This post is a guest contribution by Dr Mark Mobius, executive chairman of Templeton Asset Management.

During 2008, Russia was among the weakest stock market performers in the emerging market universe, losing more than 70% in US$ terms. But this year, the market has staged an impressive rally surging nearly 100% in the year-to-October period. The Russian market is among the cheapest in the emerging market universe and is trading at a discount of around 50% to its counterparts.

Today, Russia and many other emerging markets are now being driven by an excess in money supply in the international markets which means that these markets are experiencing an inflow of money for investments. Consequently, as Russia was more depressed than other markets, the upside is greater. At Templeton, we continue to find attractive opportunities in most sectors despite the recent rally as valuations remain undervalued. The Templeton Emerging

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Encorium Group Inc. is a full-service multinational contract research organization (CRO). They provide design, development, and management capabilities for clinical trials and patient registries. They do this for many of the world’s leading pharmaceutical companies. Trading on the NASDAQ Capital Market, Encorium Group Inc. has offices in 10 countries, managing clinical trials with their own employees. The Company’s corporate headquarters are in Wayne, Pennsylvania.

Encorium Group, Inc. provides their services to the pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and medical device industries. Their corporate mission is to provide their clients with high quality, full-service support for their biopharmaceutical and medical device development programs. They offer therapeutic expertise, experienced team management, and advanced technologies.

Encorium has drug and biologics development as well as clinical trial experience across a broad spectrum of therapeutic areas. These include infectious diseases, cardiovascular, vaccines, oncology, and diabetes endocrinology/metabolism. These also include gene therapy, immunology, neurology, gastroenterology, dermatology, hepatology, women’s health

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Yesterday, privately-owned Chaparral Energy, Inc. and publicly held United Refining Energy Corp. jointly announced that they have entered into a merger agreement. The combined company will be named Chaparral Energy, Inc. and will remain trading on the NYSE Amex until approval of a planned application to transfer listing to the NYSE. Once transferred, the company will use “CPR” as its symbol. The proposed transaction is valued at approximately $1.8 billion, and is expected to close by December 11, 2009.

Chaparral’s senior management team, including Chairman and CEO Mark A. Fischer; Joseph O. Evans, CFO; and Robert W. Kelly II, Senior Vice President and General Counsel, will continue to lead the company through this merger. John A. Catsimatidis, URX’s current CEO and Chairman, will act as the Executive Chairman of the Board of Directors of the combined company.

Founded in 1988, Chaparral has developed a substantial asset base of long-lived oil and gas

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JPMorgan Chase & Company (JPM) said yesterday that it has shuffled the senior leadership of its investment banking and asset management businesses.  The bank said that Steve Black, 57, will become the executive chairman of the investment bank. Steve was previously co-CEO of the division along with Bill Winters, 48, who is leaving the company. Black will however stay on as executive chairman through the end of 2010.  Jes Staley, 53, is taking over as CEO of the investment bank after serving as head of asset management.  Mary Callahan Erdoes, 42, will replace Staley as head of asset management business after serving as CEO of the private banking operations.  According to Jamie Dimon, Chairman and CEO of JPMorgan, the moves were intended to clarify the bank’s succession plans to the board and shareholders. But the timing of these changes and unexpected departure of Mr ...

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WCB Holdings, Inc. (OTCBB: WCBH), located at 21550 Oxnard Street, Suite 100, Woodland Hills, California, announced its second quarter of 2009 financial results. For the three- and six-month period ended June 30, 2009, the Company showed net losses of $315,000 and $326,000, respectively. The Company’s total assets grew 1% from $121.4 million at June 30, 2008 to $122.3 million at June 30, 2009. For the same period, total loans grew 12% from $93.1 million to $103.9 million and total deposits

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I found this a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20603037amp;sid=a2uzw71az3O0"interesting story /aabout emerging market specialist Mark Mobius. I've copied a couple of quotes here:br /br /blockquotepMark Mobius said global stocks will drop as much as 30 percent following their recovery from last year’s rout as companies take advantage of the rebound to sell more shares.br //pp“When you have these rapid increases, almost without correction, you will definitely have a correction at some point, so we can expect a lot of volatility,” Mobius, the executive chairman of Templeton Asset Management Ltd. said in an interview in Kuala Lumpur today. “Increases of 70 percent will be followed by decreases of 20 to 30 percent.”br /br /The biggest risk for global stocks is the increase in initial share sales and bond issues, Mobius said today. Investors will be “selling to take up new stocks, that will impact the prices,” he said. Mobius, who oversees about $25 billion, ...

This post is a guest contribution by Dr Mark Mobius, executive chairman of Templeton Asset Management.

Emerging markets surged in the second quarter of 2009 with the MSCI Emerging Markets Index returning 34.8% in US$ terms. Part of this return was due to weakness in the US dollar. A return of confidence in emerging markets, the desire for higher returns and the search for undervalued companies support the markets’ uptrend.

Latin American and Eastern European markets were among the strongest performers during the quarter, while most Asian markets also recorded strong double-digit returns. A rebound in commodity prices and stronger domestic currencies supported markets in Latin America. Asian markets continued to attract significant portfolio inflows allowing markets such as China, India and Thailand to outperform their regional counterparts. In Eastern Europe, Hungary returned 69.7% in US$ terms in part due to a strong forint. Poland returned 37.0% in

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Chinese solar-cell manufacturer JA Solar Holdings Co., Ltd. (JASO) witnessed a changing of guard on the last day of the quarter.On Tuesday, June 30, JASO reshuffled its executive management team to gear up for the turbulent period in the future more effectively. JASO's co-founder and Chairman of the Board, Baofang Jin, is the new executive chairman. Mr. Jin is the chairman and chief executive officer of Jinglong Group, JA Solar's largest shareholder, since 2003.Secretary of the board of directors, Jian Xie, is the new Vice President of Sales as well as the acting chief operating officer. Former Vice President of Sales Ray Wilson has become the managing director of European operations. Also, Daniel Lui will leave his current position as the Chief Strategy Officer to become the Managing Director of US Operations.However, Samuel Yang will continue to function as the ...