Ask six market analysts what they think about Chinese stocks and you’re liable to get a dozen answers. Those opinions will range from frighteningly bearish to unabashedly bullish. On the bull side is China’s still enviable economic growth, which should be about 7% in 2015. The bulls say that’s not bad, but it’s a huge slowdown, as well as a far cry from the double-digit percentage growth of years past. Well, you know what they say about opinions — everybody has one, or in the case of China, everyone has at least one.  So, rather than rely on… Read More

Ask six market analysts what they think about Chinese stocks and you’re liable to get a dozen answers. Those opinions will range from frighteningly bearish to unabashedly bullish. On the bull side is China’s still enviable economic growth, which should be about 7% in 2015. The bulls say that’s not bad, but it’s a huge slowdown, as well as a far cry from the double-digit percentage growth of years past. Well, you know what they say about opinions — everybody has one, or in the case of China, everyone has at least one.  So, rather than rely on opinions to guide my trading, I prefer to rely on hard data — and there’s no harder data out there than share price performance. One of my favorite Chinese stocks, and my favorite international pick for 2015, is Baidu (NASDAQ: BIDU). #-ad_banner-#The company dominates China’s Internet search market with an 82% market share by revenue, according to data from iResearch. Ironically, Baidu can be considered “China’s Google.” I say ironically, because Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) actually is a distant second in the Chinese search market.  Over the past six months, the stock is up an impressive 34%. That performance… Read More

Belgium, Finland, Germany, Hungary and Denmark deserve a tip of the cap. They are the only major economies that have actually reduced their gross external debt levels over the past two years, according to the World Bank. Said another way, every other major economy in the world has taken on… Read More

As an American expat living in Colombia, I have had a first-hand view of the major economic changes taking place across South America.                            #-ad_banner-#​I first warned investors in November of last year that Brazil was heading for fiscal ruin and highlighted Petrobras (NYSE: PBR) as an underperformer, just before the state-controlled oil giant tumbled lower. Though Brazilian stocks received a pre-election bounce this past summer, I again warned investors that a likely… Read More

As an American expat living in Colombia, I have had a first-hand view of the major economic changes taking place across South America.                            #-ad_banner-#​I first warned investors in November of last year that Brazil was heading for fiscal ruin and highlighted Petrobras (NYSE: PBR) as an underperformer, just before the state-controlled oil giant tumbled lower. Though Brazilian stocks received a pre-election bounce this past summer, I again warned investors that a likely political outcome would bring fresh bad news for Brazilian stocks. Since then, the iShares MSCI Brazil Fund (NYSEMKT: EWZ) has tumbled 20%. As bad as it looks for the region, especially for powerhouse economies like Brazil and Argentina, things could get a lot worse in 2015. Even the seemingly healthier Chilean and Colombian economies may not be safe for investors over the next twelve months. But can you afford to completely neglect stocks of Latin American companies? After all, the region is still expected to post GDP growth of more than 2% in 2015… Read More

Don’t get distracted by the alphabet soup of emerging market investing — there are other areas to get quality foreign exposure than just through BRIC or MINT countries. U.S. equities have bounced back since their October stumble, but the drop no doubt threw some investors for a loop. Although the bulls seem to have taken over again, I’ve turned some of my attention toward finding good yields and diversification elsewhere. That means going abroad — to one country in particular. #-ad_banner-#The island nation of Taiwan occupies a space of less than 14,000 square miles, but the sovereign state manages to… Read More

Don’t get distracted by the alphabet soup of emerging market investing — there are other areas to get quality foreign exposure than just through BRIC or MINT countries. U.S. equities have bounced back since their October stumble, but the drop no doubt threw some investors for a loop. Although the bulls seem to have taken over again, I’ve turned some of my attention toward finding good yields and diversification elsewhere. That means going abroad — to one country in particular. #-ad_banner-#The island nation of Taiwan occupies a space of less than 14,000 square miles, but the sovereign state manages to rank as the 18th-largest economy in the world by GDP. Strong ties to technology and consumer electronics have left the country with a laundry list of mature, cash-rich companies both forging their own paths and riding the coattails of hardware giants like Apple. Despite this, Taiwan is still viewed as an emerging market, not yet fit to be bestowed with “developed” status by investing benchmarks. Don’t be swayed by the terminology, however, as the increased global shipment of smart phones helped boost GDP growth and push down the jobless rate to 3.99%.  In comparison, the U.S. jobless rate sits at… Read More

There’s been much talk lately of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. (NYSE: BABA). On Nov. 4, the company announced its first earnings call since going public, and it went pretty well. Company shares ended up 4.2% for the day, an increase of 14% since the company’s debut on the New York Stock Exchange. It’s safe to say shareholders are happy with the performance — especially SoftBank Corp. (OTC: SFTBF), an ambitious Japanese firm with a 32% stake in Alibaba. At yesterday’s closing price, SoftBank turned a $20 million investment in BABA into just north of $91 billion. Read More

There’s been much talk lately of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. (NYSE: BABA). On Nov. 4, the company announced its first earnings call since going public, and it went pretty well. Company shares ended up 4.2% for the day, an increase of 14% since the company’s debut on the New York Stock Exchange. It’s safe to say shareholders are happy with the performance — especially SoftBank Corp. (OTC: SFTBF), an ambitious Japanese firm with a 32% stake in Alibaba. At yesterday’s closing price, SoftBank turned a $20 million investment in BABA into just north of $91 billion. #-ad_banner-#While it’s widely considered to be a telecommunications giant, SoftBank looks more like a venture capital firm — with an investment portfolio spread out over more than 1,300 companies. SoftBank’s CEO Masayoshi Son even outlined an aggressive long-term acquisition plan to invest in 5,000 companies by 2040. Presently the firm is on track to reach that target and has enjoyed plenty of success along the way. It’s no surprise that SoftBank is Japan’s second largest public company by market capitalization. Given the latest success in Alibaba, the company is in a great position to continue fueling… Read More

Though investors don’t always capitalize on it, history has a way of repeating itself. In fact, when I saw this last trend, I had to dust off my DVD copy of Back to the Future just to reminisce. If you’ve been around long enough, you no doubt remember the prevailing fear that Japan was going to own the United States through its massive buying of real estate in the 1980s. #-ad_banner-#​Back then, strong economic growth in Japan drove a buying spree for U.S. commercial property and businesses. A weakening dollar after the historic… Read More

Though investors don’t always capitalize on it, history has a way of repeating itself. In fact, when I saw this last trend, I had to dust off my DVD copy of Back to the Future just to reminisce. If you’ve been around long enough, you no doubt remember the prevailing fear that Japan was going to own the United States through its massive buying of real estate in the 1980s. #-ad_banner-#​Back then, strong economic growth in Japan drove a buying spree for U.S. commercial property and businesses. A weakening dollar after the historic 1985 Plaza Accord made dollar-denominated assets cheaper and foreign investors jumped in to take advantage of the opportunity. Nearly 30 years later and we seem to be right back to where we started. It looks like stronger U.S. economic growth and a surging dollar is driving foreign investment this time but the ultimate effect is still the same; real estate prices in the United States are heading higher. Take a lesson from history and position your portfolio to take advantage of a foreign buying spree in real estate. The Greenback Makes A Comeback While… Read More

Now that the dust has settled on the widely heralded IPO for Alibaba (NYSE: BABA), investors have a clear sense of the company’s powerful market presence. Its $200 billion market value makes it the world’s fifth largest TMT (technology, media and telecom) company after Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL), Google (NASDAQ: GOOGL), Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) and China Mobile (NYSE: CHL). Part of Alibaba’s appeal is its presence in the world’s fastest-growing entertainment market — China.  While Alibaba has been attracting all the attention, there’s another little-known Chinese company that is capitalizing on the increase in the country’s entertainment spending. With a market… Read More

Now that the dust has settled on the widely heralded IPO for Alibaba (NYSE: BABA), investors have a clear sense of the company’s powerful market presence. Its $200 billion market value makes it the world’s fifth largest TMT (technology, media and telecom) company after Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL), Google (NASDAQ: GOOGL), Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) and China Mobile (NYSE: CHL). Part of Alibaba’s appeal is its presence in the world’s fastest-growing entertainment market — China.  While Alibaba has been attracting all the attention, there’s another little-known Chinese company that is capitalizing on the increase in the country’s entertainment spending. With a market cap around $350 million, Bona Film Group (NASDAQ: BONA) has become the value-oriented opportunity for the Chinese entertainment sector, namely its fledgling movie industry. Chinese Film Market Large and Growing China is the second largest film market in the world, behind North America. Box office revenue grew 27% in 2013 to around $3.6 billion, but that is still roughly one-third of the U.S. take. On any given day, more than a dozen new screens are added around the country, which has pushed the total number past 20,000. #-ad_banner-#​The Chinese government keeps a close regulatory hand on this industry,… Read More

Less than a month ago, a little-noticed event took place in Asia that should catch every investor’s attention: the Vietnamese government gave the green light for an initial public offering of Vietnam Airlines, slated to take place next month. It’s one of many assets that  historically were owned by the government. With this announcement, the clock is ticking for a long-awaited program to privatize a range of other government assets. #-ad_banner-#Vietnam is following the playbook of other emerging markets by letting the private sector have a greater hand in key industries. In the Philippines, for example, a privatization process has… Read More

Less than a month ago, a little-noticed event took place in Asia that should catch every investor’s attention: the Vietnamese government gave the green light for an initial public offering of Vietnam Airlines, slated to take place next month. It’s one of many assets that  historically were owned by the government. With this announcement, the clock is ticking for a long-awaited program to privatize a range of other government assets. #-ad_banner-#Vietnam is following the playbook of other emerging markets by letting the private sector have a greater hand in key industries. In the Philippines, for example, a privatization process has been underway for a number of years. Its citizens are now reaping the rewards. According to the International Monetary Fund, the Filipino economy grew 7.2% in 2013 and is expected to grow at a 6.5% pace in both 2014 and 2015. Vietnam’s economy has also been in growth mode, but has not yet reached its full potential, in large part to still-high levels of government ownership in key industries. Investors have surely taken note. Since late 2010, when iShares MSCI Philippines ETF (Nasdaq: EPHE) was launched, it has outperformed the Market Vectors Vietnam ETF (NYSE: VNM) by roughly 60 percentage… Read More

If you are like most Americans, you have the majority of your stock holdings in U.S.-based companies. It’s called “home-country bias,” and it can be a huge mistake. Think about it… The company you work for is likely based in the United States. If you own a home, then you have exposure to the U.S. real estate market. In other words, your entire financial livelihood is based entirely in the United States. It’s not hard to see why this could be a problem. Your income and the value of your home are completely tied… Read More

If you are like most Americans, you have the majority of your stock holdings in U.S.-based companies. It’s called “home-country bias,” and it can be a huge mistake. Think about it… The company you work for is likely based in the United States. If you own a home, then you have exposure to the U.S. real estate market. In other words, your entire financial livelihood is based entirely in the United States. It’s not hard to see why this could be a problem. Your income and the value of your home are completely tied to the United States, so why choose to do the same with your portfolio? Not only is this risky, but it can be extremely limiting when it comes to your portfolio’s performance — especially for retirement accounts and long-term holdings. According to research from Credit Suisse and the London Business School, since 1964, U.S. equities have produced an average annual return of 5.8%. That’s okay, but not as good as the UK market, which posted an average annual return of 6%. The U.S. also lagged far behind South Africa’s 8.2% annual return and Sweden’s… Read More

Utilities have been one of the top-performing sectors this year, outdistancing the S&P 500 with total returns of better than 13% versus just 6% for the benchmark index. Canadian utilities stocks have also trumped the U.S. equity index with robust 8% returns. As central banks in both Canada and the United States have kept interest rates at historic lows, risk-averse income investors have moved into safe dividend stocks like utilities in lieu of bonds. #-ad_banner-#Despite the gains, Canadian utilities, as represented in the S&P/TSX Capped Utilities Index, still offer an attractive 4.4% average yield — compared with just 3.8% for… Read More

Utilities have been one of the top-performing sectors this year, outdistancing the S&P 500 with total returns of better than 13% versus just 6% for the benchmark index. Canadian utilities stocks have also trumped the U.S. equity index with robust 8% returns. As central banks in both Canada and the United States have kept interest rates at historic lows, risk-averse income investors have moved into safe dividend stocks like utilities in lieu of bonds. #-ad_banner-#Despite the gains, Canadian utilities, as represented in the S&P/TSX Capped Utilities Index, still offer an attractive 4.4% average yield — compared with just 3.8% for their U.S. peers and 1.8% for the S&P 500. As interest rates normalize, bonds could compete with yield plays and also raise the cost of capital for utilities. But central banks rates are expected to raise rates slowly over the next 12 months, by only 50 basis points in Canada and 75 basis points in the United States, according to Bloomberg consensus estimates. Meanwhile, utility stocks should continue to benefit from low interest rates for the foreseeable future. Canadian utilities operate much like those in the United States. As in the Unites States, the rates charged for transmitting and distributing… Read More