Barclays on Venezuela

Here's the intro to a Barclay's report on Venezuela published yesterday (behind a paywall here):

During our recent trip to Venezuela, we met with officials from Banco Central de Venezuela (BCV), PDVSA, the Ministry of Finance, pollsters, and some independent economic and political analysts. Our target was to ascertain what could happen in 2010 with respect to credit (issuances) and to try to establish the implications of devaluation, the electricity crisis, the health of the financial system, the elections to the National Assembly, and other factors on Venezuela's economy.

Some of the highlights were that the shortages of the electric sector could have a higher impact on growth next year than this year. But oil production will not be affected by the electricity shortage, in our view. Additionally, authorities tell us that the government and PDVSA are not planning to issue in the coming months; however, we are less optimistic about what we heard, and we expect at least USD3.0bn of new issuance in the second half of 2010.

On the political front, most people we spoke to are of the opinion that the opposition and Chavistas are equal in the polls and that the National Assembly election will be straighforward, compared with the presidential election in 2012. Considering the fundamentals of the economy, its unquestionable capacity to pay, the positive effect of currency devaluation over fiscal accounts, and PDVSA's financial situation, we maintain our overweight recommendation on Venezuelan assets. But given that Venezuelan assets have already increased by an average of 8pp since the first week of December and the rise in the risk aversion sentiment in the market, our recommendation is less enthusiastic now. Basically, we have changed our recommendation from buy, buy, buy, on December 4, 2009, to just buy.

Money (Barclays) still talks and bullshit (O'Grady) still walks in this game. Ever wonder why TheFreeWorld™ rails against Venezuela but then says it's in good enough shape to invest in? I dare you to think about it.......all by yourself.......with no help from reading material.

Stock market investment made easy

Every once in a while this investment game, normally a headscratching pursuit of fear, greed, doubt and hindsight, suddenly becomes very very easy indeed. That's because every now and again you get to see in advance the exact day when a a market-turning event is going to happen and can plan for it accordingly.

Thanks to eagle-eyed reader MR, today we can note that the Peruvian stock market is about to reach its peak price in around two weeks' time and will then become the raging short opportunity of the year. Here's the link MR sent on and here are the first couple of paragraphs:

June 3 (Bloomberg) -- The first Peruvian Exchange Traded Fund will start trading on the New York Stock Exchange by the “middle of June,” said the chief executive officer of Global X Management Company LLC, a New York-based asset manager.

“The stock market has risen a lot, investors are bullish, and that’s helping us because we want our product to be liquid,” Bruno del Ama, the New York-based CEO of Global X, said in a phone interview. ‘We’re giving access to the Peruvian market and in the future people can go short in Peru, which is an option that doesn’t exist today.’’

Bet your watch that the Lima locals will run the bourse up and make sure all newbies into the market will make an investment they'll remember for a long time.....