In an era where a global financial crisis has been caused not by developments in Russia, South-East Asia or Argentina, but by banking insolvency in the United States and sovereign default risks in a eurozone member state, namely Greece, our panel of senior commentators discusses what it means to be an ‘emerging market’. Justin Patrie, [Read more...]

 

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After a rough 2009, Mexico’s economic fundamentals look set for a breather over the next couple of months, as exports, manufacturing and unemployment levels continue to benefit from unprecedented fiscal stimulus north of the border. If the US Federal Reserve opts to keep the monetary floodgates open for a while longer, this could translate into [Read more...]

In this week’s Business Monitor Podcast ‘role-reversal’ Terry Alexander, Head of Country Risk and Capital Markets at Business Monitor, interviews Mark Schaltuper, Head of Latin American Markets, on the investment outlook for Brazil in 2010. With much of the ‘Great Brazil Hype’ already priced in, Mark argues that the tide may be turning for Brazilian [Read more...]

 

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Most people are well aware that the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China) countries are big recipients of foreign direct investment (FDI). But they are also big sources of FDI.

In 2009, for the first time, emerging market outbound mergers and acquisitions (M&A) flows outpaced inbound M&A flows, reaching US$131.8bn, according to Dealogic. Most of these [Read more...]

Sugar has already been the star performer among agricultural commodities in 2009, but Risk Watchdog believes that the year-long ascent in prices could have further to run. Sugar began the year trading around USc14.00/lb region, but by September, had rallied all the way to USc26.00/lb. Since the summer, prices have edged lower as investors hesitated [Read more...]

The popularity and influence of Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, knows no bounds. As Lula enters his final year in office, his popularity continues to hover near record highs. Interestingly, as his ruling Partido dos Trabalhadores gears up for next year’s election (in which his chief of staff Dilma Rousseff is Lula’s hand-picked [Read more...]

Risk Watchdog and his colleagues at Business Monitor International (BMI) have grown very bullish Latin American currencies. Three views in particular stand out and form part of the BMI Global Key Market Views portfolio:

Last Friday, my colleagues at BMI initiated a long Chilean peso/short US dollar view, which hit the initial CLP510.00/US$ target within days, [Read more...]