Many investors rarely think about Brazil as a place to put their investment dollars. They think Brazil is just a country that goes crazy over soccer and has a wild ‘Carnival’ every year in Rio. But Brazil is so much more. They may have the best economy in the Americas.

Brazil has made great strides under current President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, commonly known as Lula. Lula took office on January 1, 2003 and he has, since being in office, run a very orthodox fiscal policy. The country has maintained fiscal and trade surpluses for the better part of his presidency.

Brazil’s highly capable central bank has followed a very strong monetary policy. They have maintained high levels of real interest rates, which prevented the economy from overheating and creating an over-expansion of credit – unlike the policies of others like the Federal Reserve.

In late April, the Brazilian central bank

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Best Economy in the Americas – Brazil

Tony Daltorio, The Investment U Research Team

Wall Street tends to take a very myopic view of the world – the view that the entire financial universe revolves around them and the United States. And that what goes on in other countries is unimportant.

It’s why many Wall Streeters have missed one of the greatest rags-to-riches stories in global economic history – Brazil. Brazil’s economy has gone from a “basket case” to being as solid as a Brick.

Brazil has made huge strides from the very debt-ridden, bureaucratic country of the past. Years ago, the country restructured its finances and has resisted the temptation to use economic crises, such as in neighboring Argentina, as an excuse to default on its obligations.

Yet, many on Wall Street still think of Brazil as a backwards “third-world” country that goes crazy

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Buyers of my new oil report will remember Repsol. Here’s some good news …

Repsol Chases Breakthrough Technology as Offshore Oil Politics Heat Up

Spanish-Argentinean
oil major Repsol and the Barcelona Supercomputing Center’s Kaleidoscope
Project team at the World Petroleum Congress in Madrid on July 1
announced early research results that lead them to believe a major
breakthrough in offshore oil exploration is within reach. Working
with IBM BladeCenter QS22 supercomputers — built around IBM’s
PowerXCell 8i processor, originally developed for use in Sony video
game consoles — Repsol and BSC researchers believe they now have a
methodology, “Reverse Time Migration”, and the tools to speed up
exploration and development of deep oil and gas fields on- and
off-shore up to six times compared to the technology currently employed
by the oil and gas industry.

Here are some charts …

Up, up and away!

From Calculated Risk …

Using the

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Petroleo Brasileiro SA, Brazil's state-controlled oil company, continues to drill away and is now about halfway through its offshore Carioca deposit according to Mines and Energy Minister Edison Lobao said. Carioca forms part of Brazil's new pre-salt region, which lies beneath 2,000 meters of water and as much as 4,000 meters of seabed. The pre-salt region is also home to the Tupi field, which holds an estimated 8 billion barrels of oil and is the largest Western Hemisphere oil discovery in three decades. Lobao is also quoted as saying that Betrobras will need more time to determine the size of the Carioca field, so I suppose for the time being it's just a question of "on we go with the drilling".Following up on my post about oil rigs earlier in the week, Petrobras have also announced plans to lease 146 ...