General

September 1, 2022

What are Frontier Markets

What are frontier markets ? This short guide talks about what the opportunities are in frontier markets and how to access them.

Qayyum Rajan

August 10, 2022

Imports and exports data in Frontier Markets

Qayyum Rajan, CFA

Is MSCI breaking itself apart?

Qayyum Rajan

Should we all give up on the Olympics?

Study after study go through how detrimental or at best, neutral the impact of hosting the Olympics often is for the host of the events. Interest over the Olympics has waned with time, and we may be at a point where we must acknowledge that the current format of how Olympics’ host cities are selected and the share of revenue they receive is broken.

Qayyum Rajan

How to invest in Panama

In the past 20 years, Panama has grown substantially and has largely shed its reputation for ‘cocaine towers’ despite many people’s antiquated views. Income per capita is up 4x, the population is up 50%, and the stock market is up almost 6x. Panama City is arguably the most developed city in Central America with a metro and international airport handling 16mm passengers annually.

Qayyum Rajan

Cuba Continues To Reform

Cuba is set to announce new reforms in the coming weeks as part of the creation of its new constitution. Although all the details are unknown, the draft of the constitution is said to contain 224 articles, over 60% more than before

Qayyum Rajan

Understanding Volatility: Who Wins and Loses from Higher Vol

Volatility has become the ultimate financial market buzzword over the past year. This time last year we were in a super low vol environment, and former managers at Target were making headlines for earning millions on short-vol strategies.

Qayyum Rajan

5 Interesting Facts About North Korea’s Economy

With all the excitement from the Trump-Kim Summit in Singapore this month, we wanted to take a deeper look at North Korea’s current economy in anticipation of a potential “How to Invest in North Korea” post later on. To be clear, we think it is extremely early and much too optimistic to think that North Korea will be opening up its economy any time soon

Qayyum Rajan

The 5 Frontier Market Countries to Worry About with Rates Rising

US rates have been rising steadily with 5 rate hikes since the end of 2016. The US Yield curve is getting flatter putting tremendous pressure on Frontier Market economies that rely on borrowing in USD for both public and private initiatives. Frontier Markets are hit harder because they tend to be unable to issue long duration bonds due to their risk profile, so they are more exposed to short and medium-term rates than more developed economies that choose to issue in USD.

Qayyum Rajan

Improvements in Ports mean higher GDP

Shipping is at the heart of the global economy. Activity has increased despite increasing levels of consumption taking place via services or software. It is certainly conceivable that a time will come when the clear majority of economic spend will be on products and experiences that are not tangible in the ‘real’ world. However, we are sometime from this manifesting.

Qayyum Rajan

Eritrea, the Most Isolated Country In Africa, May Finally Be Opening Up

Eritrea, a small country of 5 million people in the Horn of Africa, has been one of the most isolated countries in Africa almost on par with North Korea. Similar with North Korea, Eritrea has a single party government and one of the worst human rights records and freedom of media on the continent

Qayyum Rajan

Frontier Markets Pension Funds and Home Country Bias

Institutional investors are overwhelmingly concentrated in size and number within developed and emerging markets. This is both a driver and an outcome of highly-sophisticated economies that can produce and leverage wealth for continuous improvement. For this reason, the idea of ‘home country bias,’ really only applies to developed countries and has been most acute in places such as the United States, Japan, China, and Canada.

Qayyum Rajan

How to Invest in Tanzania

Tanzania is a country of just over 55 million people located in East Africa. It is home to beautiful national parks and tourists looking for an African safari experience will usually choose Tanzania for their travels. While tourism contributes to almost a fifth of GDP, Tanzania remains very poor, with a GDP per capita of just $3500 USD in PPP terms.

Qayyum Rajan

What happens to inflation when a currency goes awry?

Turkey was in the news a lot, along with Argentina as both economies experienced rapid currency depreciation. In Turkey’s case, partly due to inflation, but primarily driven by diminished confidence in the government and a reluctance from the seemingly independent central bank to raise rates. They finally did, but not before the currency fell -42% from a year earlier. The central bank raised rates to 24% and since then the currency has stabilised.

Qayyum Rajan