Barron's: A Toast to J.D. Wetherspoon

By SIMON CONSTABLE

It’s time to quaff some shares of British pub chain J.D. Wetherspoon.

The stock (ticker: JDW.UK), which recently dropped after an earnings scare, is cheap and has a persistently high return on equity. “We view the pull-back as a compelling buying opportunity,” states a recent report titled “Playing the Long Game,” from European broker Berenberg. Read more here.

Forbes: Investors Get Bitten By the Gold Bug Again

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Investors started piling into gold exchange-traded funds in October.

Overall they added 23 metric tons of the metal to investments such as the SPDR Gold Shares ETF (GLD), according to a recent report. The Gold Shares ETF holds bars of solid bullion. Read more here.

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Forbes: Investors Should Love Tech Regulation, If It Ever Happens

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Some investors have caught the jitters over the crescendo-like call for more tech-company regulations.

They shouldn't. Read more here.

Forbes: Who's To Blame For GM's Woes -- Trump Or The Fed?

By SIMON CONSTABLE

There's more to General Motors' problems than steel tariffs.

While it is convenient to blame President Donald Trump for the recent mass layoff announcement at my former employer, there are other perhaps more important things to consider. Read more here.

Forbes: Why Stock Investors Should Cheer Plunging Oil Prices

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Some people are doing an awful lot of handwringing over plunging oil prices.

They shouldn't be. When oil prices take a major hit, just like we've seen recently, then stock prices should surge in short order, according to detailed historical market analysis. Read more here.

Forbes: How GDPR Became Europe's Tech Job-Killer

By SIMON CONSTABLE

The European Union seems to have shot itself in the foot.

Its efforts to protect your data from misuse likely cost the bloc tens of thousands of jobs in the fast-growing technology sector, according to a recent report from the National Bureau of Economic Research. Read more here.

Middle East Eye: Trump and the "Saudi Effect"

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Was Saudi Arabia really responsible for the recent plunge in global oil prices?

The Gulf kingdom deserves some of the credit that US President Donald Trump doled out just before the US Thanksgiving holiday this week, when he thanked Saudi Arabia for "oil prices getting lower".

But a slew of other things are involved, including expectations that the demand for oil will decrease and increased supplies from North American shale-fracking operations, analysts say. Read more here.

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Barron's: Dutch Materials Stock Looks Tempting

By SIMON CONSTABLE

It’s time to bet on Dutch materials firm AMG Advanced Metallurgical Group.

Investors recently soured on lithium, casting a pall over the stock (ticker: AMG.Netherlands), even though its exposure to the metal is small. Now the shares—including those traded over the counter in the U.S. under the symbol AMVMF—look cheap, especially given the company’s expanding profit margins. Read more here. 

Briefings Magazine: Beyond Blending In

By SIMON CONSTABLE

It’s an oil painting by 17th-century Flemish painter Anthony van Dyck, the kind almost any museum would proudly display. Only this one is hanging in a slightly different location: a conference room of a wealth-management firm.

Or at least it could be. While everyone from clients to office workers may give it scant notice, most companies tend to treat office art fairly seriously. After all, aside from the money they may spend on it, the art alone can help business, serving as an icebreaker, for example. “It is difficult to get people to start talking about their money immediately,” says Annelien Bruins, CEO of the Tang Art Advisory in New York. For their part, hedge funds may use artwork to signal financial success. Read more here.

Briefings Magazine: It Isn’t the End of the World

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Italy somehow goes without a ruling party government for three months. Britain’s government is only a little better off, with internal conflict and party bickering bringing Brexit negotiations to a halt. And let’s not even bring up all the dizzying turmoil from the White House and Congress in the United States. All of which should be shaking up these countries’ economies, with investors and corporate leaders feeling pretty nervous with every headline. Read more here.

Korn Ferry: No-Brexit Deal-- The Ultimate Crisis

By SIMON CONSTABLE

It was months in the making, and still the deal that Prime Minister Theresa May forged with the European Union didn’t passing enough muster within her own cabinet. And so the talk of a no-Brexit deal scenario continues to rumble through the global markets. Read more here.

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Middle East Eye: How finance technology can grow Middle East economies

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Lack of access to banking is hampering the Middle East and North Africa.

Access to such services in the region lags the world, which, in turn, is holding back economic growth, according to new research. 

The better news is that there is plenty of untapped potential to unleash, particularly through the use of fintech, or financial technology. In other words, the problem is fixable. Read more here.

Barron's: Two Ways to Play Theresa May’s Brexit Drama

By SIMON CONSTABLE

United Kingdom Prime Minister Theresa May’s travails in selling her Brexit deal with the European Union to her own Conservative government played out in the U.K. market. Stocks were hit hard, with the locally focused FTSE 250 index losing 1.6% and the pound retreating 1.7%. 

Among the harder hit stocks were big U.K. real estate investment trusts, British Land (ticker: BLND.UK) and Land Securities (LAND.UK), which fell 5.4% and 5%, respectively, on Thursday alone. Read more here.

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Barron's: Why Hungarian Stocks Are Ready to Rise

By SIMON CONSTABLE

There’s lots to like in Hungary, including strong capital inflows, fast economic growth, low borrowing costs, and a much-improved banking sector. All should help boost local stocks.

“Higher bank profits should improve banks’ ability to ramp up lending and give more support to output growth and investment,” says Ugras Ulku, deputy head of emerging market Europe research at the Institute of International Finance (IIF). Read more here.

Budapest

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New York Financial Writers 2018 Follies Intro.

Korn Ferry: In Germany, New Lessons on Succession

In a move that rocked the political sphere, Germany’s chancellor Angela Merkel has recently announced she’d step down in three years. Sure, that’s a ways off, but Merkel has held the position for more than decade and been a clear if not stable fixture that will be hard to replace. And for now, few experts see any obvious replacements. 

Succession plans in the political world are, of course, different than those at a company. “There’s no assurance that the up-and-comer politician might not get impatient and challenge the leader to an election,” says Alan Guarino, Vice Chairman in our CEO and Board Services practice for Korn Ferry in New York. “It’s not like corporate America.” Still, a growing number of firms are waking up to the often-ignored importance building high-level pipelines far in advance.  Read more here.

WSJ: What Is the Real Effective Exchange Rate?

By SIMON CONSTABLE

In reports explaining why some currencies plunged this year, analysts may have mentioned the Real Effective Exchange Rate, or REER.

The REER provides a broader assessment of a currency’s value than simply comparing the value of one country’s currency against another country’s currency. Read more here.

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Barron's: How Electric Vehicles Should Give a Jolt to Copper Miners

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Copper prices have dropped 18% in recent weeks, creating a long-term opportunity to get in on some cheap copper-mining giants with generous dividend payouts. Their prospects will depend on a major technological transition: the move from gasoline-powered to electric vehicles.

“If you’re bullish on global growth over the next 18 to 24 months, you have to own copper-related assets, especially since current prices aren’t high enough to fund new-mine development,” says Adam Johnson, founder and author of the Bullseye Brief financial newsletter. Read more here.