?We are still in the gravitational pull of the Great Recession. I would have to put the likelihood of a double dip recession now up to 50%,? said my old UC Berkeley economics professor, Robert
?Earnings models that have worked over the last 10, 20, or 30 years don?t hold water anymore,? said Paul Schatz, president of Heritage Capital.
Feel Like Investing in a State Sponsor of Terrorism? How about a country whose leaders have stolen $400 billion in the last decade and have seen 300 foreign workers kidnapped? Another country lost four wars in the last 40 years. Still interested? How about a country that suffers one of the world?s highest AIDs rates, endures regular insurrections where all of the Westerners get massacred, and racked up 5 million dead in a continuous civil war?
Then, Africa is the place for you, the world?s largest source of gold, diamonds, chocolate, and cobalt! The countries above are Nigeria, Egypt, and the Congo. Below the radar of the investment community since the colonial days, the Dark Continent has recently been attracting the attention of large hedge funds and private equity firms.
Goldman Sachs has set up Emerging Capital Partners, which has already invested $2 billion there. China sees the writing on the wall, and has launched a latter day colonization effort, taking a 20% equity stake in South Africa?s Standard Bank, the largest on the continent. There are now thought to be over one million Chinese agricultural workers in Africa.
In fact, foreign direct investment last year jumped from $53 billion to $61 billion, while cross border M & A leapt from $10.2 billion to $26.3 billion. The angle here is that all of the terrible headlines above are in the price, that prices are very low, and the perceived risk is much greater than actual risk.
Price earnings multiples are low single digits, cash flows are huge, and returns of capital within two years are not unheard of. These numbers remind me of those found in Japan during the fifties, right after it lost WWII.
The reality is that Africa?s 900 million have unlimited demand for almost everything, and there is scant supply, with many firms enjoying local monopolies. The big plays are your classic early emerging market targets, like banking, telecommunications, electric power, and other infrastructure.
For example, in the last decade, the number of telephones has soared from 350,000 to 10 million. It?s like the early days of investing in China in the seventies, when the adventurous only played when they could double their money in two years, because the risks were so high.
This is definitely not for day traders. If you are willing to give up a lot of short term liquidity for a high long term return, then look at the Market Vectors Africa Index ETF (AFK), which has 29% of its holdings in South Africa and 20% in Nigeria. There is also the SPDR S&P Emerging Middle East & Africa ETF (GAF). For more of a rifle shot, entertain the iShares MSCI South Africa Index Fund (EZA).
Meet Your New Partner
Where is the 2012 London Olympics turning to meet gargantuan cost overruns? None other than BP, which is going the extra mile to burnish its tarnished image.
With the British economy mired in a vicious financial crisis, many are wondering if hosting the games was such a great idea. The original plan was to convert the one square mile, Lower Lea Valley site into a new suburb, and sell the condos to speculative buyers at high prices.
Market conditions today couldn?t be more hostile. Cost overruns have pushed the budget from $4.9 billion to a back breaking $14 billion. It turns out that protecting a global audience from suicide bombers doesn?t come cheap. The East London neighborhood is so bad that ?when you take the tube out there, life expectancy declines with every stop,? said one staffer.
A profusion of undiscovered WWII bombs, a Stone Age cemetery, and a toxic waste dump have also caused delays. When I lived in England I flew over this area weekly to skirt the Eastern edge of the London air traffic control zone, and I will be charitable in calling this place an industrial wasteland.
The last time the British attempted a major project like this, the 2000 Millennium Park, multibillion dollar losses resulted. But who can forget that great film Chariots of Fire, which idolized the success of British runners in the 1924 Olympics? Maybe it?s worth it for the Brits after all? Just watch that delegation from Afghanistan carefully.
My former employer, The Economist, once the ever tolerant editor of my flabby, disjointed, and juvenile prose (Thanks Peter and Marjorie), has released its ?Big Mac? index of international currency valuations (click here for the story).
Although initially launched as a joke three decades ago, I have followed it religiously and found it an amazingly accurate predictor of future economic success. The index counts the cost of McDonald?s (MCD) premium sandwich around the world, ranging from $7.20 in Norway to $1.78 in Argentina, and comes up with a measure of currency under and over valuation. What are its conclusions today? The Swiss franc, the Brazilian real, and the Euro are overvalued, while the Hong Kong dollar, the Chinese Yuan, and the Thai Baht are cheap.
I couldn?t agree more with many of these conclusions. It?s as if the august weekly publication was tapping The Diary of the Mad Hedge Fund Trader for ideas. I am no longer the frequent consumer of Big Macs that I once was, as my metabolism has slowed to such an extent that in eating one, you might as well tape it to my ass. Better to use it as an economic forecasting tool, than a speedy lunch.
The Big Mac in Yen is Definitely Not a Buy
?When the fools are dancing, the greater fools are watching,? according to an old Japanese proverb.
I have just finished leisurely reading Tom Standage?s book The Victorian Internet: The Remarkable Story of the Telegraph and the Nineteenth Century On-Line Pioneers.
Standage discusses the creation and development of the telegraph system and how it revolutionized communication in the nineteenth century. The book claims that Modern Internet users are in many ways the heirs of the telegraphic tradition, meaning that how people used the telegraph during the nineteenth century parallels how people use the Internet today.
Standage goes on to suggest that by studying how the telegraph developed and created certain trends in society, we can learn a lot about the challenges, opportunities, and pitfalls of the Internet today. From discussing the social impact of both systems with the development of online social interactions to the way that business and work was revolutionized, the book has it all!
You can laugh about how Victorians flirted and developed romantic connections over Morse code and you can marvel at the way getting more rapid information, particularly with the invention of the stock ticker, allowed financial markets to emerge and grow. If you Bloomberg slaves are looking for an educational and entertaining read, click here.
My friend, Ian Bremmer of the Eurasia Group, a global risk analyst who I regularly follow, will soon publish another book entitled The End of the Free Markets: Who Wins the War Between States and Corporations. I find this highly depressing, as it takes me as long to read one of Ian?s books as it takes him to write another one. To read a review of his highly insightful tome published in 2008, The Fat Tail: The Power of Political Knowledge for Strategic Investing, please click here. The world is reaching a tipping point. For the past 40 years, global multinationals with unfettered access to capital, consumer, and labor markets have driven the world economy. There is now a new competitor on the scene, the ?state capitalist,? where political considerations trump economic ones in the allocation of resources. Of course, China is the main player, joined by several other emerging nations. The middle kingdom has posted double digit annual growth for the past 30 years without freedom of speech, economic rules of the road, and independent judiciary, and credible property rights. China?s leadership is clearly worried that Western style freedoms will enable wealth to be generated outside their control and be used to orchestrate their overthrow. Private Western companies can only engage in transactions, which stand on their own economically and deliver the short-term profits, which their shareholders demand. In China, long term political goals enable them to pay through the nose to obtain stable supplies of oil, gas, minerals, and materials. That keeps the country?s massive work force employed, off the streets, and politically neutered. The bottom line is that there are now two competing forms of capitalism. The recent financial crisis has accelerated their entrance to the global stage, moving us from a G7 to a G20 dominated world. Globalization is not ending, but it is definitely entering a new chapter. For those of us who read tea leaves to ascertain long term economic trends, this will be a must read. ? 
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Sometimes we stare so long at a door that is closing that we see too late the one that is open,? said Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone.
Come join me for the Mad Hedge Fund Trader?s Global Strategy Seminar, which I will be conducting in New York, NY on Thursday, July 5, 2012. Coffee, tea, and soft drinks will be provided, but no food. A PowerPoint presentation will be followed by an extended question and answer period.
I?ll be giving you my up to date view on stocks, bonds, foreign currencies, commodities, precious metals, and real estate. And to keep you in suspense, I?ll be throwing a few surprises out there too. Enough charts, tables, graphs, and statistics will be thrown at you to keep your ears ringing for a week. Tickets are available for $250.
The seminar should run from 2:00 PM to 5:00 PM. I?ll be arriving an hour early and leaving late in case anyone wants to have a one on one discussion, or just sit around and chew the fat about the financial markets.
The seminar will be held at a prestigious private club near Central Park, the details of which will be emailed to you with your purchase confirmation.
I look forward to meeting you, and thank you for supporting my research. To purchase tickets for the luncheons, please go to my online store at http://madhedgefundradio.com/, click on ?LUNCHEONS?, and scroll down to the New York seminar.
