Emerging market superstars like India and China are beginning to panic about domestic inflation. But Martin Hutchinson reveals that South Korea is most definitely worth investing in.

By Martin Hutchinson Contributing Editor Forbes Magazine has come out with its list of "Best Countries for Business" - and Denmark ranks as the world’s most business-friendly market. But unless an investor is looking to set up shop in one of these countries, you wouldn’t expect this list to be all that valuable. After all, it’s one thing to know that when a company operates in a business-friendly market, its employees and corporate officers will be well treated, and the company itself will be afforded respect. But does that necessarily allow us to predict whether or not investments in that country will appreciate in value? The truth may actually surprise you. Okay, it’s mean to leave you in suspense until the end. You can find out whether a good business climate is correlated with economic growth by comparing the country’s ranking ...

By Martin Hutchinson Contributing Editor U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke ignored the warnings of most economists last week, and kept the benchmark Federal Funds rate at 2%, far below the actual rate of inflation. As a result of this non-move, investors can probably look forward to having global commodities boom to continue for at least a while longer. Here’s why. Genesis of a Commodities Boom Although the overall commodities boom has been under way for a number of years, prices didn’t just move up in a straight line: There have been long stretches during which prices advanced sharply, followed by short stretches of volatile prices reversals. The latest advance - and certainly one of the most intense - was ignited Sept. 18, which is when the U.S. central bank embarked upon one of the most aggressive rate-cutting campaigns in its history, slashing short-term rates from ...

By Martin Hutchinson Contributing Editor Presidential hopeful, Barack Obama, recently told The Wall Street Journal that he intended to lift the United States out of recession through a burst of government spending on infrastructure and a venture capital fund for the new energy sector. Obama has made few economic mistakes in his campaign - he avoided the economically counterproductive proposal to cut petrol taxes between Memorial Day and Labor Day backed by both John McCain and Hillary Clinton - but he has shown his Achilles’ heel with this proposal. There may be many reasons to increase government spending, to better defend America or to introduce a more generous healthcare plan or other social programs, but helping the economy recover is not one of them. In the long run, higher government spending makes the economy worse. This may seem heretical to those ...

By Martin Hutchinson Contributing Editor Imagine that you’re the investment director for one of the new sovereign wealth funds (SWFs). A very important guy - you get to invest several hundred billion dollars, with far fewer committees and shareholder interest groups harassing you than if you the head of U.S. institutions such as CalPERS or TIAA-CREF. Last winter, you had delegations from all the big banks in New York explaining that they’d just had this teensy weensy hiccup in subprime mortgages and so were giving you an unparalleled opportunity to buy shares - or convertible bonds - at a modest discount to the market price. You bit and you bought - a few billion dollars in each of two or three of them maybe, a fleabite in terms of your overall funds to invest but real money for ordinary mortals. Now you ...