Telecom Argentina (TEO) reported third-quarter earnings per ADS of 40 cents, falling short of the Zacks Consensus Estimate of 52 cents. However, reported net income from continuing operations grew 39% year over year to P$303 million (US$79 million), boosted by healthy growth from broadband and mobile segments.   Consolidated revenues increased 13% year over year to P$3.1 billion (US$803 million) as the company’s cellular business grew 13% while broadband business (Arnet) posted healthier annualized growth of 54%. Broadband Internet revenue growth was fueled by significant expansion of broadband service, commercial promotions, innovation of service portfolio and improved network coverage.   The company’s cellular telephony business achieved respectable growth in the quarter with revenue of P$2.1 billion (US$550 million) accounting for approximately 68% of the consolidated sales. Revenues from data transmission grew 25% year over year to P$70 million (US$18 million). Fixed-line voice service revenues increased 3.1% year over ...

America Movil (AMX) reported results for third-quarter 2009 with earnings per ADS of 86 cents edging past the Zacks Consensus Estimates of 85 cents while increasing 22.6% from the year-ago earnings per ADS of 70 cents. Net profit surged 50.6% year over year to 18.7 billion pesos (US$1.4 billion) or 0.57 pesos per share. This healthy growth was fuelled by higher revenue and lower financing costs which fell 82.5% year over year due to gains stemming from favorable exchange rate swings.  Revenue & EBITDA Latin America’s largest wireless carrier continues to register a double-digit revenue growth as evident from the 16.9% year over year increase in consolidated revenue in the quarter to 99.8 billion pesos (US$7.5 billion), driven by 19.5% growth in service revenue. Revenue growth was supported by healthy business momentum across 3G wireless and broadband Internet businesses.  Consolidated EBITDA for the quarter was 40.4 ...

Telecom Argentina (TEO), the leading telecom player in Northern Argentina and Paraguay, recently announced the expansion of its Triple-Play services (called SuperPack), which is marketed in collaboration with the leading U.S. satellite TV operator, Direct TV.  The companies have broadened their service coverage to include Argentine cities of Santa Fe, La Rioja, and San Salvador de Jujuy.  The Triple-Play offering, which bundles voice, Internet, and pay-TV services, represents one of the most significant new business initiatives by the company this year. Under a joint-venture pact with Direct TV (signed in April 2009), the company initially began commercial deployment of the new bundled service in the Salta province, northwest Argentina. The agreement with Direct TV eliminated the need for a broadcasting license as telecom carriers in Argentina are currently barred from entering the pay-TV market under the existing regulatory framework.   The recent roll-out of the ...

Investors remained hesitant to make big bets during Thursday trading on the Canadian markets. For the tale of the tape, the TSX Exchange added 0.97%, while the TSX Gold Index plunged 5.3% and the TSX Venture Exchange, Canada’s largest junior exploration bourse, gave back 0.59%, with the decliners edging out the advancers by a 396 to 384 margin on volume of 253 million shares traded.

Financially troubled Cue Resources tabled a big jump in resources on a portion of the San Antonio uranium deposit in Paraguay. The indicated resource tallies 9 million tonnes at 0.042 % eU3O8, while the inferred section came in at 1.1M tonnes grading 0.050% eU3O8. Cue ended the day down C$0.015 at C$0.10.

Speaking of financially troubled, Adanac Molybdenum added C$0.075 to close at C$0.10 after posting an updated resource estimate for its Ruby Creek molybdenum deposit in British Columbia. At a cut-off grade of 0.04%

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What a wonderful time to be alive! Never has it been easier to feel superior to our fellow man! So many dopey ideas…so many preposterous delusions! So many fools…so eager to part ways with their money!

We have to pinch ourselves occasionally…and remind ourselves that it is real.

Yes, after the real estate bubble burst, we thought the fun might be over. But no! In come the feds. As you know, what brought about the housing bubble was a sort of madness that caused people to do the damnedest things with their money. But now, the feds are doing even stranger and crazier things!

Actually, we were happy to see the bubble blow up. Spending more than you make is hardly a formula for wealth-building. All in all, we figured our countrymen would be happier, over the long run, if they started saving their money rather than squandering it. Besides, we liked seeing

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Catastrophic Fall in 2009 Global Food Production Commodities / Food Crisis Feb 09, 2009 - 07:11 AM By: Eric_deCarbonnel

After reading about the droughts in two major agricultural countries, China and Argentina, I decided to research the extent other food producing nations were also experiencing droughts. This project ended up taking a lot longer than I thought. 2009 looks to be a humanitarian disaster around much of the world

To understand the depth of the food Catastrophe that faces the world this year, consider the graphic below depicting countries by USD value of their agricultural output, as of 2006.

Now, consider the same graphic with the countries experiencing droughts highlighted.

China

The drought in Northern China, the worst in 50 years, is worsening, and summer harvest is now threatened. The area of affected crops has expanded to 161 million mu (was 141 million last week),

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The planet is facing a topsoil crisis, meaning that the greatest commodity of them all one day could be farmland. That potentially makes Cresud Inc. (NASDAQ: CRESY), which owns large swathes of farmland in Argentina and also has a growing presence in both Paraguay and Brazil, a sound long for punters. Additionally, the firm is currently involved in a variety of other projects including crop production, cattle raising and milk production, not to mention real estate accumulation (several shopping centers in Buenos Aires, for instance). In fact, while it is estimated that the firm owns about a million acres of farmland and 50,000 head of cattle, Guy Bennett of Q1 Publishing, an investment research firm, mentioned that Cresud’s executives consider themselves to be primarily a real estate development company. But all this diversity may not necessarily be a ...

Is Purchasing $700 billion of Toxic Assets the Best Way to Recapitalize the Financial System? No! It is Rather a Disgrace and Rip-Off Benefitting only the Shareholders and Unsecured Creditors of Banks Whenever there is a systemic banking crisis there is a need to recapitalize the banking/financial system to avoid an excessive and destructive credit contraction. But purchasing toxic/illiquid assets of the financial system is not the most effective and efficient way to recapitalize the banking system. Such recapitalization - via the use of public resources - can occur in a number of alternative ways: purchase of bad assets/loans; government injection of preferred shares; government injection of common shares; government purchase of subordinated debt; government issuance of government bonds to be placed on the banks' balance sheet; government injection of cash; government credit lines extended to the banks; government ...

We reiterate our Hold rating on Telecom Argentina SA (TEO), the leading provider of communications in Buenos Aires, Northern Argentina and Paraguay. The company's recent operating results are being driven by the growing domestic cellular telephony market, the largest in Latin America in terms of mobile penetration.

Although Telecom Argentina's wireless and Internet subscriber base continues to increase at a respectable pace, frozen fixed-line tariff and inflationary conditions impacting the cost structure may limit profitability levels for the remainder of 2008. Additionally, the uncertain economic outlook and challenging competitive environment are considerations that we believe may limit valuation levels. Moreover, capital spending for the full year 2008 is expected to increase on a year-over-year basis due to cellular and broadband infrastructure requirements.

Telecom Argentina is trading at 6.6x estimated earnings for fiscal year 2008, which represents a significant discount to the forward P/E ratio of the peer group and S&P

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