Safe Investments?

Said a strategist, airing his views
On central bank rumors and news:
"You've booked every gain
And best not retain
Your bonds, which are certain to lose."

Secretly Serviced

Secret Servicemen, caught out with whores,
Sent a shock through the diplomat corps.
(It's a precept of theirs
That "foreign affairs
Are more in our purview than yours.")

Members of the US Secret Service assigned to prepare for President Barack Obama's arrival in Cartagena were accused of hosting prostitutes for overnight visits in their hotel rooms. This potentially critical lapse in security cast a pall over the President's arrival at the important Summit of the Americas in Colombia on Friday. However, it did not derail one key accomplishment: the implementation of the new US-Colombian free trade pact.

UniCredit, Triple Trouble

A bank holding company that had
Two acceptable banks and one bad,
Found itself, in duress,
On the whole, valued less
Than the sum of its pieces would add.

"Is it time for a breakup of UniCredit?" asks The Wall Street Journal's Heard on the Street column. UniCredit, an international bank based in Italy, has a third of its operations in Germany and Austria, and another third in the emerging markets of Central and Eastern Europe. Right now, though, it's the home country that investors focus on, where the bank has €40 billion exposure to Italian government bonds, equal to 90% of its equity. As a result, UniCredit trades "at a substantial discount to the sum of its parts." At this rate, writer Simon Nixon's tongue-in-cheek suggestion to rebrand the bank as "EineKredit" could only help.

Los Arcos Dorados

Said a friendly investment advisor,
As to where the best stock market buys are:
"Just look to Brazil,
Where, intriguingly, still
The best markets for burgers and fries are."

Investment advisor Josh Brown, whose nom de blog is The Reformed Broker, was among the stock pickers helping Investor Place to select the Ten Best Stocks for 2012. The reformed broker's pick? Arcos Dorados (NYSE: ARCO), the world's largest McDonald’s franchisee, with more than 1,750 locations, largely in Latin America Mr. Brown shines a light on the southern hemisphere's expanding consumer spending, particularly in Brazil (50% of $ARCO revenues), where a thriving middle class of 100 million people gives the company "incredible room for growth." Well done, Mr. Brown, but we can only hope that Brazilians' waistbands are equally expandable.

A Refined American Export

The GDP targets we've missed of late
Makes Americans' fuel use desist of late,
But with fuel usage surging
In markets emerging,
We ship more petroleum distillate.

The Wall Street Journal recently reported that booming US exports of gasoline and other refined petroleum products would soon make America a net fuel exporter for the first time in 62 years. Though still the world's leading importer of crude oil (that's right - we're still dependent on "foreign oil"), the US' huge and growing refining capacity feeds the demand from growth markets such as Mexico, Brazil and Singapore. Even moribund Europe are "PIGS" for Yankee petrol. Of course, there is a dark side to this good news: the net export balance is helped by our slow economy, which has reduced US fuel consumption.
Graphs courtesy of The Wall Street Journal.