Falling out of love with the BRL?
Not so long ago everyone and their grandmother was buying it. But has the Brazilian real finally fallen out of favour with investors?
Central bank data show that Brazilian banks turned bearish on the real in September for the first time in 18 months. After recently accumulating bets on the Brazilian currency of up to $17bn in the spot market, local banks suddenly reversed their foreign exchange positions, switching to a total net short position on the real of $1.3bn. Continue reading »
Brazil: more graft allegations
Yet another minister in president Dilma Rousseff’s cabinet is fighting for his political life after a magazine published corruption allegations against him.
Orlando Silva, minister of sport, was accused of taking kickbacks by the weekly Veja magazine, putting in question Brazil’s preparations for the World Cup football final in 2014 and the Olympics two years later. Continue reading »
Chile’s Polar: on the brink?
The clock is ticking and unless a deal with creditors can be pulled off by November 7, when they vote on a rescue plan being put together by MBA Lazard, La Polar will go bankrupt, said a spokeswoman for the company.
Continue reading »
Pepsi: bullish on Russia
While investors in Russia have been complaining recently that the “country is going down the toilet” and that Vladimir Putin “is in la la land on the budget”, there are some groups that seem to be perfectly content about the country’s political and fiscal direction. Take for instance Pepsico.
Over the last decade, the company has invested $19bn in Russia, thanks to a close working relationship with the Kremlin leadership. And over the next two years, under Putin’s leadership, the company will invest an additional $1bn more, Indra Nooyi, Pepsico’s chief executive, said in Moscow on Monday after a meeting between Putin and global business leaders. Continue reading »
Dubai: oil for the people, not profit
You would have thought an oil company from one of the biggest oil-producing countries in the world would have no problem making money. But no: Emirates National Oil Co is begging for help after forecasting massive losses – despite sitting on the doorstep of some of the world’s largest oil reserves. Continue reading »
Life in Mumbai: blackouts, floods, deadly disease and other opportunities
The ceiling fans in south Mumbai stopped moving sometime in the wee hours of a typical 30-degree Sunday morning. On Monday evening, in much of the very heart of India’s financial centre, they had yet to get moving again.
Consultants, think-tankers and businesspeople alike decamped Monday to the diesel-generator-fuelled confines of five-star hotel business centres and the city’s few WiFi-enabled cafés. (This post was written from Le Pain Quotidien, just a few blocks from the city’s electric company and a 15-minute walk from the power station where a Sunday morning fire caused the blackout.) Continue reading »
CEE: more resilient than you think
As parts of the eurozone brace for a possible double-dip recession next year, the outlook for the emerging countries in central and eastern Europe looks a lot more resilient, according to a new report from Austria’s Erste Bank.
The key to the rosier outlook for the CEE region is that it looks to be a lot less vulnerable to external turbulence than was the case in 2008 and 2009. Continue reading »
Evraz: moving house to London
Roman Abramovich (pictured) is reinforcing his links with London. The oligarch is backing plans by Evraz, Russia’s biggest steel group where he is a key shareholder, to switch its main stock market listing from Luxembourg to London.
Evraz (EVR:LSE) said on Monday the change should raise its international profile, increase liquidity, secure eventual inclusion in the FTSE 100 index and demonstrate its commitment to good governance. It could also be good politics – Russian companies often see a well-publicised London or New York listing as a help in any battles they have to fight in Moscow. Continue reading »
Hong Kong’s golden bet
Hong Kong’s Chinese Gold & Silver Exchange Society, a membership-based physical market, became the first market outside China to trade in renminbi-priced gold on Monday.
The century old exchange makes the move as part of an increased push by Hong Kong into investments priced in the Chinese currency as well as an attempt to cash in on the booming demand for gold on the mainland – China’s demand for gold is still increasing and jumped nearly 40 per cent up to the second quarter of 2011 compared to 2010. Continue reading »
Hong Kong’s Filipinos: not funny
In the second of our occasional series, Sarah Mishkin meets Leo Deocadiz, editor of The Sun, voicepiece for the often put-upon community of Filipino maids in Hong Kong.
Leo Deocadiz’s business card tells you he is the publisher of The Sun, a Filipino newspaper in Hong Kong. But really, he says, he’s part editor, part social worker, part lawyer, and then some. “Sometimes it’s funny,” he says, and he chuckles. Then he adds: “It’s a Filipino trait, of laughing at things that sometimes aren’t funny.” Continue reading »
New York headlines
* BP agrees $4bn Anadarko settlement
* Tensions flare over oil in South China Sea
* Huawei goes on attack against US restrictions
* Walmart China loses two more executives Continue reading »
India’s universities: could do better
India is one of the greatest economic success stories of the past twenty years and its citizens swell the ranks of Forbes’s list of billionaires. But its higher education system lags far behind those of the developed nations it is leapfrogging economically. Continue reading »
EM stocks: a rally of sorts
Emerging market bond funds may have seen dramatic outflows in the past couple of weeks, but EM equities are on their longest streak for over a year – gaining for the ninth straight day on Monday.
The MSCI Emerging Markets Index rose 1.86 percent to 952, after surging 5.8 per cent last week – the most since July 2009. But before investors cheer unreservedly, a little context is worth bearing in mind. Continue reading »
China’s shadow banking: not so bad
Wenzhou has long been known for the unbridled entrepreneurial flair of its native businessmen. But, as people around the world have started to worry about a slowdown in the Chinese economy, Wenzhou in chameleon-like fashion has purportedly become an example of everything that is wrong with China’s economy. Continue reading »
Further reading: global trade
Monday’s top picks from the beyondbrics team: Lex on some very welcome free-trade agreements; China’s evolving economic model; India’s stalling export machine; and the border between Serbia and Kosovo.
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