This post provides links to a number of interesting articles I have read over the past few days that you may also enjoy.

• John Authers (Financial Times): Financialisation genie set loose, October 7, 2009. Not long ago, there were three asset classes: stocks, bonds and cash. Some were not even sure if cash counted as an asset class. The last few decades, however, have seen the “financialization” of swathes of the world economy where prices were not previously set by markets, or at least not by markets led by the same investors who also set the prices of stocks and bonds. But financialization has led to controversy since last year’s crisis.

• Randall Forsyth (Barron’s): Away from Wall Street, credit keeps contracting, October 8, 2009. Financial markets party on Fed largesse, little of which flows to Main Street.

• Eamon Javers

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The dollar remains well bid…G-7 to hand currencies off to G-20? Car Sales collapse…Auditing the Lehman cash movements…And Now… Today’s Pfennig!

Good day… And a Happy Friday to one and all! Yesterday, I welcomed you to October. I had been prepared to tell you about a famous radio station here in St. Louis, that has long called October… Rocktober… But forgot, as usual! But anyway… It’s the first Fantastico Friday of Rocktober!

Today is a Jobs Jamboree Friday too! And… I’m not getting a good feeling about today’s labor report at the Jobs Jamboree. The forecast is for jobs losses to fall from -216,000 to -175,000, but the unemployment rate to tick up to 9.8% from 9.7%… I got the feeling, baby, baby, I got the feeling… Oops, a little James Brown on Fantastico Friday never hurts! But what I was saying was I’m getting the feeling that there are risks

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div style="text-align: justify;"Citigroup is upgrading span style="font-weight: bold;"Advanced Micro Devices (NYSE:AMD/span) to Buy from Hold and raising price target to $5.50 (prev. $4.25).br /br /Firm notes they are upgrading AMD, given what they believe is a favorable risk/reward profile. They are raising our price target based on a sum of the parts of Global Foundries ($0.45) and Product Co ($5.08). Firm' estimates are tweaked given their more rigorous model for Global Foundries.br /br /span style="font-weight: bold;"Deep Discount to the Sector — /span3Q09 QTD, AMD shares are down 4.4%, underperforming the broader chip industry (SOXX up 14.5%, Samp;P up 11.6%). Citi recognizes that AMD’s competitive position is poor and its net debt position classifies the company as “low quality.” However, now trading at just 1.25x EV/sales, a 45% discount to the group (2.3x), they see risk/reward as favorable.br /br /span style="font-weight: bold;"Elements of Stabilization Evident/span — 3 fundamental factors are contemplated ...

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 in the MENA region.”  Carlyle’s MENA team was established in March 2007.  From offices in Cairo, Dubai and Istanbul, Carlyle’s team of 12 professionals targets investments in Turkey, North Africa (Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco and Tunisia), the Gulf Cooperation Council (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates), the Levant (Lebanon and Jordan) and Pakistan. To date, Carlyle MENA has made one investment in July 2008, acquiring a 50% stake in TVK Gemi Yapim Sanayi ve Ticaret A.S., a Turkish shipbuilder specializing in the construction of chemical ...

Der Spiegel has an interesting article on Turkey's precarious position as a critical energy transit country now that Georgia has been virtually knocked off the map (in terms of investment). It seems that ultra-nationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky, who's always good for a laugh, has offered both to annex Turkey as well as trade them natural gas for nuts. "No one loves you the way I love you," the thick-set populist who speaks fluent Turkish, recently sang before a Turkish audience in Istanbul. Zhirinovsky, a graduate of Oriental studies, visited Turkey for the first time in 1962 as a translator for the Soviet Union's State Committee for Exports. During his visit he was arrested for spreading "communist propaganda" and spent 17 days in jail. Later he wrote a pamphlet about his experiences and recommended that his country annex all Turkic countries because ...

Russia's Micex Index fell for a fourth day on Wednesday, on concern that the government's decision to recognize Georgia's breakaway regions will deepen a rift with the West and shake investor confidence. OAO Sberbank, Russia's biggest bank, reached its lowest level in almost two years amid speculation losses in the value of its government ruble-denominated bonds will erode its capital. The ruble-denominated Micex Index lost 1.1 percent to 1,278.72 at 2:22 p.m. in Moscow, after earlier climbing as much as 2.4 percent on a rally in oil prices. The dollar-denominated RTS Index dropped 0.7 percent to 1,567.53, extending its third- quarter decline to 32 percent. UBS AG today cut its price estimates for 74 Russian stocks, citing Medvedev's decision to recognise the two Georgian regions which are in rebellion. Moves in the RTS Index are growing more disconnected from oil as ...

Wealth Bulletin24 June 2008 - By Jason CorcoranMerrill Lynch wealth management unit is expanding its business by opening new offices in Russia and Turkey and expanding teams in Greece and other regions of emerging Europe.Jean-Marie Deluermoz, director of emerging European markets, EMEA Wealth Management, at Merrill Lynch, said the group had given him a substantial budget to expand the business over the next five years.Speaking in Moscow at the launch of the Capgemini Merrill Lynch 2008 Wealth Report, he told Wealth Bulletin: "We have a big recruitment budget for the region. Emerging Europe - Russia, the former Soviet Union states, Turkey and Greece - are attracting strong growth rates for wealth management."A Moscow office to serve Russian clients offshore is expected to open in the third quarter, as is a new office in Istanbul. Merrill is also recruiting new teams ...