The Worldwide Investor

Some countries win and other countries lose. While the fortunes of a certain geographic area of the world certainly can change over times, there are some areas in the world that are doomed to poverty forever. One of those areas is Pakistan. [Read more →]

The week ending July 4th, 2008 was a bloodbath for world equity markets. Of the major indexes, only 2 were positive for the week overall: Austria, which gained 1%, and the Czech Republic which skyrocketed 7%, despite the financial stress in the system globally. The worst performing markets got crushed, with the Pacific Rim containing 6 of the bottom 10 performing equity markets for the week overall. Outside of Asia, Ireland, Brazil, and Chile were the worst performers, dropping between 6-8% each, with Turkey putting up the worst numbers, dropping an outrageous 10% in a single week. [Read more →]

Stocks throughout Asia have been getting hammered recently, as the worldwide financial crisis worsens, and has reached virtually every country on the planet. The Japanese stock market index has now been on a consecutive losing streak of 12 days, its longest such streak in 5 decades. [Read more →]

For years now, the Euro currency has been on a tear, killing the US dollar and most of the world’s other currencies along with it. If we look solely at the Euro/Dollar relationship, the past few years has not been that big of a surprise. The Dollar has huge debts hanging on its shoulders and external debt is mounting by the day to the tunes of billions of dollars thanks to Asian central banks. The printing press in Washington is increasing the supply of dollars every day, debasing and devaluing the currency, and inflation is being totally ignored by Mr. Bernanke & company, leading to lower interest rates, despite oil rising to $140/barrel. The Euro on the other hand, has strict requirements on balance of trade figures, and has been far more hawkish on inflation than its US counterparts. This one way relationship, however, has gone to such an extreme, that virtually everyone on the planet is bearish on the Dollar. While certainly the Euro is a better currency than the greenback, the US economy is still far more potent than the ticking time bomb in Western Europe. The Euro bubble has reached its climax, and will reverse course over the next 2-3 years in major way. [Read more →]

A media war recently has pitted the former “guru” of central banking against pundits who claim that he is to blame for the current housing crisis. Mr. Can-Do-No-Wrong of the 1990s is now being accused of sacrificing the long term to save the short term crisis that existed when the tech bubble burst. How much of an effect did long lasting low interest rates have on the housing bubble in America, that is now threatening to throw the economy into a recession, or possibly worse? And is Greenspan’s argument that the run-up in housing being a worldwide phenomenon exalt him of any wrong doing in this matter? Those issues are discussed below. [Read more →]

Warren Buffet announced today on CNBC that he offered to insure the bond insurers, on their municipal bonds. This is a fairly significant event in the world of finance, as many analysts begin to wonder how dire the debt markets may become. The largest question in this situation is that of Mr. Buffet’s motive. Does he believe the situation is over exaggerated, and he saw this as an opportunity to profit by going where few others dare to go, or does he believe the situation is so dire, that if the municipalities were to go bankrupt, that it could take down the whole financial market as we know it. [Read more →]

In another sign of China’s burgeoning economy, the China Petroleum and Chemical Industry Association reported that output of natural gas in the country grew at an astounding 23% in 2007. This gain was on top of a 19% gain the year before and puts China’s total natural gas output at 58 billion cubic meters for the year ending 2007. [Read more →]

Britain, which has been in a bull market for the past 15 years, may be the most vulnerable country to the financial debacle currently going on in the world’s credit markets. [Read more →]

While much of the western world takes rice for granted, it is the staple crop through most of Asia, providing the people of that region with the majority of their daily nourishment. The quadrupling of prices over the past 5 years has meant that many of the region’s poor have struggled just to obtain food, despite the tremendous pace of economic growth on the entire continent. Many of the poor farmers of Thailand, though, have been reaping the rewards of sky high rice prices. [Read more →]

The biggest winner over the past few years have been a little known metal known as Rhodium. While gold has been on the news every day now that it is up 300% , and oil up 600%, many people would be surprised to know that over the past 5 years, Rhodium is up an astonishing 2000%. The metal, which was trading as low as $380/oz, is now trading above $7,200/oz. [Read more →]