How To Profit From The Ongoing European Economic Recovery?

One of the ways to profit from the ongoing European economic recovery is to invest directly in companies that operate in the continent. A recently started interesting ETF provides an option to gain exposure to such companies via an ETF. The WisdomTree Europe Local Recovery Fund (EZR) seeks to profit from the continent’s recovery.

The fund’s description from the provider website:

WisdomTree Europe Local Recovery Fund seeks to track investment results of European companies that are sensitive to economic growth prospects in the eurozone and that derive more than 50% of their revenue from Europe. The Fund seeks to maximize exposure to European companies that may benefit from Europe’s economic recovery and Europeans’ increased buying power.

The fund has just $2.4 million in assets and the expense ratio is 0.48%. It would be interesting to see how this ETF performs in the next few months.

The fund holds stocks in 210 firms. The top ten are listed below:

  1. Total SA (TOT)
  2. BASF SE (BASFY)
  3. Allianz SE (AZSEY)
  4. BNP Paribas (BNPQY)
  5. Axa SA (AXAHY)
  6. Vinci SA (VCISY)
  7. Intesa Sanpaolo SpA (ISNPY)
  8. Inditex SA
  9. Societe Generale (SCGLY)
  10. ENI SpA (E)

Vinci is a great construction and infrastructure maintenance play. But the stock seems to never move higher beyond a range. Hence from an investment point of view this company can be avoided, if one were to invest directly in the firms included in this ETF. French banks BNP Paribas and SocGen haven’t still re-gained their levels reached before the global financial crisis.

In general, the ETF holdings are excellent firms that stand to benefit from the growing European rebound.

The complete list of the 210 stocks in the ETF can be downloaded in Excel here.

Disclosure; Long AXAHY and SCGLY

Global Derivatives Exposure = $630,000,000,000,000

Halloween for 2015 is over. Investors may have been scared by the ghouls, spooky goblins, ghosts and haunted houses. However the real scary part for investors may come sometime in the future. One of the causes of the Global Financial Crisis(GFC) of 2008-09 was derivatives. These scary financial instruments are like hand-held grenades. Careless handling will lead to catastrophic results.

According to one estimate, the notional value of derivative exposure in the global financial system is a mind-boggling $630.0 Trillion.

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Notional Value of Global Derivatives

From an article in Money Observer:

The notional value of derivatives in the global financial system is around $630 trillion (£410.9 trillion). To put this in comparison, the value of global GDP is $77.3 trillion.

Whilst $630 trillion is a huge number, it does overstate the dangers lurking in the global derivatives market. The notional amount does not reflect the assets at risk in a derivatives contract trade.

According to the BIS, the gross market value of the global OTC derivatives market is $20.9 trillion (close to a third of global GDP).

Source: Five scary charts Freddy Krueger would be proud of, Money Observer

Knowledge is Power: Small-Cap Stocks, Investment Horror, Oil Economics Edition

 

Inside US Capitol, Washington DC

This Chart Shows Crude Oil Is A Very Volatile Commodity

Crude oil jumped 6.3% yesterday to $45.94 a barrel for December delivery on the New York Merc. In the past few weeks oil prices have been volatile. In general, oil is the most volatile commodity in the world. Prices of oil can vary from one day to the next for any number of reasons. A single guy can set a small fire to a pipeline in Nigeria and oil prices can move up or down apparently for this reason.

The following chart shows the gut-wrenching volatility of oil prices from one year to the next:

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Oil Volataility Chart

Source: US Funds

So the key takeaway is that one should not make their long-term investment decisions based on the movement of oil prices.