Both the Riksbank and Norges Bank are meeting this week are are expected to hike rates to 3% and 3.5% respectively. These are two of many countries that are still raising rates.
The folks at SmartShares (they list ETF-like products on the New Zealand Stock Exchange) are going to list a product that will track the ASX 20 (not 200), the 20 largest stocks in Australia. Practically speaking there is no easy way for US investors to access this product but the bigger macro is the notion of investing in one country (Australia in this case) via another country (New Zealand in this case). I touched on this one before, referring to Kaupthing Bank in Iceland offering equity mutual funds that invest in other regions of the world. This is a concept to remember that I think it will become possible in the next few years.
This link I found on Barry's site makes Dr. Roubini look like a Kudlowite. I don't agree with the magnitude of any of his conclusions and I think he makes too many leaps without enough to support the ideas but it creates a new outlier of doom and gloom.
One reader asked about structured products as a way to access commodities. Generally I am not a fan of these. They are often wildly complex with many contingencies.
I just completed the TickerSense poll for 2007. I'm not sure when the poll will post, the cutoff to respond was December 14. I am curious to see results.
One addition to the ETFs I'd like to see list from the weekend video is buywrite index ETFs. I have touched on these on the site before but did not mention them along with timber and the like. I think a true indexed product in ETF form would be better than the closed end structure.
Lastly, thank you for all the great comments. I don't always have time to reply but I try and they are always appreciated.
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7 comments:
I'll admit I haven't read the entire Orlov presentation but after skimming through it ... calling it a 'doom and gloom outlier' is probably an understatement.
So I suppose the end of capitalism as we know it is right around the corner, eh? A collapse of the US ecomomy certainly won't have any effect on the rest of the world...right?
His USSR/US comparisons are just plain silly - I especially enjoyed the part about the Soviet citizens being more prepared to deal with an economic collapse because...well, because they were used to living under horrible conditions!
yes TomK. My wife and I are moving to a cave in East Timor.
Here's just one small example of how Orlov ingores facts when making his argument. Slide 5 -"Out of control military budgets"
Really? The US military budget is 4% of GDP and has been in a long term downtrend for the past 5 decades.
http://www.truthandpolitics.org/military-relative-size.php
His slides on health/fitness are even more idiotic. Any guess on what the life expectancy is for a Russian male? 58.
Pour me another fifth of vodka.
58 years? No, that would be more like Brazil. Russian males currently enjoy a life expectancy of nearly 62 yrs.
http://tinyurl.com/ufrgx
Unless they happen to piss off the Kremlin and start to mysteriously glow a bright green.
(And I didn't know Russian livers could survive for 62 years. Hmmmmmm)
Here's a random tidbit-
There's a retired math professor from Canada named Peter Ponzo who has a website full of cool financial spreadsheets: http://www.gummy-stuff.org/
Check out his new Correlations/30 stocks spreadsheet. Pretty damn cool.
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