Category: General Investing

Changes at the Margin – How to Prepare for a Disorderly Move

In a past life, while still in the clutches of the investment banking world, I’d made a few friends in the “trading fraternity” and visited them on a regular basis for work and social reasons. When it came to markets, opinions varied little within the group. Traders were unanimously bullish

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IPO’s, Liquidity, Bonds and Banking in Mongolia

Given our bullishness on Mongolia and our trusted relationship with Eric Zurrin from Rescap Securities, we wanted to reach out and get Eric’s current thoughts on the Mongolian equity market, liquidity, banking and upcoming deal flow. Pertinent to this post was something that happened after our interview with Eric. Mongolia’s

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How to Invest in Frontier Markets

Investing in frontier markets is a challenge due to lack of liquidity and significant set-up times. One way to circumvent these problems is to Invest in other people’s expertise through a managed fund. We work hard to associate ourselves with smart individuals where we can reciprocate value. This not only

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Dancing the Contango

The other day I received an investment note from a long-time reader of ours, Mark Schumacher. Mark is the portfolio manager at ThinkGrowth in Massachussets. In general, Mark has looked at the relationship between ETF’s that track the price of commodities, and the tracking error and contango that almost inevitably occurs.

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Mongolia – Time to Jump Back In?

Ganzorig Ulziibayar is the President of Mandal Insurance and Chairman at Mandal Asset Management, an investment management company in Mongolia. He has been involved in the Mongolian capital markets for a decade and it shows when you speak with him. Street savvy with an in-depth understanding of how Mongolia works.

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Pray Tell What Happens When…

Friedrich Von Hayek’s Road to Serfdom was first published a full 68 years ago. Hayek argues convincingly that all forms of socialism and central economic planning ultimately lead to tyranny. Interestingly, he argues also that this tyranny will come to us from people of good intentions and not from the

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The Risks of (Not) Investing in Frontier Markets – Central Asia

Today we’ll conclude our conversation about Central Asia with Clemente Cappello from Sturgeon Capital. Corporate governance, transparency and management are three things you need to focus on when doing your due diligence, but that’s just the beginning. ——– Chris: Corporate governance is always an issue in frontier markets. How do

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A Beginner’s Guide to the “Stans”

This is part two of our discussion with Clemente Cappello from Sturgeon Capital… We’re discussing Central Asia. Yesterday Clemente shared the 3 Things you Need to Know About Central Asian Frontier Markets with us. Today we’ll talk more about banking, business and liquidity flows in Frontier Markets, like Kazakhstan. ——–

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