Two simple and easy ways to get some Australian stocks exposure to your portfolio are to pick some:
1. ishares Australia ETF – EWA
This ETF is a consistent and highly ranked ranked for many years.Has over4% yield.
2. Aberdeen Australia Equity Fund Inc. – IAF
A closed-ended fund with medium size assets. Good performer as well.
Brazilian ADRs are hot on WallStreet for the past few years due to their incredible growth.
The largest bank in Brazil is government-owned. There are quite a few private sector banks that are fueling credit growth in Brazil and across Latin America.
The largest private sector bank is Banco Bradesco: BBD
Yesterday the bank reported that their 4th Quarter profit soared over 38% to $1.2 B. More details here:
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080128/earns_brazil_bradesco.html?.v=1
The stock split 2: 1 last year at $40.Now its trading at $27+. BBD has grown over 700% in the past 5 years.
Other Brazilian banks trading as ADRs in the US are:
Banco ITAU – ITU
Uniao de Bancos Brasileiros S.A. – UBB
More on these later…..
Consumer stable stocks are an integral part of any well-built portfolio. They offer stable, long-term,steady growth and act as a counter-weight to the portfolio when the markets go south. These companies have stable growth because people spend money on foods and to some extent beverages like beer in good times and bad.
There are a few food and beverage stocks that worth looking into.UK’s Sainsbury stores, Australia’s Fosters beer company are some examples.
For more information on food and beverage adr stocks go to:
https://www.topforeignstocks.com/Hi-Growth-Portfolio-FoodandBev.htm
The Societe Generale SPO stock of France has been battered in the past few months due to the credit crisis and more recently due to a huge loss incurred by the bank as a result of actions of a rogue trader named Jerome Kerviel.The bank officials took decisive action and closed up positions even as the market was melting down worldwide. The rogue trader had gambled about £60 Billions.
You can read more about this stunning story here from the Evening Standard in UK:
Face of ‘world’s biggest bank fraudster’
The Societe Generale ADR stock (called lovingly as SOCGEN) – SCGLY.pk has fallen over 50% from a 52 Week high of $43+ to $21+ now. This is an excellent opportunity to pick up Socgen at this sale price. Events such as this fraud will eventually go away and the bank will return to its previous glory as a top world class bank and a wonderful investment in a few months.
Investing in SocGen is a smart move due to many reasons.
Some of them are:
Foreign Utility Funds:
There are NO mutual funds that invest exclusively in foreign utilities.
However there are a few domestic utility mutual funds that have a high percentage of portfolio exposure to foreign utilities. So if you want to invest in utilities abroad, this may be an option.
The following are some of those mutual funds:
1.Eaton Vance Utilities/ Dividend Builder A (EVTMX) – Has plenty of foreign exposure. A few months ago had some 40% on foreign utilities.
2.MFS Utilities Fund/I (MMUFX) – Had some 31% of portfolio in foreign utilities
3.AllianceBern Utility Income Adv (AUIYX) – Has some exposure to foreign utilities
Other mutual funds for review:
4. Franklin Custodian Fds:Utilities Series/Adv – FRUAX
5. Jennison Utility Fund – PRUZX
6. FBR Gas Utility Index Fund – GASFX
7. ProFunds:Utilities Ultrasector/Inv – UTPIX
8. American Century Utilities Inv – BULIX
Another option is to invest via ETFs. There are two ETFs in the market that concentrate on utilities in other countries. They are :
1. iShares S&P; Global Utilities Index Fund – JXI
This utility ETF has an asset base of $175 M and an yield of 9.27%. The expense ratio is 0.48%. Portfolio has some 68 stocks and the German utility giant EON AG is the largest holding.
The ETF has US utilities as well.Last year the fund returned just over 22% and the 5 year average annual return is over 26%.
More info. on this ETF can be found here:
http://www.ishares.com/product_info/fund/returns/JXI.htm
This ETF is a STRONG BUY now.The ETF has fallen from over $72 to the current price of $62+.
2. WisdomTree International Utilities Sector Fund – DBU
This one has assets of over $32 M. The big European countries of Spain,France, Germany, Italy and UK form the majority in the portfolio.
Links:
A list of such stocks can be found here:
https://www.topforeignstocks.com/Hi-Yield-Portfolio-Utilities.htm
The above site has Canadian utility stocks listed in NYSE, ADRs of European Utilities, Brazilian utilities etc.
