In recent months a great deal has been written regarding the wildly different recoveries underway in the world’s developed and emerging economies. With the U.S. economy held in check by still mounting job losses and western Europe has facing a potential debt crisis, the world’s developing economies have emerged as the primary drivers of global growth. Much of the attention has focused on the BRIC bloc of countries, but the relative success of emerging and frontier economies goes far beyond Brazil and China. [click to continue…]
Van Eck, the ETF issuer behind international ETFs targeting several emerging and frontier markets, announced today the launch of the Egypt Index ETF (EGPT). The new fund is designed to track the performance of the Market Vectors Egypt Index, a benchmark measuring the performance of publicly traded companies that are domiciled and primarily listed on an exchange in Egypt or that generate at least 50% of their revenues in Egypt. EGPT joins existing Van Eck funds focusing on Vietnam, Indonesia, Poland, and Russia, among others. [click to continue…]
New York-based Van Eck launched on Wednesday the Market Vectors Poland ETF (PLND), a fund that will track the 26-company Market Vectors Poland Index. PLND will trade on the NYSE Arca Exchange and charge an expense ratio of 76 basis points. Unlike most single-country international ETFs, which tend to be dominated by holdings in multi-national [...]
Yesterday in Egypt, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao offered $10 billion in concessional loans to Africa over the next three years, describing China as a “true and tested friend” of the African people. Wen also pledged to build 100 new clean energy projects for Africa in an effort to support the development of green economies in [...]
Energy giant Exxon Mobil has agreed to buy a minority stake in an oil field off the coast of Ghana for $4 billion, the company’s first major purchase in nearly ten years. Exxon is purchasing a 23.5% stake in the Jubilee field from Dallas-based Kosmos Energy, an oil and gas exploration company that was part [...]
The ETF industry has expanded by leaps and bounds in recent years, with new issuers entering the arena and countless new product launches that offer investors the ability to gain exposure to various geographic regions and investment styles. The first ETFs were essentially “plain vanilla” products that mirrored widely-followed equity benchmarks. Today, the vast majority [...]
“The only man I envy is the man who has not yet been to Africa, for he has so much to look forward to”.
- Anonymous 19th century quote
News that the Egyptian President is visiting Washington to meet with President Obama is certain to be major news in the north African nation. But coverage of Hosni Mubarak’s trip to D.C. this week has been focused not on the topics to be covered with Obama (the two leaders will discuss the Middle East peace [...]
Many investors who had the resolve to keep their equity holdings in place as global markets plunged to new lows in the first few months of 2009 were the beneficiaries of a familiar gift from an old friend. Emerging markets, which have regularly enhanced investor returns in recent years (well, prior to 2008 at least) [...]
Although it’s doubtful that anyone keeps track of such things, I’d venture to guess that ‘crisis’ has become one of the most popular words in the American lexicon over the last two years. The prevalence of the word in newspaper headlines and everyday conversation is an indication of just how bad the past few years have been. [...]
