List of 38 Foreign Stocks Down > 80%

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Many foreign stocks that trade as ADRs in the US have fallen heavily in-line with their home country’s market performance. In order to identify the ADRs that are down more than 80% year-to-date I ran the screener and ended up with the 38 stocks listed below.

Foreign ADR Stocks Down > 80%

[TABLE=121]

Analysis:
1.The worst loser among the British banks is the Royal Bank of Scotland(RBS) which is down 91.20%. The stock recently reached a low of $0.95. On November 7, the management did a reverse split in the ratio of 20:1. More details on this split can be found here.

2.It is not surprising to see 15 China stocks in this group since the Shanghai Index is down over 60% year-to-date.

3.Two food producers (GMK,WBD) made it to this list though the cost of food has increased considerably worldwide in the last few months.

4.Only two Brazilian stocks are down over 80% year-to-date.

5.Some of the stocks that are under $1 and close to being under $1 might have reverse splits in the future to satisfy listing requirements.

Note: Please note that the data used for calculation is thought to be accurate but not guaranteed. Do your own research before making any investment decisions.

Disclosure: Long RBS

The Top Ten Energy Companies of the World 2008

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Last month Platts(A Division of The McGraw-Hill Companies) released the “Platts’ 2008 Top 250 Global Energy Companies” list.In this post lets look at the top 10 companies from this list.

The rankings are based on the following four key metrics:

  • Asset
  • Revenues
  • Profits
  • Return on Invested Capital

The list comprised of companies in nine subcategories such as Gas Utility, Electric Utility,
Coal and Consumable Fuels, etc. However the top 10 rankings were occupied by Integrated Oil and Gas companies which have global operations.

Platts’ 2008 Top 250 Global Energy Companies:

[TABLE=120]

The western oil companies occupy the top 5 positions.But the two Russian companies(Gazprom and Rosneft Oil) have moved up from last year
to be in the top 10.

As the price of crude oil continues to go down it will be interesting to watch the above stocks.

Top Dividend Stocks of Americas,Europe and Asia-Pacific

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The Dow Jones STOXX Global Select Dividend 100 Index tracks the high-dividend-yielding companies in the Dow Jones STOXX Global 1800 Index that includes the Americas,Europe and Asia-Pacific. The 100 components in the index contains 40 stocks for the Americas and 30 each for Europe and Asia-Pacific.

The Dow Jones STOXX Global Select Dividend 100 Index Components:

[TABLE=119]

Note: A ticker is included for components listed in the US markets

Some Observations:

1.All the top 5 Canadian banks are in this list.

2.While many of the components in the index are banks, stocks from other sectors like utilities,energy, telecom are included as well.

3.Among the Asia-Pacific countries Australian and Singapore stocks seem to be pay high dividends than Japan and other countries.

4.Thirty out of the 40 components for Americas are stocks of US companies.

The above yield data is thought to be accurate.Please do your own research before making any investment decisions.

Disclosure: Long many stocks in the above list.

The World’s Top Ten Safest Banks 2008

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The October issue of Global Finance magazine featured The World’s Top Ten Safest Banks for 2008.

The Banks were selected based on:

  • A comparison of the long-term credit ratings (issued by S&P, Moody’s and Fitch’s)
  • Total assets

of the 300 largest banks in the world.

The World’s Top Ten Safest Banks 2008:

[TABLE=117]

Of the above ten banks, Lloyds TSB (LYG) , BNP Paribas (BNPQY) and Wells Fargo (WFC) are listed in the USA.

In September Llyods Bank (LYG) of UK agreed to acquire U.K.’s biggest mortgage lender HBOS plc (HBOOY) for a fire-sale price of £12.2 billion ($21.8 billion) in an all stock deal.Llyods will offer 0.605 shares for every 1 HBOS share. Llyods raised a total of £5.5 billion from the British Government by selling ordinary shares for £4.5 billion and preference shares for £1 billion. The current yield on LYG is 12.76% but the dividend may be suspended till 2010 as part of the requirement of the government rescue package.

Last month Wells Fargo (WFC), the largest bank on the US West Coast, announced a deal to acquire Charlotte, North Carolina-based Wachovia (WA) for about $15.1 in stock. To fund this deal, Wells Fargo raised about $11B in a stock offering on November 7. It priced the sale at $27/share below the Nov 7 closing price of $29.50. The current yield of WFC is 3.99%.

The Paris, France-based BNP Paribas (BNPQY) trades on the OTC market and pays a dividend of 7.21%. Year-to-Date the stock is down about 35%. In 3Q 08, profit fell 56% for this French banking giant. BNP Paribas also announced that will take control of the troubled Dutch financial group Fortis’s Belgium and Luxembourg operations.

Also checkout:

The Best Banks of the World 2008

Royal Bank of Scotland Group plc(ADR): Reverse Split Complete

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Royal Bank of ScotlandYesterday November 7,2008 Royal Bank of Scotland Group plc(RBS) completed a reverse split in the ratio of 20:1 of its ADR shares traded in New York.

This reverse split was first announced on Oct 30,2008 (Source: RBS Investor Relations Site):

Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC- RBS Ratio Change for ADR Holders

“To maintain an appropriate price range for The Royal Bank of Scotland Group American depositary shares (“ADSs”) representing ordinary shares trading on the New York Stock Exchange, (NYSE Symbol: RBS), effective November 7, 2008, the ratio of one (1) ADS representing One (1) ordinary share will change to one (1) ADS representing 20 (twenty) ordinary shares.

Existing ADR holders will receive one (1) “New” ADS for every twenty (20) “Old” ADSs surrendered for cancellation.

This ratio change does not affect any of the RBS Preferred share ADS programmes.”

Before this reverse split the ratio between an ordinary share and an ADR share was 1:1.

ADR Share Price Calculation:
Yesterday closing price of 1 London-listed RBS ordinary share = 64.0 p
At an exchange rate of 1 British Pound = 1.56911 $, 1 RBS ordinary share = 1.00465$
So with the Reverse Split 1 ADR = 20 ordinary shares
That means 1 ADR must trade for: 20 * 1.00465 = $20.09

However RBS closed at $19.28 yesterday in New York.One reason may be that the market does not believe this reverse split will have a positive effect on the stock.

As part of the British Government’s 37 billion pounds rescue plan announced last month, RBS will boost its capital by 20 billion pounds by turning over control to the government. The government will get 5 billion pounds of preferred shares and common shares for the remaining 15 billion pounds. As a condition for accepting the government cash infusion, RBS has agreed not to pay a cash dividend as well until 2010. Despite the above cash infusion, many institutional and individual investors may not touch RBS due to many unknowns faced by the bank and the banking industry in general. Also on November 4, 2008 RBS warned “it will be hit by more writedowns and rising bad debts this quarter as its incoming chief executive kick-started a strategy overhaul aiming to restart dividends in 2010” and added that “it expects losses on bad loans to continue to rise as a worsening economy and tough financial markets feed through to consumers and businesses”

Only time will tell if the reverse split will be successful or not in the long run.

Disclosure: Long RBS