In New Zealand, Bernanke equivalent Alan Bollard indicated that their overnight rate may need to be raised in the future.
Inflation in Poland is only 1.4%.
The Daily Pfennig noted that the Ukraine has rotated some of its reserves out of dollar and into euros. The Pfennig rightly notes that the numbers are small but this is yet another country demanding fewer dollars.
The Sedlabanki (Central Bank in Iceland) raised its over night rate to 14%.
The point of these items is just to promote awareness. I believe in staying in touch with what is going on elsewhere.
About Iceland, after being headline news for a while things have calmed down. The krona has been strong for the last few months.I first wrote about Iceland as an investment destination a year ago March and have been invested there personally since February.
My timing was not as bad as it seems (part of it was out of my hands as it took months to get an account open) as the market went up a lot right when I got in. It then went down a lot but with all the excitement the ETF I own is down 1.8%. When the currency is factored in I am down about another 9% but I have half the account earning interest which has averaged 10% since I have had the account which helps absorb the currency decline.
When I made the decision to invest in Iceland (note that clients do not have exposure due to the volatility) I felt it would be a very long term proposition, similar to Vietnam which a couple of clients are exposed to. When it was really hitting the fan in Iceland during the spring I was not concerned in the least. This is about mind set and nothing else. I could end up being dead wrong about Iceland but I won't know right or wrong for several years.
I can tell you that having been there, things appear to be booming. The drive in from the airport is littered with cranes. In walking around there are a lot of young people driving BMWs, Mercedes and Range Rovers. Also some of the off the record comments from my interview with Glitnir CEO Bjarni Armannsson left me with the impression that there are more good things to come in Iceland. Here I am isolating anecdotal bits of information that you might not read about elsewhere.
All of this guarantees nothing and no doubt there are intelligent points to take the other side of every bullish point I could make but I believe in what is going on there. Also I have less than 4% of my portfolio exposed. Iceland won't go to zero but if it cuts in half I won't be damaged.
4 comments:
A bit off topic, Roger, but nice call on NZT. Got busy and forgot about it. Good move, looks overbought on the daily but room to run on the weekly.
If Iceland is on the radar,perhaps you may want to look into Croatia as well. Being of primarily Croatian ancestry and having a few relatives there (and a farm in the province of Zumberak 45 kilometers from Zagreb), I have investigated investment opportunities there the past few years. Real estate rather than stocks is red hot at present, especially along the coast.I am confident that with legislation to open markets-and ownership-to capital from outside the country, stocks will be as successful an investment as real estate less than three years from now.Croatians are are very hard working and western-oriented people. My father used to tell me, between sips of slivovice (the 120 proof national beverage), that "put three Serbians together and you get an army, put three Croatians together and you get a parliament". He was a wise man.
Have you ever looked at (NBG) National Bank of Greece?
I have looked at NBG. I bought OTE about 16 months before the 2004 olympics, I did consider NBG.
I looked at it again more recently but I had trouble, post olympics, building a top down case for Greece. Things may have changed since then I should porbably take a look again.
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