Do you remember the Daily News headline: “Ford to City: Drop Dead”? That is what the Germans remind me of. Greece is as unlikely to withdraw from the EU and the euro as my native city from the rest of the USA. Greece is no more a bunch of islands and a bit of Europe’s mainland than New York City is a bunch of islands and a bit of America’s minaland.
Now we need a Greek Felix Rohatyn, an investment banker with populist credentials and a history of supporting the left side of the political divide to restructure the debt and shut up the protestors. I am pretty sure they can find one.
The pileup of shorts on the Euro and its weaker members is going to prove costly as the rest of Europe removes its Ford-like resistance to bailing out a part of its whole. Germany may not even wait till after the elections to return to Frau Ja.
Your editor attended a closed-end and exchange traded funds conference on Weds. And the message to subscribers warning you that there would not be an issue did not go out properly. Thank you to all those who wrote asking me if I was okay. From Holland, from Chicago, from Marin Co. The conference was invented by the late Michael Porter and revived (after the Morgan Stanley CEF expert died) by Nicolas Bornozis of Equitilink, an investor relations group.
News from the CEF and ETF conference includes an important breakthrough. Morningstar will be covering the director independence issue, prodded by our SEC. It is also enahcing its backtracking of CEFs over decades to help its readers compare them.
I also learned from Brendan Reilly of Greenwich Advisors why it was that you cannot get net asset value information about ETFs on Yahoo. The financial analyst told me that Yahoo changed its options datafeed and lost the information which instutions can get through their Bloomberg screens. He says Yahoo is working to put it back.
ProShares announced launch of the first US ETFs to provide magnified exposure to indexes covering Europe, Pacific ex-Japan, Brazil, and Mexico. The four ETFseek to return 200% of the daily return of their respective indexes, before fees and expenses. They listeon NYSE Arca today as Ultra MSCI Europe (UPV), Ultra MSCI Pacific ex-Japan (UXJ), Ultra MSCI Brazil (UBR), and Ultra MSCI Mexico Investable Market (UMX). Joanna Hill who heads the investment strategy side at ProFunds says there will be more alternative and commodity ETFs coming, she says to give retail investors a chance to do hedging on the cheap.
Beware! This is not a recommendation.
News from our companies from Israel, Britain, Greece, India, France, Brazil, and Maryland and Massachusetts today.
