Special report: Are the days of “big gold” over? As cash pressures mount, gold majors move to mine the markets, which are proving more lucrative than the mining of gold. Built on a Lie - The Fundamental Flaw of Europe’s Common Currency A new forecast from RBC Economics says Canada’s economy is poised for real GDP growth of 3.1 per cent this year and 3.9 per cent in 2011. Canadian economy ready for major rebound, RBC says Debt doom ahead US Congre...

China was the world’s largest economy before 1890. According to Professor Angus Maddison, author of the Chinese Economic Performance in the Long Run, China’s role in the world has changed dramatically in the last thousand years and China is likely to become the world’s largest economy by 2015 beating the US. The author mentioned that China’s economic growth in the next 30 years will not be diminished due to the recent global credit crisis. The graph below shows the possib...

Last month the Global Finance magazine announced the awards for the best banks in the developed world for this year. The winners were selected in 25 countries excluding Ireland and Iceland. From the magazine report: “All selections were made by the editors of Global Finance, after extensive consultations with bankers, corporate financial executives and analysts throughout the world. In selecting these top banks, we considered factors that range from the quantitative objective to the inform...

The Dow Jones Switzerland Titans 30 Index tracks the performance of 30 leading stocks in traded in Switzerland. The stocks in this index are selected based on float-adjusted market capitalization and average trading volume. The Top 10 components in the Dow Jones Switzerland Titans 30 Index are: 1. Company: Novartis AG (NVS) Sector: Health Care Current Dividend Yield: 3.66% 2. Company: Nestle S.A. (OTC: NSRGY) Sector: Consumer Goods Current Dividend Yield: 2.45% 3. Company: Roche Holding AG (OTC:...

The city state of Singapore was not affected severely during the financial crisis and is now well positioned to benefit from a rebound in the global economy. The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for December 2009 was just 2.1%. As a major hub for international trade and commerce, for January this year total trade was up 33.2% and the industrial production was also up significantly. Tourist arrivals increased about 18% in January compared to the same month last year (Source: Statistics Singa...

For the past few months the Greek debt crisis has been the focus of investors worldwide as the major European countries try to figure out a solution to solve the crisis. Due to politics and the integration of many countries under the common currency, the crisis does not appear to end very soon. In addition to Greece, Portugal, Ireland, Italy and Spain (collectively dubbed as PIIGS by traders) are also suffering from high deficits. Despite the current chaos  in the European Union, some good inve...

The Australian Financial Review Smart Investor published the list of stocks with the highest dividend yields among the largest companies on the Australian Stock Exchange. From the article titled Downunder Dogs: “Flea-bitten may be a bit harsh for some of these stocks but they are nevertheless this month’s Downunder Dogs – the stocks with the highest dividend yields among the largest 50 companies on the Australian Stock Exchange. So what qualifies them as dogs? If you make the rather ...

Australia is a developed country with a population of about 22 million. The country is rich in many natural resources and is ranked highly in many global comparisons of factors such as quality of life, healthcare, education, etc. Australia is similar to Canada in that both the countries have parliamentary democracy and are commodity-based economies.  Australia, known as the “The Lucky Country”, offers many advantages as an investment destination. The following are some of the reas...

We reviewed the ten German stocks with high dividend yields last December. In this post lets take another look at the top German stocks that pay high dividends. One of the ETFs that is focused on German equities with high dividends is the ETFlab DAXplus® Maximum Dividend ETF.  This ETF tracks the DAXplus® Maximum Dividend Index and contains 20 stocks that with the highest dividend yield forecast. The Top 10 Constituents in the ETFLab DAXplus® Maximum Dividend ETF are: 1. Deutsche Telecom (D...

Many foreign stocks trading as ADRs in the US markets have above average dividend yields. The following 11 stocks pay dividends of over 5% as of the February 26, 2010: 1. YPF SA(YPF) Current Dividend Yield: 7.85% Country: Argentina Sector: Integrated Oil & Gas 2. TOTAL (TOT) Current Dividend Yield: 6.09% Country: France Sector: Integrated Oil & Gas 3. Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co(PHI) Current Dividend Yield: 5.75% Country: Philippines Sector: Telecom 4. ENI Spa(E) Current Divid...

While many of the investors are focused on the emerging markets, some brave and sophisticated investors are looking beyond the horizon and venturing into the frontier markets. Some examples of  the frontier markets are Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Morocco, Algeria, Lebanon, Colombia, Vietnam, etc. The prevailing low interest rates in many countries around the world and the rising demand for commodities are two of the reasons that are advantageous to frontier markets.  For example, rising crude oil an...

We have discussed about the U.S. healthcare system before a few times. On Thursday, the President hosted a day-long televised healthcare summit. It ended without a deal after many hours of bickering by both the parties. Its been more than a year since the President took office and yet the healthcare debate still rages on this country with no end in sight. Thousands of  hours have already been wasted by all those involved including lobbyists, politicians, company executives, media pundits, etc. ...

The Credit Suisse Research Institute released the 27 Great Brands of Tomorrow that have the potential to outperform the market in the next 3-5 years. Their research shows that “Strong brand companies have consistently generated out-sized long-term growth and returns for shareholders.” The 27 “Great Brands of Tomorrow” are: Alibaba.com Almarai Amazon (AMZN) Apple (APPL) BIM Capitec China Merchants Bank Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China Enfamil (MJN) Facebook Hyunda...

Recently we have added a “STOCK LISTS” tab on this site. The tab is on top of the site shown below: In this tab, we plan to add lists of stocks by sector so that it is easier for investors to access all stocks in a sector in one place. The stocks are listed in table format and are linked to Yahoo Finance. For example, all Railroad stocks are listed in one table for easier access. It must be noted that these lists include stocks from both the US and other countries traded in the US e...

With two months over for the equity markets lets take a quick look at the leading and lagging Latin American ADRs from a performance perspective. The five best performing Latin American ADRs YTD as of 2/26/10: 1. Banco De Chile (BCH) Country: Chile Sector: Banking YTD Change: 15.01% 2. GRUMA (GMK) Country: Mexico Sector: Food Producers YTD Change: 13.34% 3. Nortel Invesora (NTL) Country: Argentina Sector: Fixed Line Telecom YTD Change: 13.13% 4. Vina Concha y Toro (VCO) Country: Chile Sector: Be...

The chart below shows the performance of emerging markets over the decade and from March thru December 2009: Click to Enlarge Source: Credit Suisse Global Investment Yearbook 2010 Of the 24 countries listed above, Pakistan and Argentina are considered as Frontier Markets by index providers MSCI and S&P. FTSE views all the 24 countries as emerging markets. Israel was promoted to developed market in 2008 and South Korea in 2009. On an annualized return basis, Hungary tops the list followed by...

In an earlier post, we discussed about the companies from developed countries that have the potential to profit from emerging markets’ growth. Many companies in the emerging markets are already champions in their domestic markets and are poised to become global market leaders. This is especially true with BRIC companies. The economic power is projected to shift from the US and Western Europe to the emerging countries in Asia and Latin America in the next decade and beyond. Goldman Sachs n...

Companies from developed countries are increasingly investing heavily in emerging markets to participate in the tremendous growth. The BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) are the preferred destination for these companies. Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) fell sharply last year to $1 Trillion from $1.7 Trillion in 2008(Source: UNCTAD). However the overall trend of FDI flow is still up in the last decade since FDI into many of the emerging countries peaked in 2008. OECD Economist Javie...

The Dow Jones EURO STOXX Select Dividend 30 Index consists of the 30 high-dividend-yielding companies of the Eurozone. The Eurozone countries include Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain. The ETFlab DJ EURO STOXX® Select Dividend 30 ETF tracks the performance of the above index.  The Top 10 holdings in this ETF are: 1. Banco Santander (STD) Current Dividend Yield: 5.36% Spain 2.Vallourec France 3. Erste Group B...

The S&P’s Platinum Portfolio consists of the top rated stocks from the Standard & Poor’s Fair Value Portfolio and its Stock Appreciation Ranking System (STARS). To be eligible in this portfolio, all stocks must carry a 5-STARS rating and a Fair Value Ranking of 5. The table below lists the 5-STARS rated stocks in the portfolio as of February 19th: S.No. Company Ticker 1 Advance Auto Parts AAP 2 Aspen Insurance Holding AHL 3 Bucyrus In...