Frontier markets are the wild west of the investing universe. These markets include countries like Côte d’Ivoire, Kazakhstan, Bangladesh, Nigeria, Qatar, Tunisia, etc. The equity markets in some of these countries have performed well in recent years which is attracting investors’ attention. In a recent article I discussed about these markets and suggested that investors should not into …

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The labor market in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region is the most inefficient according to the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Index. Rising youth population and high unemployment rates is a chronic issue in the region. The IMF notes that Egypt has to create 700,000 new jobs every year to keep its current unemployment rate …

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I recently came across an article on frontier markets in which Franklin Templeton’s Carlos von Hardenberg, the deputy manager of the $1.2bn Templeton Frontier Markets fund  stated that for sky-high returns investors should consider frontier markets. According to him, investors focusing on just the emerging markets for growth are missing the opportunities in frontier markets. However this trend seems to …

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The investable universe in Africa is listed in the graphs below: Click to enlarge Source: Africa’s Investable Universe, Nick Ndiritu, Allan Gray Asset Management, South Africa The aggregate market capitalization of all African markets excluding South Africa as shown in the first graph is about US$250 billion, or about 20% of GDP. In many countries a …

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I came across this interesting map of Africa. Click on the map below to see another map of Africa that compares the size of this vast continent to other continents/countries.