Danfonds had a one on one with Bjorn Englund, the manager of the Babylon fund, today in Copenhagen. Bjorn is one of those managers who inspires confidence and is prepared to push the traditional boundaries of investment out to their geographic limits. br /br /Iraq is not a stock picking market but rather a politically driven one. We therefore prefer to access it through a basket or a fund such as Babylon. Although an oil resource story, the listed companies are largely banks. These are generally small. Even Dar El Salam Investment Bank, owned 70% by HSBC, is only USD 248m. Commercial Bank of Iraq, however, sounded more interesting to us, standing on a PE of 5 and PB of 1. There is, as they say, a price for everything.

November saw the sales of cars manufactured in North America drop to 236,000 units. That's 17% below October (which was already horrible) and 40% below the number sold in November of 2007.brimg alt= style=width: 480px; src=http://local.content.compendiumblog.com/uploads/user/7e88b461-578b-47f3-88ec-038e212ad053/aa0ff38d-9bb9-44a5-bba5-8be30d8f6977/dom_cars_dec_08.gifbrSource: a style=font-family: verdana; href=http://www.econbrowser.com/archives/2008/12/the_auto_downtu.htmlEconbrowser/a.brbrMeanwhile, a style=font-family: verdana; class=summheadline href=http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103sid=aDvTwqi_v3J8amp;refer=newsGM and Chrysler are seeking $11 billion to avert collapse this year. /aIn short, they are simply running out of cash. Democrats pledged to keep them out of bankruptcy without saying how. brbrAnd a style=font-family: verdana; href=http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/automakers-post-steep-sales-declines/story.aspx?guid=681021CC-8778-40C2-AC80-822D0321CB9Eamp;dist=SecEditorsPicksMarketwatch tells us/a that Ford, Lincoln and Mercury combined car sales fell 31.5%, GM took an even harder hit with its 41.3% drop, Volvo sales tumbled 46.5% (ouch!) and Hummer sales dropped the most, downa stunning 63.9%.brbrToyota, Nissan and Honda had less-bad news, but each saw sales drop by more than 31%.brbrCars are piling up on the lots. If you think they're cheap now, just wait until the after-Christmas sales. But we may be approaching the point where ...

The Fed’s plan to bailout indebted consumers and mortgage holders may sound impressive on paper (remember when $800 billion sounded like a lot of money), but it may just be “spitting in the wind.”

- So says economist Michael Darda, chief economist at MKM Partners LP in Greenwich, who is quoted on Bloomberg this morning. According to Darda, “Banks won’t be throwing a lot of loans out there when they fear - rationally - those loans may not be paid back.”

- We’re reminded of the plight of the the unfortunate French ducks who have their livers forcefully fattened to produce foie gras (literally “fatty liver”). The Fed is determined to force feed debt down the throats of already indebted Americans so that said already indebted Americans can go out and spend said debt.

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by Edward Hugh: Barcelonabr /br /blockquote“Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way”br /Tolstoy/blockquotebr /Well this strongis/strong an interesting little fable of modern family life, even if all the families involved may not be ones which many of my readers would normally wish to belong to.br /br /As is now reasonably well know Russian private oil company Lukoil is currently making a bid for the shares in Spanish energy company Repsol which are owned by the deeply indebted Spanish property company Sacyr Vallhermosa.br /br /Shares in what is Spain's fifth biggest builder, and which currently occupies the somewhat ignominious position of being Spain's worst-performing stock this year, jumped the most in two years last Thursday (20 November) on reports they were about to sell their 20 percent stake in Repsol YPF to the Russian oil company OAO Lukoil. Sacyr, which said last week it ...

There wasn’t a lot of activity in Thursday’s trading in gold in the Far East. However, at 3:00 a.m. New York time, there were some signs of life…but even the slightest attempt at a rally was met by equal bouts of selling. This ‘up-down-up-down’ activity went on for eight hours.

But shortly after the London p.m. fix was in, a serious seller showed up and took both gold and silver down to their respective lows of the day. Then, at precisely 1:00 p.m., G-Dubya opened his mouth…and one of the biggest turnarounds in gold, silver…and the stock markets…took place. The prices of both metals continued higher into after-hours trading on the Globex. Once again, these rallies in gold and silver looked like short covering to me. But, regardless of the cause of the price rises, the precious metals stocks did equally as well. Volume was only so-so in both metals.

Gold open

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Index holdings must be available to foreign investors and have a minimum average daily traded value of $1 million.

HSBC has launched the HSBC Optimised Global Water Index, and plans to bring out a number of investment products pegged to the concentrated global water benchmark. The HSBC Optimised Global Water Index is a modified market-cap-weighted index comprising a maximum of 20 stocks. It exists in two versions: the Global Water Total Return Index, which includes ex-dividend adjustments; and the Global Water Price Return Index, which excludes the effects of dividends. Index holdings must be available to foreign investors and have a minimum average daily traded value over three months of $1 million. Index companies must be engaged in water and water-related businesses including water collection, storage, purification, distribution, metering, desalination and sanitation, but it is not a pure-play index, as companies whose business is closely linked to water

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I assume that bond buyers are all drug addicts who are not aware of what they are doing, morons who are not aware of what they are doing, or grubby slicksters who are buying them on behalf of drug addicts and morons! Hahaha!

I said out loud to the family, “This is interesting news! Bloomberg.com says, ‘The U.S. government’s borrowing needs will almost double to $2 trillion this fiscal year, prompting the Treasury to revive three-year notes and hold more frequent sales of 10- and 30-year debt, according to Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (NYSE:GS)’”

I forced a wooden smile onto my face as I stood up and slowly - so as not to draw attention to myself - started walking towards the kitchen so as to run out of the back door, bolting like a scared little coward to the Mogambo Secret Bunker Of Security (MSBOS) so that I could frantically

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Jason Bush at BusinessWeek has a very interesting piece today: Mysterious lawsuits targeting prominent financial institutions could become the latest worry for foreign investors in Russia. Earlier this year, Hermitage Capital Management, an investment fund managed by British bank HSBC (HBC), claimed that three of its subsidiaries had been besieged by Russian fraud artists. Hermitage alleged in public statements that a series of bogus suits, based on fake contracts to sell shares, had been filed against the units as part of a scheme to seize ownership of the subsidiaries and reclaim $230 million in taxes previously paid by Hermitage to the Russian government. Russian authorities are investigating these allegations.

In early Friday morning trading in the Far East, both gold and silver were taken down sharply. Volume was thin in both metals, so it wasn’t hard for someone to influence the price. Gold gained most of it back, but once the Sydney close was in…the price pressure showed up again until shortly after London opened…then rose again until the London p.m. fix was in…and it was straight down hill from there.

The low price of the day was set at the Comex close. All in all, the gold price was dropped $60 in a thirty four hour period…from a high of $776 at 4:00 a.m. New York time on October 30th…to the low at the Comex close at 1:30 p.m. New York time yesterday. I’m sure that the boyz were proud of their month-end tape-painting…which is exactly what it was.

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In early Friday morning trading in the Far East, both gold and silver were taken down sharply. Volume was thin in both metals, so it wasn’t hard for someone to influence the price. Gold gained most of it back, but once the Sydney close was in…the price pressure showed up again until shortly after London opened…then rose again until the London p.m. fix was in…and it was straight down hill from there.

The low price of the day was set at the Comex close. All in all, the gold price was dropped $60 in a thirty four hour period…from a high of $776 at 4:00 a.m. New York time on October 30th…to the low at the Comex close at 1:30 p.m. New York time yesterday. I’m sure that the boyz were proud of their month-end tape-painting…which is exactly what it was.

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