Category Archives: Distressed Investments

The Outlook for the Brazilian Real

Recent oil discoveries, the hosting of the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympics, as well as improved sovereign ratings from credit agencies, have firmly placed Brazil as a ‘must-have’ investment in every emerging market focused portfolio. However, investor interest … Read More…

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Understanding the Recent Growth in Food Prices

The last year has seen an all too familiar pattern of food price hikes, not dissimilar to what we experienced back in 2007-2008. The 2008 food price hikes were driven by several factors, including high oil prices and the increasing … Read More…

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Precious Metals – The Outlook for Silver and Gold

“The ultimate asset bubble.” This is how George Soros described gold last year, even as his fund took sizable long positions in the precious metal. Why not take advantage of rising values (so long as the bubble doesn’t burst), particularly … Read More…

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Nuclear Energy in Germany

Nuclear energy has been heralded by many as one of the most important solutions to the growing energy demands of the world, particularly given concerns regarding increasing greenhouse gas emissions and the rising price of oil. The popularity of nuclear … Read More…

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Asset Bubbles and Bursts: The Re-emergence of Rational Valuation

Aswath Damodaran, the famed NYU finance professor and High Priest of quantitative valuation, shares a lot with Edward Altman, his equally famous colleague at NYU. (Damodaran penned “Investment Valuation: Tools and Techniques for Determining the Value of Any Asset”, a … Read More…

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The (Ir)rationality of Markets

The Financial Times recently reported on a recent survey by the British Chartered Financial Analyst Institute of its members, which found that an increasing proportion believed that markets did not behave rationally: The British CFA recently asked members for the … Read More…

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Surviving the Storm: Value Creation in the US Auto Parts Sector

In a period of unparalleled economic turbulence, perhaps no industry has been more severely impacted than the US Auto Parts industry. The sector, in tandem with the Big 3 Automakers, has been facing severe financial distress over the last year … Read More…

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