Posts for Ticker ‘EZA’

Emerging Market Funds/ETFs Starting To Look Cheap (CHN, EWM, LDF, MSF, RAF, TAO, TRF, IF, EZA, CH)

Every day we cover many stocks at the end of the day which are hitting new 52-week lows.  Very rarely do we include ETF’s or closed-end mutual funds in the coverage on that list.  But what is becoming amazing is the daily reckoning we are witnessing where the 52-week low list is dominated by emerging market instruments that trade on the NYSE or AMEX as ETF’s and as closed-end funds.  The list is becoming so staggering that you wonder just were the money really is going.  The US dollar is getting some strength finally, but the markets in emerging markets are getting pounded daily in these instruments. 

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Posted on: August 18, 2008 – 5:16 am in ADR, China, ETF, Emerging Markets, Mutual Funds, , , , , , , , , ,

Safaricom Soars in Kenya IPO (VOD, GAF, EZA, TRAMX)

Today was a feature we have loosely been covering on occasion, and that is investing on the final frontier here on Earth: Africa.  Interestingly enough, Vodafone Group plc (NYSE: VOD) is tied into this company with ownership.

Kenya’s IPO of a 25% stake in Safaricom saw high enough demand that it’s IPO was oversubscribed by the tune of almost 5-times.  Its value was about $800 million depending on which currency conversion dates you use.  This was offered at a price of 5 shillings (close to $0.08), and shares closed on the first day at 6.95 shilling on the local market after hitting a high of around 8 shillings.  This closing price gives the closing value via market capitalization of about $4.5 Billion.

Safaricom is the nations largest mobile telecom operator with over 10 million users, which sells airtime for as little as pennies and allows micro-payments to purchase small increments in airtime.

This had unfortunately seen its IPO delayed, and more peaceful times allowed the demand to surge.  Whether or not the coalition holds up or not, well all we can say it that it is Africa and political instability is all part of the risk and reward equation there.  The success of this IPO may lead to several other IPO filings and other pricings in other infrastructure stakes in the East Africa nation.

Vodafone owns a 40% stake in the offering via its Kenyan unit called Vodafone Kenya Ltd.  Before the IPO the government owned some 60% of the company, and its stake has now been reduced down to 35% after one-quarter of the company was sold off to the public.

Interestingly enough, there are reports that many locals and first time investors were disappointed and many had borrowed money to buy shares.  The extent of that isn’t yet formalized and may not be known for several days.

So why are we covering an African IPO, particularly with all the political and event risk in most African nations?  The answer is simple: this is the last true emerging and pre-emerging spot on the globe.  It is a total and complete maze for investors to participate in the investment of Africa’s development because of the questions around corruption, cross-border issues, famine, disease, poverty, and on and on.  That is also the greatest shot for long-term gains if and when the risks in Africa become mitigated even a fraction compared to today.

In the start of January 2008, we offered 3 ETF’s and mutual funds that American investors can use to invest in the development of Africa and gave a more detailed explanation of each.  The funds were T. Rowe Price Africa & Middle East (TRAMX), iShares MSCI South Africa Index (NYSE: EZA), and SPDR S&P Emerging Middle East & Africa (AMEX: GAF).  These are not for widows and orphans, nor are they for the chicken-hearted.  As more and more opportunities arise for US investors to invest in Africa, we’ll be covering it.

You can join our open email distribution list to hear about other developments in IPO’s, secondary financings, spin-offs, mergers, and other special situations.

Jon C. Ogg
June 9, 2008

Posted on: June 9, 2008 – 5:44 pm in IPOs, International Markets, Telecom, , , ,

Africa: The Final Emerging Market Frontier (GAF, EZA, TRAMX)

As investors look for emerging markets in 2008 and beyond, they may start to look for emerging markets that have yet to emerge from that deep emerging market status.  The last spot on the planet that has yet to be turned into a series of countries with something resembling stable market economies and somewhat stable governments is AFRICA.  Africa is perhaps the hardest place in the world to invest in, although there are a whole host of US-listed companies which generate much of their operations in Africa.  The problem is that these often appear on investor boycott lists and are hard for an investor to get direct information on.  Africa is a bad neighborhood when you consider strife around the entire continent.  Even staunch humanitarians would say so. 

The good news is that there are actually some ETF’s and funds that investors can purchase to invest directly into African markets and US or Foreign companies that operate in African markets.  Below are some of the ETF’s and funds:

  • SPDR S&P Emerging Middle East & Africa (AMEX: GAF) yesterday closed $70.72; 52-week trading range $57.55 to $80.19. $50.5 million in assets.
  • iShares MSCI South Africa Index (NYSE: EZA) yesterday close $131.75; 52-week trading range $103.38 to $153.79. $839 million in assets.
  • T. Rowe Price Africa & Middle East (TRAMX) $13.05 yesterday NAV; recent low $10.01 Sept. 10, 2007 and high $13.05. $120.8 million assets.

So why don’t investors just buy direct stocks on exchanges of more established countries to get direct exposure?  Once again, Africa is a very dangerous neighborhood.  Crime and corruption is rampant in many African nations, political turmoil may be the understatement of the decade, they have things called civil wars there, many markets do not even have legitimate stock exchanges, many countries are mere regions recognized only by map-makers, and many companies only benefit from oil, gold and metals, or diamonds.  Mark Mobius of Templeton Funds used to say "invest when there is blood in the streets."  In Africa, blood in the streets seems to still be the norm.

Investors are always looking for the next new hot emerging market, or at better yet a hot new region to invest their money into for the long-haul to outperform developed nations.  If you have been around Asia you know a lot of the growth has already happened.  Eastern Europe already has countries in or in the process of joining the E.U.  Russia has grown enough that Czar Putin was just named Time’s Man of the Year.  The Middle East is boom town right now with development and with near-$100 oil.  South America is chugging right along.  Unless Greenland or Antarctica suddenly get waves of human population in need of infrastructure, Africa appears to be one of the last frontiers.

These are not at all the only ways to invest in Africa and there are other vehicles out there.  But these are the more easy ways for American investors to try to participate in what through time should end up being the last major emerging market frontier.

Jon C. Ogg
January 3, 2008

Posted on: January 3, 2008 – 1:17 pm in ADR, ETF, International Markets, Mutual Funds, , ,

ETF Winners & Losers (June 14, 2007)

DJIA                     13,553.73; +71.38 (0.53%)….DIAMONDS Trust (DIA) +0.67%
S&P500              1,522.97; +7.30 (0.48%)…SPDRs ‘Spyders’ (SPY) +0.64%
NASDAQ             2,599.41; +17.10 (0.66%)….NASDAQ 100 PowerShares QQQ (QQQQ) +0.66%
10YR-Bond         5.22%; +0.02% ….close ETF iShares Lehman 20+ Year (TLT) -0.25%
NYSE Volume          2,813,638,000
NASDAQ Volume    1,996,214,000

These are not the absolute highest performing ETF’s because some such as the Ultra ETF’s use leverage, but here are the normal unleveraged ET’s that won today:

iShares MSCI Brazil Index                                         (EWZ) +2.76%
iShares FTSE/Xinhua China 25 Index                     (FXI) +2.58%
PowerShares Dynamic Aggressive Growth           (PGZ) +2.47%
iPath S&P GSCI Total Return Index ETN                 (GSP) +2.37%
iShares Dow Jones US Oil Equipment Index         (IEZ) +2.28%
iShares MSCI South Korea Index                              (EWY) +2.27%
United States Natural Gas                                         (UNG)    +2.23%
iShares S&P GSCI Commodity-Indexed Trust       (GSG)    +2.11%
Claymore/Robeco Developed World Equity            (EEW) +2.10%
Oil Services HOLDRs                                                  (OIH) +2.10%
iShares MSCI South Africa Index                               (EZA) +2.09%

As always, even on a second strong up day there were some losers.  We back out the ‘inverse fund’ ETF’s and also the leveraged versions of each.  Also, the real estate group was the least impressive and we only included a couple variations to prevent repetition.  Here are today’s losers:

DJ Wilshire REIT ETF                                                 (RWR) (-1.16%)
iShares Cohen & Steers Realty Majors                   (ICF) (-1.14%)
WisdomTree Japan High-Yielding Equity               (DNL) (-0.94%)
KBW Regional Banking ETF                                      (KRE) (-0.78%)
Shares S&P Global Healthcare                                 (IXJ) (0.58%)
iShares MSCI Malaysia Index                                     (EWM) (0.42%)

Jon C. Ogg
June 14, 2007

Posted on: June 14, 2007 – 4:14 pm in ETF, HI/LOW, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

ETF Winners & Losers (June 5, 2007)

ETF Tickers: SRS, SDP, SSG, SJH, SZK, SDD, SKK, SKF, SDS, SCC, SJL, FXI, PGJ, HRD, IIH, RWR, ICF, ITB, EZA, UNG

What’s an easy way to tell when the market had a pretty bad hair day, other than looking at the ticker tape?  Seeing that all of the ETF winners for the day are listed as the UltraShort "Whatever" ProShares……they are the inverse move of an any underlying index, so when they are up the index or the market is down.  The top 12 performers today were all in that category. Some of these are leveraged to their index, not it doesn’t mean the worst performers are the underlying index per se.

UltraShort Real Estate ProShares (SRS) 3.52%   
UltraShort Utilities ProShares (SDP) 3.13%   
UltraShort Semiconductor ProShares (SSG) 2.09%
UltraShort Russell2000 Value ProShares (SJH) 1.66%
UltraShort Consumer Goods ProShares (SZK) 1.59%
UltraShort SmallCap600 ProShares (SDD) 1.49%
UltraShort Russell2000 Growth ProShares (SKK) 1.41%   
UltraShort Financials ProShares    (SKF) 1.36%
UltraShort S&P500 ProShares (SDS) 1.35%
UltraShort Consumer Services ProShares (SCC) 1.24%
UltraShort Russell MidCap Val ProShares    (SJL) 1.20%   
UltraShort Russell2000 ProShares (TWM) 1.06%

Other non-short ETF winners:
iShares FTSE/Xinhua China 25 Index (FXI) +1.02%
PowerShares Gldn Dragon Halter USX China (PGJ) +0.80%
HealthShares Cardiology    (HRD) +0.7%

Worse non-Ultra funds today:
Internet Infrastructure HOLDRs (IIH) -1.82%
DJ Wilshire REIT ETF (RWR) -1.76%
iShares Cohen & Steers Realty Majors (ICF) -1.76%   
iShares Dow Jones US Home Construction (ITB) -1.64%
iShares MSCI South Africa Index    (EZA) -1.60%
United States Natural Gas (UNG)    -1.55%

Today was more of a Bernake playing hankie with words than it was China.  Tomorrow’s another day.

DJIA                       13,595.46; -80.86 (0.59%)
NASDAQ               2,611.23; -7.06 (0.27%)
S&P500                1,530.95; -8.23 (0.53%)
10YR-Bond          4.9760%; +0.0470%
NYSE Volume      2,884,657,000
NASDAQ Volume 2,233,690,000

Jon C. Ogg
June 5, 2007

Posted on: June 5, 2007 – 3:38 pm in ETF, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

ETF Winners & Losers (June 4, 2007)

Stock Tickers: OIH, DBB, ITB, UVT, GWL, URE, DUG, EZA, HHK, FBT, INP, EWZ, PGJ, CHN

ETF WINNERS JUNE 4, 2007:
Oil Services HOLDRs (OIH)                                             $174.35; +2.7%
PowerShares DB Base Metals (DBB)                            $27.66; +2.6%
iShares Dow Jones US Home Construction (ITB)       $37.29; +1.6%
Ultra Russell2000 Value ProShares (UVT)                   $72.18; +1.28%
SPDR S&P World ex-US (GWL)                                       $33.65; +1.25%
Ultra Real Estate ProShares (URE)                                $62.52; +1.23%

ETF LOSERS JUNE 4, 2007:
UltraShort Oil & Gas ProShares (DUG)                         $48.90; -2.4%
iShares MSCI South Africa Index    (EZA)                       $128.25; -1.6%
HealthShares Cancer (HHK)                                            $29.25; -1.05%
First Trust AMEX Biotech Index (FBT)                              $25.52; -1.05%
iPath MSCI India Index ETN (INP)                                    $60.54; -1.03%
iShares MSCI Brazil Index (EWZ)                                     $60.65; -0.90%

 

DJIA                        13,676.32; +8.21 (0.06%)
NASDAQ                2,618.29; +4.37 (0.17%)
S&P500                 1,539.18; +2.84 (0.18%)
10YR Bond            4.9290%; -0.0270%
NYSE Volume       2,713,846,000
NASDAQ Volume  1,947,730,000   

If you can believe it, the PowerShares Golden Dragon-China (PGJ) only fell 0.04% on 278,000 shares, not bad for a day that Shanghai fell 8%.  Even the closed-end fund The China Fund Inc. (CHN) only saw a 0.33% drop.

Please note that is you see other winning or losing ETF’s that are the same category as one of the winners and losers that is not in here, it is because we try to default to the most liquid ETF that is means to track any given sector.

Today the main winners were led by oil & gas trackers in various segments in the oil patch: United States Natural Gas (UNG) 3.7%, iShares Dow Jones US Oil & Gas Ex Index (IEO) 2.5%, Ultra Oil & Gas ProShares (DIG) 2.45%, iShares Dow Jones US Oil Equipment Index  (IEZ) 2.35%, SPDR S&P Oil & Gas Equipment & Services (XES), SPDR S&P Oil & Gas Exploration & Prod (XOP) 2.2%, Energy Select Sector SPDR (XLE) 1.5%.

After seeing how many oil and energy ETF’s are on the market we would formally like to ask ETF managers not to open up any more oil and gas variations of ETF’s.

Jon C. Ogg
June 4, 2007

Posted on: June 4, 2007 – 3:44 pm in ETF, , , , , , , , , , , , , ,