Stockerblog submits:

Did you know that the Market Vectors Russia Exchange Traded Fund (RSX) has significantly outperformed the S&P 500 over the last two years. It has also outperformed over the last year, the last six months, and the last three months. Where has all this strength come from?

Russia has the world’s largest reserves of mineral resources and energy resources. It also has the world’s largest forest reserves. According to what the Russian government reports, the literacy rate is 99.4%. Of all the major economies, it has one of the lowest foreign debts. In addition, it has the fourth largest amount of farmland in the world, the world’s largest natural gas reserves, the second largest coal reserves in the world, the eighth largest oil reserves in the world, and is the fifth largest renewable energy producer in the world.

The following are some of the companies that are based in Russia

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Investment Underground submits:

By Scott A. Mathews

Russia, the world’s second largest producer of oil, is benefitting from turmoil in the Middle East. As OPEC announced yesterday that it will not increase supply to compensate for Libya, the barrel rose and Russia as a whole will benefit. Not only buoyed by news that analyst averages for the barrel have risen to $105/bl, Russia is also somewhat of a safe haven amongst emerging markets. While it certainly has problems, very large problems i.e. corruption, property rights enforcement, one thing it does not have (and in many ways contributes to the former) is political stability. At a time when expectations for emerging markets pull back from the altruistic and focus on the truly basic i.e. political and social stability, Russia emerges as a politically stable safe haven of emerging growth markets. With this bump in oil prices looking sustainable, Russia in many ways resembles a

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Carnegie Endowment submits:

Russia’s GDP growth, current account balance, and fiscal deficit all exceeded expectations in 2010, but it is inflation that dominates policy makers’ attention. As prices rise further, driven largely by causes outside of the government’s control, inflation could become a political problem. At the same time, policy makers are delaying needed economic reforms out of fear of inciting protests in the run-up to elections.

2010 Was Not So Bad

Russia’s economic performance in 2010 — 4 percent GDP growth, according to Rosstat’s preliminary estimate — pleased the government. It exceeded the Ministry of Economics’ December projection of 3.8 percent and, though the estimate is preliminary (it will be revised three times, starting this month), future revisions will not point to lower growth: Russia has entered its pre-election cycle and the government needs all of the positive developments it can get.

In reality, however, Rosstat’s estimate is questionable. First of all,

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David Hunkar submits:

Poland is one of the top performing markets among the emerging markets in Europe. Since the March-lows of 2009, the WIG index, the main index on the Warsaw Stock Exchange, has soared to close at 46,874 on Friday. The all-time high is about 67,500, which was reached in mid-2007.

Poland has a highly-skilled and educated workforce. The country is host to some of the major German and other European manufacturing firms. In fact, European powerhouse Germany is the largest trading partner of Poland. In addition to the manufacturing sector, Poland has a competitive edge in the service sector too. Proximity to the EU, a strong domestic consumer market and cheap labor are some of the major attractions for foreign firms investing in the

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For the past month or two I have been researching and organizing my thoughts on what I believe is an

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Dmytro Kulakovskyi submits:

Formerly represented by only a handful of fixed line operators, today’s Russian telecommunication sector consists of a diverse mix of publicly-traded and privately-owned mobile network operators, broadband internet providers and fixed line telephone companies. Unfortunately, only two of them are publicly traded in the U.S.: Vimpel-Communications (VIP) and Mobile Telesystems OJSC, also known as MTS (MBT). Nevertheless, with the two companies being industry leaders, they appear to be fairly efficient means of getting exposure to Russian telecoms. Below I will try to answer whether the sector is actually worth getting exposure to, and, if so, whether the two companies demonstrate attractive risk-return profiles.

Industry

As both VIP and MBT operate primarily in the industry of wireless services, instead of focusing on trends of the whole Russian telecom sector, I will study those directly pertaining to this particular segment.

Some of the key metrics are presented below to demonstrate the development

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Dmytro Kulakovskyi submits:

Formerly represented by only a handful of fixed line operators, today’s Russian telecommunication sector consists of a diverse mix of publicly-traded and privately-owned mobile network operators, broadband internet providers and fixed line telephone companies. Unfortunately, only two of them are publicly traded in the U.S.: Vimpel-Communications (VIP) and Mobile Telesystems OJSC, also known as MTS (MBT). Nevertheless, with the two companies being industry leaders, they appear to be fairly efficient means of getting exposure to Russian telecoms. Below I will try to answer whether the sector is actually worth getting exposure to, and, if so, whether the two companies demonstrate attractive risk-return profiles.

Industry

As both VIP and MBT operate primarily in the industry of wireless services, instead of focusing on trends of the whole Russian telecom sector, I will study those directly pertaining to this particular segment.

Some of the key metrics are presented below to demonstrate the development

Complete Story »

Emerging Money submits:

We are in Moscow talking about Russia today on Trading the Globe, watching the energy names in particular.

Here at the Troika Dialog conference, where the local brokerage community is promoting the best Russia has to offer and assembling some of the biggest names in macro: Larry Summers, Marc “Dr. Doom” Faber, Nassim Taleb, Nouriel Roubini.

The questions revolve around whether Russia is the best or the worst of the BRIC nations: Brazil, Russia, India and China.

Those who place Russia at the bottom argue against the country’s political and capital markets set-up.

But they just do not seem to get the bottom-line equation. Commodities are hot, Russia has a lot of them, and the middle class is larger, better educated and less debt-burdened than people give them credit for being.

Either way, according to stats from Michael Milken, Russia has been the best performing market in the world.

The Energy Story

The return of investors into cheap Russian energy names is intensifying. Gazprom (OGZPY)is up 14% so far this year, Lukoil (LUKOY.PK) is up 17% and Rosneft (RNFTF.PK) is up 22%. Compare that to the broad market — up 9% — we definitely appear to be witnessing money rotate from expensive consumer growth names into cheap value.

Gazprom is tentatively scheduled to release its latest earnings this week or next week. Gas prices have a potential tailwind to catch here after lagging oil prices.

Rosneft — the gigantic state oil company — reports its earnings tomorrow. Expect production growth,

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Tom Lydon submits:

While the developed European countries settle back to normal, albeit low, growth rates, Eastern Europe ETFs could reflect the rocketing growth of emerging European nations. But as with any emerging market, there are some threats to be wary of.

Vienna Insurance Group., emerging Europe’s largest insurer, remarks that the Austrian economy is picking up momentum and the emerging European states will likely see growth accelerate above the slow pace at which Western European economies expand, reports Michael Shields for Reuters. That could well result in an improvement on the flat performance of late in iShares MSCI Austria (NYSEArca: EWO).

However, premiums will increase in 2011 at low percentage rates as companies adhere to austerity measures to help manage their ballooning deficits, says the company. Data shows that unconsolidated premiums written increased 6.1% in 2010.

The European Bank of Reconstruction and Developed recently stated that the threats to the recovery of Eastern European countries could reduce inflows of foreign direct investment and lead to a “sharp” currency depreciation and other financing problems for the region, writes Paul Hannon for The Wall Street Journal. The threats include a rising inflation rate, which could lead to premature rate hikes, and potential “risk aversion” among investors as a result of eurozone problems.

If no problems rear their heads, many of those economies will experience rapid growth, bolstered by

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John Lounsbury submits:

The European Union, along with the U.S., is supposed to represent the heart of the developed world. Europe is now an emerging economy, as shown by the following graph from the 5 Min. Forecast:

Europe is now an emerging market and trend lines would project it is riskier than the rest of the emerging market world.

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