBouncingMusingsOnTheMarkets?a=Dba9bj.Q"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/DeadCatsBouncingMusingsOnTheMarkets?i=Dba9bj.Q" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/DeadCatsBouncingMusingsOnTheMarkets?a=fCRsXk.Q"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/DeadCatsBouncingMusingsOnTheMarkets?i=fCRsXk.Q" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/DeadCatsBouncingMusingsOnTheMarkets?a=d5xhkq.q"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/DeadCatsBouncingMusingsOnTheMarkets?i=d5xhkq.q" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/DeadCatsBouncingMusingsOnTheMarkets?a=s1yWoj.q"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/DeadCatsBouncingMusingsOnTheMarkets?i=s1yWoj.q" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/DeadCatsBouncingMusingsOnTheMarkets?a=NJDCo4.Q"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/DeadCatsBouncingMusingsOnTheMarkets?i=NJDCo4.Q" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/DeadCatsBouncingMusingsOnTheMarkets/~4/531615939" height="1" width="1"/

And Then There’s This…Tuesday, February 3rd, 2009

Contrarian Profits — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 20:40:04 +0000

pAfter Friday#8217;s lousy action in the gold and silver price#8230;and their shares, it was no surprise to me that the boyz hit the price right at the open in Far East trading early Monday morning. They weren#8217;t even trying to hide#8230;it was like a two by four right between the eyes. Every rally was crushed#8230;and once the London p.m. fix was in at 10:00 a.m. New York time, they really went to work on the price. This continued through what was left of Comex trading#8230;and then into the electronic Globex trading after./p pHere#8217;s the 3-year gold chart. Hopefully this put the current situation in some sort of historical perspective./p tr a href="javascript:openKKCImage('1233663379-sc12.png',465,487);"/a /tr tr a style="text-decoration: none;" href="javascript:openKKCImage('1233663379-sc12.png',465,487);"emclick to enlarge/em/a /tr pSilver was similar. Its price was driven down all through Far#8230;/p

Dubai suffers 25.9% fall in hotel revenue

Daniel Broby — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 09:20:00 +0000

Dubai suffered a 25.9% revenue drop in December based on revenue per available room. The latest figure shows how rapidly the deceleration is taking place. In November, RevPar also decreased by 15.5 percent.

And Then There’s This…Tuesday, January 27th, 2009

Contrarian Profits — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 20:00:53 +0000

pIt came as no surprise to me that both gold got sold off a bit the moment that the gold market opened in the Far East on Monday morning. But it didn#8217;t amount to much, because shortly after 2 p.m. in Hong Kong#8230;1:00 a.m. Monday morning N.Y. time#8230;gold began a slow rise that continued right through the London open. This lasted until the silver fix in London (noon) before selling off about ten bucks. But as soon as floor trading opened on the Comex in New York, the price rose#8230;then spiked to its high of the day#8230;before it was gently capped and then got slowly sold off until the end of Globex trading at 5:15 p.m. Eastern time./p pSilver followed a#8230;/p

Today, Obama Reveals Way to Make Millions

Contrarian Profits — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 20:16:41 +0000

tr HIDDEN VALUE /tr tr pDear Value Seeker,/p pAs I sit down today, President-elect Obama is making his way to Capitol Hill. (He#8217;ll be President Obama by the time you read this.) /p pObama campaigned on a message of change. His inauguration speech today in expected to focus on hope./p pUnfortunately, hopes for banks are fading fast./p p#8220;Financial stocks clobbered,#8221; reads a MarketWatch headline today./p pChaos in Britain#8217;s financial system, along with more weak earnings from regional banks, dragged financial markets lower again today./p pNeel Kashkari, who is running the Treasury#8217;s TARP program, has written to 20 banks in receipt of handouts demanding monthly reports on business and consumer loans. Kashkari wants an #8220;insight#8221; into how the banks are spending taxpayers#8217; money./p pWhat a good idea! Shame we had to#8230;/p/tr

Obama, Keynes, and Pragmatism

Contrarian Profits — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 18:56:52 +0000

pOn several occasions of late, I have read or heard the phrase, #8220;We are all Keynesians now,#8221; an erudite way of expressing the idea that the free market is dead. And that the fate of the global economy now relies almost entirely on pragmatic measures yet to be taken by governments, most notably that of the United States./p pGiven that the word #8220;pragmatic#8221; is often used to describe President Obama, it appears that the man of the hour has arrived just in the nick of time./p pNot to be a spoilsport, but there is much wrong with this latest entry in the thick and well-worn journal labeled “Popular Delusions.”/p pFirst and foremost, the idea that the world#8217;s largest debtor nation should be stood#8230;/p

More Facts on the New World Oil…

Investment U — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 18:30:38 +0000

More Facts on the New World Oil… By Matt Weinschenk, Senior Analyst, White Cap Report You may have read the brief post/article from last week detailing the madness in oil markets and the glaring profit opportunity available to those with means. (If not, read the whole Contango article here.) Well those with means have heard the call. Alaric Nightingale [...]

Stay on the Look Out for Axial Vector Energy Corp. (AXVC.PK) Acquisitions

QualityStocks — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 13:45:00 +0000

In September of last year, Axial Vector Energy Corp. announced that it had formed a wholly-owned subsidiary solely focused on acquisition. The new subsidiary, AVEC Strategic Acquisitions Corp., is led by Mr. Sanjai Chhaunker, the President and CEO of Axial Vector. Mr. Sanjai is working alongside Mr. Behzad Khakouei, Director of Strategic planning at AVEC. Mr. [...]

Global Investment News Roundups Thursday, January 15th, 2009

Contrarian Profits — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 16:55:49 +0000

pDeutsche Bank Drops $6.3 Billion in 4Q; Nortel Files for Chap. 11; Lehman Out of Chap. 11 in 18-24 Months; Work on World’s Tallest Building Delayed; Yahoo Tunes in to Asian Players; Record Job Cuts; More Adults Downloading TV; D-TV Switch Could be Delayed/p ul type="disc" liGermany’s largest bank, stronga href="http://finance.google.com/finance?q=FRA%3ADBK"Deutsche Bank AG/a/strong, reported a fourth quarter loss of about $6.3 billion (4.8 billion euros), prompting its shares to fall as much as 13% on the news. A year earlier, a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087#38;sid=aTII5LdMdzGs#38;refer=home"the bank posted a profit of about $1.3 billion (1 billion euros/a), strongemBloomberg /em/strongreported./li /ul ul type="disc" listronga href="http://finance.google.com/finance?q=TSE%3ANT"Nortel Networks Corp./a/strong, the largest telephone equipment maker in North America, yesterday (Wednesday) filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. #8220;Based on this filing, the board of directors must believe that not#8230;/li/ul

Gulf States Taking Lead on Clean Energy?

Michael E. Brisky — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 16:31:00 +0000

There's a nice piece in the a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/13/world/middleeast/13greengulf.html?_r=1amp;hp"New York Times today/a about the Middle East and their desire to diversify into the world's clean energy leader. Some highlights from that article:br /br /blockquoteSo even as President-elect Barack Obama talks about promoting green jobs as America’s route out of recession, gulf states, including the emirates, Qatar and Saudi Arabiaspan style="text-decoration: underline;"/span, are making a concerted push to become the Silicon Valley of alternative energy.br /br /They are aggressively pouring billions of dollars made in the oil fields into new green technologies. They are establishing billion-dollar clean-technology investment funds. And they are putting millions of dollars behind research projects at universities from California to Boston to London, and setting up green research parks at home.br /br /“Abu Dhabi is an oil-exporting country, and we want to become an energy-exporting country, and to do that we need to excel at the newer forms of energy,” said Khaled Awad, a director of Masdar, a futuristic zero-carbon city and a research park that has an affiliation with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, that is rising from the desert on the outskirts of Abu Dhabi.br /br /“The leadership in these breakthrough technologies is a title the U.S. can lose easily,” said Peter Barker-Homek, chief executive of Taqa, Abu Dhabi’s national energy company. “Here we have low taxes, a young population, accessibility to the world, abundant natural resources and willingness to invest in the seed capital.”/blockquotebr /br /This is intriguing to me. I've been interested in investment opportunities in "frontier markets" such as the Middle East. Although these markets have basically been an oil trade in the past, its good to see that they are using their massive wealth to diversify into alternative energy. I'm not positive that they will take the lead, but competition in this space, or any space for that matter, will lead to cheaper prices, which is a positive. High cost has been one of the biggest detractors from the clean energy movement.br /br /The Gulf States do have some advantages. They have a lot of cash from oil operations. They are centrally located to provide products and services to both Europe and Asia. Plus, areas like Dubai have been growing into major business centers, so the transition should be natural. Solar power seems like the obvious choice to start, but I'm sure they will look into many others as well.br /br /There is no real way to invest in this trend yet. There are some funds that track this region (a href="http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=GAF"GAF/a, a href="http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=GULF"GULF/a, a href="http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=TRAMX"TRAMX/a), but are mostly tied to banks and construction companies, and actually trade based on oil prices. These are long term investments, but overall, this is a region gaining in wealth and influence, and seeing diversification amongst their economy is a positive.br /br /Disclosure: Author owns TRAMX

WWA Group Inc. (WWAG.OB) is “One to Watch”

QualityStocks — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 18:38:34 +0000

WWA Group Inc. is a company that trades and auctions transportation and industrial equipment worldwide. Through their wholly owned subsidiary, World Wide Auctioneers, Ltd. (WWA), they are one of the largest auctioneers of heavy equipment in the world. They focus their operations on under-served regions outside of North America. Founded in 1996, their corporate headquarters [...]

DRI Corp. (TBUS) Anticipates Major Orders from Dubai for Mobitec(R) Products

QualityStocks — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 18:01:27 +0000

Today before the opening bell, DRI Corp. announced that the Company’s Mobitec Group subsidiary in Sweden has received confirmation that it will receive several substantial orders for Mobitec(R) electronic information display systems (EIDS) on behalf of the Roads and Transport Authority’s Public Transport Agency transit bus vehicle fleet in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The Transport [...]

Emaar Properties rating downgraded

Daniel Broby — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 06:25:00 +0000

Standard Poor's Rating Services revised its outlook of the Middle East's largest development company from stable to negative. The good news is that it reaffirmed the 'A-' long-term corporate credit ratings!br /br /The revision is natural in the current environment and obviously reflects a rapid weakening of the real estate markets in Dubai. A prolonged downturn could hurt Emaar's development model. Right now, the company has a healthy financial position.br /br /Emaar Properties made headlines around the world for building the world's tallest tower in Dubai.

Redefining Deficits, Inflation Plummets, Market and Oil Forecasts, The Dububble and More!

Addison Wiggin — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 22:40:52 +0000

pFeel like getting angry? Treasury publishes latest debt/deficit details#8230; But Fed now encouraged to intervene more… latest data show historic inflation drop#8230; How to invest accordingly? Burritt on near-term trading, Grantham on the long haul#8230; Byron King explains why $40 oil is “worst of both worlds”#8230; Bill Jenkins explains the dollar’s recent downturn#8230; Plus, the Dububble expands… refrigerated beaches on UAE shores#8230;/p p class="BodyCopy" align="left" strongHowever dire you think U.S. government’s fiscal condition has become… today we learn it’s even worse./strong For starters, would you invest in this business?/p p class="BodyCopy" align="center" div div/div /div /pp class="BodyCopy" align="left"2008 fiscal year net operating cost: $1 trillion. Triple that of 2007. And those aren’t funky alternative accounting methods… today’s charts and numbers come directly from the 2008 Financial Report of the U.S. Government, issued yesterday./p p class="BodyCopy" align="left"What is#8230;/p

Major Financial Events And Developments Of 2009

Contrarian Profits — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 14:14:38 +0000

pDollar-Euro parity? Crude at $12 a barrel? 15% unemployment? stronga href="http://www.contrarianprofits.com/articles/author/j-christoph-amberger/" class="alinks_links"J. Christoph Amberger/a /strongpresents the Today#8217;s Financial News top predictions for 2009#8230;/p blockquotepA month ago, I asked my colleagues at TFN to think about the year ahead… the events that will shape the year both politically and financially. In short, to come up with realistic “Predictions for 2009″. As history is fast-forwarding, some of these events have already taken place. Others look increasingly probable… and not half as far out as they appeared just a month ago./p pHere they are, in no particular order/p p*** Dollar hits parity against euro by June 2009./p p*** Oil bottoms at $12 per barrel by April 2009./p p*** Gold falls to $500 as Indian economy crashes and Dubai abandons spending spree./p p***#8230;/p/blockquote

Mood in the Gulf

Daniel Broby — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 11:37:00 +0000

With oil prices at levels below $50 a barrel, further weakness in the Dubai real estate market, as well as general concerns over public and private debt levels, it is not surprising the mood remains depressed in the Gulf. That said, Kuwait's court order to close its market for a day, and the Kuwait Investment Agency cash injection, have helped; as indeed did the Saudi Arabian announcements on the soundness of its fiscal position.

Nasdaq To Launch Islamic Versions Of Indexes

IndexUniverse Staff — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 10:28:42 +0000

Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}

Six global exchange-traded funds track Islamic indexes, according to Chicago-based data researcher Failaka.

Nasdaq OMX Indexes is about to break into the already crowded field of index providers targeting Islamic investors.

Versions of the flagship Nasdaq 100 Index and Nasdaq Biotechnology Index are to be launched in the first quarter 2009.

Dow Jones, MSCI, FTSE Group and financial services firms including HSBC and Citigroup have long lists of stock indexes, and to a more limited extent bond indexes, refashioned for the Islamic world.

Currently, there are six exchange-traded funds globally tracking Islamic indexes, according to Chicago-based data researcher Failaka.

Three are from Barclays Global Investors' European iShares ETF family based in London. The iShares track the MSCI Emerging Market Islamic, USA Islamic, and World Islamic equity indexes. BNP Paribas has an ETF based on the Dow Jones Islamic Titans Index, while Daiwa Securities launched an ETF based on a FTSE Sha'riah Japan 100 Japanese equity index.

As an exchange which a growing profile in the Middle East, Nasdaq has an immediate beachhead for its first Islamic indexes, in contrast to the stand-alone index providers.

Nasdaq recently rebranded the Dubai International Financial Exchange as Nasdaq Dubai, after purchasing a one-third stake in the exchange earlier in the year (see story here).

What's more, Dubai is the largest market in the world for structured products linked to Islamic law, according to Failaka.

Dubai is the largest part of an Islamic investing universe estimated at as much as $700 million globally. There are industry projections that it will grow to as much as $1 trillion in the next few years.

There has been a good deal of recent activity related to the Islamic indexes also.

Dow Jones recently released its first Islamic index for Southeast Asian equities, or the ASEAN counties (see story here).

Meanwhile, MSCI recently added both emerging market and frontier market sha'riah compliant indexes (see story here).

Nasdaq expects that the indexes will serve as the basis for products from both local Gulf players and international asset managers, said John Jacobs, chief marketing officer at Nasdaq.

While the Dubai market may be the most obvious market in which to introduce the planned Islamic versions of the Nasdaq 100 and Nasdaq Biotechnology indexes, Nasdaq expects the indexes to be popular in Southeast Asia also.

"The most populace part of the Muslim world is Southeast Asia, and lots of firms want to bring out Sha'riah compliant index products there too," Jacobs said.

Redwood Consultants, LLC Assists Axial Vector Energy Corp. (AXVC.PK) with Investor Relations and Strategic Planning

QualityStocks — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 15:12:34 +0000

In October, Axial Vector announced that it has retained Redwood Consultants, LLC, a full-service investor relations firm based in California, to assist in shareholder relations and investor communications. The consultant company is also involved in the company’s strategic planning efforts and implementation of its upcoming wind power generation business. Redwood Consultants Senior Advisor William Jeffrey Gilliam [...]

Rating agencies review corporates in GCC States

Daniel Broby — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 11:22:00 +0000

The rating agencies are looking into various GCC institutions and may adjust some ratings. Moody’s believes that governments will intervene before a default occurs, but over the long term particular institutions may not be viable and may be merged or taken in “a sort of orderly bailout”.br /br /Talk of a GCC liquidity crisis is probably more to do with investor confidence than traditional fundamentals. The other issue is transparency and the level of disclosure. Rating government-related entities in the region hinges on the assessment of the level of government backing they might receive, which can be tricky.br /br /Currently there are conflicting rumours about the likelihood of mergers between real estate companies, the role of Abu Dhabi and the scale of Dubai’s government debt.

$40 Barrel of Oil for Christmas

Dan Denning — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 18:12:58 +0000

pStuck for Christmas gift ideas? Why not try a barrel of oil? You can get one for around US$40 these days. That#8217;s 54% lower than this time last year and 72% below the price on July 14th ($145.16)./p pTrue, a big barrel of West Texas Intermediate crude oil might be hard to fit under a Christmas tree. And it#8217;s probably a fire hazard. But it also makes an excellent end table or lectern. However, we would wait for the post-Christmas sale, or maybe even until 2009, for a lower price./p pSpeaking of Christmas, just a reminder that our third annual Doomer#8217;s Ball is tomorrow night. The location is BLVD Bar, located at 6 Queensbridge Square on Southbank in Melbourne, from 6:30 p.m.#8230;/p

SkyPostal Networks, Inc. (SKPN.OB) Enters Middle East with Punto Mio Internet Shopping Facilitator Services

QualityStocks — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 14:25:42 +0000

SkyPostal Networks, Inc. (SKPN.OB) announced that it has signed a joint venture agreement with E-Commerce Ltd. (Kuwait) to expand the Punto Mio online shopping facilitator services to the Middle East. Punto Mio connects international online shoppers with U.S. ecommerce businesses and provides international transport, customs clearance and cross-border parcel delivery to Internet shoppers. As terms of [...]

Emaar

Daniel Broby — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 09:09:00 +0000

Emaar, the Dubai real estate company, has fallen over 75% this year. All the fundamentals point down. Land has turned negative, the secondary market is bad, developers are in trouble, discount rates are rising, and construction costs are up.br /br /Emaar has grown thanks to its international sales. The company therefore has to turn to cash preservation and cost rationalisation, something they have not been good at in the past. br /br /Time to buy? Not yet!

Financial Markets Open on Sunday!

Graziano Nanetti — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 12:11:29 +0000

Many traders, even those with a strong faith in technical analysis, sometimes like to look around for unusual informations or signals. Most of the times it's only an amusement but occasionally it could carry out something useful.

Why The World Depends On Your Christmas Shopping

Contrarian Profits — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 15:39:40 +0000

pThe weight of the global economy rests on the American consumer, says stronga href="http://www.contrarianprofits.com/articles/author/j-christoph-amberger/" class="alinks_links"J. Christoph Amberger/a/strong. That#8217;s who all these government bailouts are trying to reach. And unless shoppers throw caution to the wind this Christmas, we could be in for a rough ride./p pThis from Today#8217;s Financial News:/p blockquotepThe U.S. dollar dropped against the euro as the Commerce Department reduced Q3 GDP growth to -0.5% and the Fed announced that it was getting ready to throw another $800 billion into the fiery furnace of this fine financial mess./p pWhy did the greenback drop? I think it is more of a reflexive move. Investors still think in bi-polar terms: If things look bad for the States, the grass must be greener in Europe./p pOf course,#8230;/p/blockquote

Bail out for Dubai?

Daniel Broby — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 15:56:00 +0000

Abu Dhabi may provide Dubai with a credit facility to repay short-term debt.br /Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, UBSand Credit Suisse Group are helping advising on the restructure the $80 billion debt of Dubai and its state-owned companies.

Dubai propert crash

Daniel Broby — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 11:08:00 +0000

It was only a matter of time. Prices in Dubai are heading south. In particular, property prices on the Palm Jumeirah, the 'eighth wonder of the world', have plummeted by as much as 40pc since September. A four-bedroom house on the Palm,(developed by the Nakheel Group), is now selling for 10 million UAE dirhams (£1.8m), down from 15 million dirhams in September.

Buy the markets, Say Bye to the Era of Excess…

Sean Maher — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 10:00:00 +0000

div align="justify"I went long equity and oil futures last week emstrongin anticipation of a sustained and significant rally in the next few weeks, in the order of 25% through year end/strong/em. As I noted on Friday, the Samp;P hit its 25 year moving average for only the third time since 1942 on Thursday; the Dow was trading 33% below its 200 day moving average. emstrongEquities have become technically oversold to a degree seen only once every few decades./strong/em On 24 July I explained: em'We're now probably midway through a structural cycle that may last to 2015 or so. Another way of looking at it is that returns were 'front loaded' during the huge bull market from 1983 to 2000, making the entry point crucial for successful investing.'/em That analysis stands, and the ultimate low for the Samp;P may be something like 600 in 2009, depending on the brutality of this span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0"de-leveraging/span cycle and whether recent moves in the Equity Risk Premium are reversed. emstrongNear term, there is a high-probability trading opportunity, like those I flagged in March and July/strong/em. Meanwhile, two events have grabbed my attention; the first is a looming marginal tax increase to 45% for the highest earners in the UK, the second is the $25m opening ceremony for the latest luxury hotel in Dubai, a city that epitomises the obscene excesses of the boom years. emstrongWe have seen the economic cycle violently reverse, but we are about to see a cultural and political one reverse as well/strong/em. In the last 25 years, levels of wealth concentration have soared to an extreme not seen since the 1920's. In the US, the top 1 percent of Americans, have received about 22 percent of national income in recent years, their largest share since 1929. emstrongThe top 10 percent of Americans collected almost 50%, a share also last seen before the Great Depression/strong/em. It doesn't matter what your political persuasion is; extreme economic concentration is simply inefficient and destabilising for an economy at large. For the bottom 90% of Americans (on sub $100k or so) real incomes have been stagnant for since the 1990's (even using the official CPI statistics, which as I've explained before, systematically underestimate inflation). The economic gains of recent years have been skewed, and while conservative commentators will ascribe this to the competitive pressures of globalisation, public policy, particularly since 2000, has played a key role. Politicians have pandered to the rich, cutting capital gains taxes and turning a blind eye to massive tax avoidance via offshore havens. The 'trickle down' theory, that this wealth concentration would benefit employment and incomes in the wider economy, doesn't stand up to scrutiny. While there had been a boom in concierge services and canine beauticians, and the myth that anybody can chase the American dream and join the ranks of the span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1"Superwealthy/span, statistically social mobility has been slipping into reverse. Your income category at birth has not determined that as an adult more rigidly in almost a century. For all the anecdotal and uplifting tales of self made immigrant billionaires, for the average Joe the slope has never been steeper. Now the zeitgeist is changing, and tax havens like span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2"Liechtenstein/span and the span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3"Caribbean/span are under pressure as governments scramble to raise revenues. Marginal tax rates are set to rise across the developed world, and in these straitened times, conspicuous consumption will lose its social cachet. I read a book a while back called 'span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4"Richistan/span' in which a span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5"WSJ/span reporter breathlessly gushed at the monumental palaces of the New Rich ($10m plus net liquid assets), whose homes were measured by acreage rather than square feet and the staff needed a staff. It may go down as the bookmark on an era of excess. In August I wrote : em'the outrageous sum of $750m paid by a Russian oligarch for a prime mansion on the Cote span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6"d'Azur/span, in a macho bidding war with his equally spendthrift Moscow peers...apart from reflecting the corrupt pillage of the Soviet resource economy by a handful of well-placed insiders in the 1990's, this is the kind of grotesque financial excess that has previously marked major turning points in economic history. Indeed, the last time Russian buyers displayed such shameless decadence in France was among the aristocratic elite just before the fall of the Tsar nearly a century ago.'/em Since then, the resource dependent Russian stockmarket has collapsed, along with the Ruble, and the swaggering Oligarchs are reduced to asking Tsar Vlad the Bad for emergency handouts. As for Dubai, when the international jet-set lie on the private beaches on their man-made (and sinking) islands made in the shape of miniature countries and gaze at the world's tallest skyscraper rising on the horizon, they may not notice the untreated sewage lapping at their feet. They gold-plate most things in Dubai, but not the turds./divdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/DeadCatsBouncingMusingsOnTheMarkets?a=0OMrN"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/DeadCatsBouncingMusingsOnTheMarkets?i=0OMrN" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/DeadCatsBouncingMusingsOnTheMarkets?a=PEY1N"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/DeadCatsBouncingMusingsOnTheMarkets?i=PEY1N" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/DeadCatsBouncingMusingsOnTheMarkets?a=n1wBN"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/DeadCatsBouncingMusingsOnTheMarkets?i=n1wBN" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/DeadCatsBouncingMusingsOnTheMarkets?a=oQ4jN"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/DeadCatsBouncingMusingsOnTheMarkets?i=oQ4jN" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/DeadCatsBouncingMusingsOnTheMarkets?a=Hhhun"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/DeadCatsBouncingMusingsOnTheMarkets?i=Hhhun" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/DeadCatsBouncingMusingsOnTheMarkets?a=TpDtn"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/DeadCatsBouncingMusingsOnTheMarkets?i=TpDtn" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/DeadCatsBouncingMusingsOnTheMarkets?a=RHNBN"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/DeadCatsBouncingMusingsOnTheMarkets?i=RHNBN" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/DeadCatsBouncingMusingsOnTheMarkets/~4/463826776" height="1" width="1"/

NASDAQ Puts Name On Dubai Exchange

IndexUniverse Staff — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 21:52:47 +0000

The Borse Dubai, the major owner of Nasdaq Dubai, also has plans to introduce its own ETFs.

NASDAQ OMX, which bought a one-third stake in the Dubai International Financial Exchange (DIFX) in February, has rebranded the exchange as NASDAQ Dubai.

For exchange-traded funds, the move is a minor tweak on what should be a major 2009 trend: global cross-listings of ETFs.

Among the major ETF providers, Invesco PowerShares Capital Management and State Street Global Advisors have both indicated interested in offering exchange-traded funds in Middle East markets like Dubai (see story here.)

The first listing to benefit from the NASDAQ-Dubai deal won't be an ETF though, but the NASDAQ OMX Group (NDAQ) itself, which will list its share on the Nasdaq Dubai on Nov. 20.

Middle East nations are anxious to turn themselves into global financial centers and have been linking up with U.S. and European exchanges over the past two years as part of their diversification away from oil-linked wealth.

Part of that push will be the listing of exchange-traded funds locally and through global exchange partner cross-listings.

Already, many Mid East investors and institutions can access ETFs through global banks that operate in the region, but the introduction of cross-listed ETFs from the U.S. and Europe is expected to widen the range of investors that can access ETFs.

The Borse Dubai, the major owner of Nasdaq Dubai, also has plans to introduce its own ETFs (see story here.)

Recession Runs Rampant

Contrarian Profits — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 16:28:54 +0000

Losses in equities worldwide top $25 trillion. What say ye, Obama?… Japan, eurozone enter recession, Gulf bourses continue to tumble… Turning fear into profit: A special volatility report, and plenty more…

The bloodletting continues.

On Friday the 15-nation Euro-zone announced that it is officially in a recession. GDP contracted by 0.2% for a second consecutive quarter over on the continent with Germany and Italy leading the way backwards. France narrowly escaped an “official” recession – two consecutive quarters of negative growth – by the narrowest of margins, posting 0.1% growth.

It has been 15 years since the last time Europe experienced such a large-scale downturn. Back then, of course, each country was able to act independently on monetary policy. Now they must seek…

The New TARP, Stocks Cheap Enough Yet? Escaping the Global Recession, The Dububble, and More!

Contrarian Profits — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 08:47:45 +0000

Paulson reworks financial bailout: New targets for investment… even you can apply! Markets plummet… Bill Bonner on when stocks will be cheap enough to buy. OECD predicts global recession… Germany admits contraction has already begun. Wall Street CEOs forecast “rapid,” “deep” U.S. recession. Joel Bowman on a peculiar hissing sound emitting from the Middle East.

For an erudite debate over the Paulson doctrine, we turn to our friends at The Onion this morning:

The Money Hole.

It’s not any more complicated than that, is it?

Indeed, Paulson and company announced a TARP switcheroo yesterday. Now the Treasury’s Troubled Asset Recovery Program (TARP) is suffering a serious case of the STD “mission creep.”

Instead of purchasing troubled assets from banks, the Treasury, as of this morning,…

Sue the Fed, Dubai in Trouble, Coming Food Crisis and More!

Contrarian Profits — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 17:46:53 +0000

The Fed’s first credit crisis lawsuit… who’s suing and why, AmEx, Fannie Mae unload more financial follies… government “fixes” problem with more taxpayer dollars, Chris Mayer with a credit crisis byproduct (and opportunity) that could affect the entire world, China announces big stimulus plan… so why did commodities fall? A hefty chink in Dubai’s armor, Plus, Dan Amoss with a once-favored investment theme due to be back in the spotlight soon

Here’s a curious development that may be worth watching: Bloomberg is suing the Federal Reserve.

Last week, we took a look at the Fed’s bulging $2 trillion balance sheet. And if you’re a long-suffering 5 Min. reader, you know our futile recounting of the weekly Fed lending programs… all the abbreviations and…

Emaar Properties could benefit from Dubai government intervention

Jason G. Wulterkens — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 03:51:46 +0000

It’s a buyer’s market in Dubai, where mansions on coastal developments, such as Palm Jebel Ali and the Palm Jumeirah, are selling at up to 40% below their peak. But that’s lead to government concern, and now, intervention. From Sunday’s Financial Times: The Dubai government on Sunday formed a high level committee to tackle the impact of [...]

Beggars Can Be Losers

Contrarian Profits — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 15:38:07 +0000

When the president of the United States visited this region almost a year ago, the city of Dubai closed down for the entire day. Locals and expats alike jokingly refer to this event of yore as “Bush Day,” a day when they stayed home from work and watched movies as the leader of the “free world” took a Big Bus tour of the city.

Now, twelve months later, as W’s presidential twilight years draw to a close, another of the West’s leaders journeys to the Gulf region. Like Bush, England’s Gordon Brown is not particularly popular in the polls. But this captain from the west has more pressing issues to deal with than the restoration of his public image; he needs…

Borse Dubai To Delay Launch Of ETFs

IndexUniverse Staff — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 18:54:54 +0000

Dubai was also slated to introduce derivatives early next year, and will now launch derivatives and ETF at the same time.

The United Arab Emirates' Börse Dubai will delay its planned launch of exchange-traded funds until next year, in recognition of the poor market conditions.

The UAE is among a host of small, oil-rich nations seeking to turn themselves into global, and diversified, financial marketplaces. These nations and their exchanges have been partnering with U.S. and European exchange leaders at a rapid pace and cementing plans to move into all the listed-product areas, including ETFs, which the global exchange have pioneered. Abu Dhabi, Oman and Saudi Arabia are also looking at ETFs. Egypt plans to introduce ETFs next year, as well (see story here.)

The pullback from a planned earlier launch of ETFs by the Börse Dubai is no surprise given the general pullback by investors, and will not likely slow down the long-term growth prospects for the marketplace.

While traditional stock funds have suffered to a much greater extent than ETFs in the current market, from exchanges like the Börse Dubai to ETF providers, it is a time for cautious introductions of new initiatives. PIMCO, which has high-profile plans to enter the ETF market in a major way, has also said it will probably introduce its highly anticipated ETFs later, rather than sooner.

While the Middle East is behind the U.S., Europe and Asia, and Latin America, in terms of ETFs currently, ETF executives think the Middle East and its concentrated wealth centers will be an important long-term market.

Turkey, with five ETFs across two asset managers, is the closest thing to a Middle Eastern ETF market, according to the most recent Barclays Global Investors survey of ETFs worldwide.

The Dubai Börse is now also in a strategic relationship with NASDAQ OMX, including an ownership stake, increasing its ability to compete for securities listings.

Dubai was also slated to introduce derivatives early next year, and will now launch both derivatives and ETF at the same time.

And Then Thereâ€™s This Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Contrarian Profits — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 17:47:17 +0000

Gold surged in Far East trading on Tuesday morning, but at precisely 3:00 a.m…again…someone was there to make sure that gold did not get through $750 for any length of time. Gold tried again to break through $750 shortly before the Comex open, but that didn’t happen either.

From there, gold got sold down until London closed. Then it rose, but did not make it over $740 for the rest of the Comex session. Tuesday was options expiry on the Comex, so I’m sure that the JPM and HSBC didn’t want any more of those lovely options to expire in the money than was necessary.

But as bad as the price management was in gold, in silver it was the most blatant…

Sovereign Wealth Funds Under Threat From Tumbling Crude

Irwin Greenstein — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 17:43:36 +0000

The plummeting price of oil could cause another source of capital to dry up: the Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWFs) of the Persian Gulf. This could be another blow for global credit markets, says Irwin Greenstein. These oil-rich funds fueled with petrodollars invested trillions over the past few years, notably with high-profile infusions of billions in CitiGroup, Carlyle Group, Merrill Lynch and the Nasdaq Stock Market.

Now with oil down more than 50% from near $150 a barrel in July, the Persian Gulf is beginning to suffer from its own credit squeeze.

The bottom line is that world credit markets could suffer, further crippling the economy and the banking industry.

Persian Gulf SWFs control huge amounts of money. The combined funds of the United…

VTB opens overseas offices

Jason Corcoran — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 20:08:00 +0000

Financial News

Jason Corcoran in Moscow
28 October 2008

Russian state bank VTB is defying the global downturn and dismal domestic markets by opening new sales and representative offices for its investment banking arm in New York and Dubai.

Yulia Chupina, the VTB board member responsible for the expansion of its investment banking subsidiary, said the bank would open offices shortly in the US and Dubai.

She said: "We are being cost conscious by freezing hiring and development in some areas while continuing to develop in other areas."

VTB has already established three investment banking hubs in Moscow, London, and Singapore. It has dominated this year's hiring war in Russia by recruiting bankers from Deutsche Bank and key figures from a number of banks in Moscow.

In response to the crisis, the bank said it was considering cutting costs by between 15% and 20%, and had postponed a move into its new offices in Federation Tower, the tallest skyscraper in the emerging business district of Moscow City.

Chupina confirmed that VTB was no longer interested in buying a stake in Renaissance Capital's troubled consumer lending arm Renaissance Credit.

The bank is believed to have abandoned the deal after Renaissance Capital founder Stephen Jennings declined to cede control.

—Write to Jason Corcoran at jasonwcorcoran@googlemail.com

Redwood Consultants, LLC Retained by Axial Vector Energy Corp. (AXVC.PK) to Assist in Investor Relations and Strategic Planning

QualityStocks — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 15:12:39 +0000

Today, Axial Vector Energy Corp. announced that it has retained Redwood Consultants, LLC, a full-service investor relations firm based in California, to assist in shareholder relations and investor communications. Redwood will also play a crucial role in the company’s strategic planning and implementation of its upcoming wind power generation business. Managing Director of Redwood Consultants, [...]

Gulf States Feel the Pain

Contrarian Profits — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 12:03:15 +0000

Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and even the mighty Dubai are getting dragged down by the global economic turmoil. “The global financial storm rolled across the Persian Gulf on Sunday,” reports the WSJ, “as Kuwait’s central bank guaranteed bank deposits and cobbled together a hasty bailout for one of the country’s largest banks.”

– Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, has announced it will pour $2.3 billion in loans to low-income borrowers.

– There are also signs of trouble in boom town Dubai. The WSJ reports that real-estate brokers there say they are seeing signs of “price weakness” there. We can only presume this is real-estate broker speak for “Nobody’s buying.”

– Over the weekend, “Dr. Doom,” aka New York University economics professor Nouriel Roubini, told The…

Pakistan on the Verge of Bankruptcy, Presses Allies for Support

Contrarian Profits — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 12:12:11 +0000

Pakistan said Friday that it would seek $4 billion in financial assistance, mostly from the World Bank, the Financial Times reported. Pakistan, a nuclear power and neighbor to Afghanistan, is on the verge of bankruptcy and if it does not receive the assistance it requires, the economy could collapse resulting in political upheaval and social unrest.

Pakistan has been wracked by inflation, currently running at 25% and its foreign reserves are dwindling. The nation’s currency, the rupee, last week sank to a new low of 84.4 to the dollar and has tumbled more than 33% against the greenback this year. Pakistan’s foreign currency reserves have shrunk to about $4.5 billion, or just six weeks worth of imports, the FT reported.

Unchecked political…

Axial Vector Energy Corp. (AXVC.PK) Announces Acquisition of Product Assembly and Storage Facility in Dubai

QualityStocks — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 17:12:37 +0000

Today, Axial Vector Energy announced that its 15 kW generators and electric motors are now ready for mass production and that it has acquired a product assembly and storage facility in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The new facility will allow final assembly of the company’s generators and electric motors as well as provide a platform [...]