As in, “get back where you belong!” If you were ever in military service, especially many years ago, you had the delightful Sgt. Hartman experience. But, you can’t shake the dude since he’s now doing business as Mr. Market and he’s as mean as ever, just ask Merrill Lynch! Volume was lighter than average but let’s remember it’s a Monday in the middle of summer. [Pssst! I think Yahoo/Finance actually has the numbers right today. Perhaps our undercover agents have finally helped them see the light!] Meanwhile we’ll revisit the ICU and see how ...

Simple arithmetic charts are OK for short-term performance review, but can be misleading for long-term purposes. Semi-log charts are best for long-term perspective.

Arithmetic charts space each Dollar move equally on the vertical Y-axis. Semi-log charts space each percentage move equally on the vertical Y-axis. Either method creates only minor differences for short-term charts, but dramatic differences over the long-term, particularly if the security is strongly trending.

The following charts of MSCI emerging market indices illustrate the point. They show 15+ years of gross performance (price plus all dividends) for the emerging market index (proxies: EEM, VWO), India (proxy: INP), China (proxy: FXI), Brazil (proxy: EWZ), Russia (proxy: RSX) and Mexico (proxy EWW).

The semi-log format (called “semi” because the X-axis remains arithmetic with equal spaces between dates) gives a truer picture of trend.  A constant rate of change on

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Reality seems to be setting in and it’s not pretty. Officialdom seems to have worn out their options although I expect some abrupt foreign exchange intervention soon. With hindsight it may have been better to have let Bear Stearns fail and a few other firms along with them. After all, a major house cleaning seems in order anyway rather than wasting tax-payer money and destroying the Fed’s balance sheet in the process of “saving things”. It may seem harsh, but that may have been the best medicine–no bailouts, no moral hazard.

Volume continues to build while breadth is horrible.

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Yesterday I posted about new ETF iShares MSCI Eastern Europe (IEER.L). Let’s have a look to key fundamental indicators of countries included in the fund. Russian index RTX, Polish WIG, Hungarian BUX and Czech PX.

Country/Region
DivYld
P/B
P/CF
FY0 P/E
12M
Trailing P/E
FY1 P/E

Russia
0.98
2.24
13.91
13.22
10.35
11.6

Poland
2.78
2.25
9.14
12.73
12.39
11.94

Hungary
2.6
2.37
6.4
10.23
9.83
9.36

Czech Republic
2.96
2.82
8.52
15.49
18.39
13.62

Central European countries provide high dividends. On average dividend yield in Emerging countries is 1.91. Also P/E ratios are better than average. …

Market Vectors Russia (RSX) and Coal (KOL) remain 1-2 in this week’s sector ratings, although the order has switched. Both sectors have strength ratings over 100, indicating that they are expected to perform in the top 2% of historical ETF returns over the next month. (We have been showing the results of our sector model each week with a one-day delay. Investors interested in more details can request a free report via email — found at the top left of the page).

A Look at the Fundamentals…

The Market Vectors Russia ETF is a closet energy play, with nearly 40% exposure. Tom Lydon at ETFtrends has a nice article on the relationship between Germany and Russia, leading to more modernization. This has helped the RSX ETF.

When one wants foreign exposure, the ETF is often preferable to finding individual stocks.

On the coal front, Tom Lydon has another …

Recently I posted how international ETF stand in relation P/E to GDP (link to post). The most undervalued seemed to be emerging markets of BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China).World markets had turned to negative on October and have started bear market which lasts already 6 months. But major fall happened at the beginning of year 2008. I run my screen for ETF to see the leaders and laggards on YTD basis. Her you have result. ...

One indicator, PEG, of fundamental analysis measures P/E relative to growth (EPS growth). It is especially helpful to compare stocks, indexes. Low P/E not necessary means under valuated price. It's always needed to compare with potential growth. PEG indicator uses EPS growth as a denominator.I made following analysis for world stock markets. Assets are regional ETF underlying international stocks. It's not problem to find P/E ratio for ETF in question but it's always difficult to find EPS respectively EPS growth data. Therefore I used expected GDP growth (2008) for world economies (based on IMF prediction). Which means as a PEG denominator is GDP growth instead of EPS growth. ...

There are 67 countries between the United States, Canada, EAFE, emerging market and frontier market countries. It may be helpful to you if you visualize the geographic relationship between those countries when you think about making country, region or development stage country investments.

The pie chart shows the relative market cap size of the US, Canada, the 21 EAFE (Europe, Australasia, Far East) countries, and the 25 emerging market countries. The stock market capitalization of the 19 frontier market countries is essentially negligible in comparison to the other market categories.

The map color codes the location of Canada, EAFE countries, and the emerging and frontier market countries. The US in not color coded.

It is interesting to note that the square area of the emerging markets is quite …