Emerging Markets

BRAZIL     São Paulo stock exchange Bovespa Holding, which owns the São Paulo stock exchange, raised nearly $3.7 billion in an IPO that ranks as Latin America’s largest offering this year. Bovespa sold 250 million shares on October 26, ...

ECUADOR       Correa: Clamping down on the oil industry After a 15-year absence, Ecuador has rejoined OPEC in a move president Rafael Correa says will allow his country to gain greater access to technical advice and market information. ...

  DR NEWS     Grupo Clarín, Argentina’s largest media conglomerate, listed its depositary shares on the London Stock Exchange last month, making it the first company based in Argentina to have a DR listing on the exchange. The global ...

GLOBAL EQUITY/DRS     PetroChina, China’s largest oil and gas producer, added fuel to the fire of Shanghai’s overheated stock market last month with its initial public offering on the mainland. The company’s A-shares surged 163% in their $8.9 billion ...

INDIA       I ndia hopes to boost hydropower capacity Third-quarter earnings releases by UK telecom giant Vodafone Group and by Switzerland-based Holcim, the world’s second-largest cement maker, reflected growing contributions from India’s increasingly assertive domestic market on the ...

RUSSIA Russia’s greatest strength could also turn out to be its biggest weakness.   Skyscrapers go up as some of Russia’s surplus is invested in infrastructure projects Oil has been kind to Russia. In the past few years, as world ...

COMPANY TO WATCH: COUNTRY GARDEN HOLDINGS/CHINA         Shares of Country Garden Holdings, a leading China-based real estate group, rose 37% in their debut in April on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. More recently, the company postponed a ...

CHINA     PetroChina’s stock soared in initial trading on the Shanghai stock exchange China’s state-owned energy giant PetroChina Co. in early November surpassed ExxonMobil to become the world’s most valuable company. Shares of PetroChina rose from 16.7 yuan to ...

RUSSIA     Strife on the borders: Georgia’s president called for early elections and accused Russia of stirring up unrest. Afew weeks after Russian president Vladimir Putin announced that he would lead the ticket for the country’s dominant political party, ...

COUNTRY REPORT / CHINA China’s continuing economic expansion may be a bumpy ride, but the country’s prospects still look remarkably good.     Reach for the skies: China’s newfound wealth is reflected in its grand plans for Shanghai and beyond, ...

CHINA     At China’s mid-October National People’s Congress, Hu Jintao kept his position as president and made a clear attempt to further consolidate his power. Premier Wen Jiaobao clung onto his position as well, despite some criticism lately concerning ...

  Gol: Planning share buyback   Investment banks say the recent US Fed rate cut, coupled with strong domestic fundamentals, bodes well for Brazilian capital market investors. “Fed easing since mid-August has opened up a new leg of the bull ...

COMPANY TO WATCH: PETRO CHINA/CHINA     Warren Buffett, the Oracle of Omaha, who is one of America’s most successful investors, could be sending a message about China’s red-hot stock market by cashing in most of his chips in PetroChina, ...

NEWS     California’s San Bernardino County’s employees’ retirement plan awarded a $125 million mandate in October to London-based Ashmore Investment Management for investment in emerging market local-currency debt. “All our central bank clients and the majority of our pension ...

INDIA     India calling: Global telecom firms muscle in on a fast-growing market. Following the recent acquisition of Indian telecom company Hutchinson Essar by Vodafone Group in May 2007 for $11 billion, Russian telecom company Sistema’s acquisition of a ...

VENEZUELA     Rodrigo Cabezas: New currency will help fight inflation. Venezuela is gearing up for the introduction of a new currency to replace the bolivar, in circulation since 1879, in a move the Hugo Chávez administration hopes will help ...

DR NEWS   Companies based in emerging market countries enjoy higher domestic share prices and improved home-market liquidity one year after opening a DR program, according to a study released in October by UK-based Oxford Metrica, an independent research firm. ...

COUNTRY REPORT / CHINA     China’s continuing economic expansion may be a bumpy ride, but the country’s prospects still look remarkably good.   Reach for the skies: China’s newfound wealth is reflected in its grand plans for Shanghai and ...

RUSSIA     Putin’s deft maneuvering will almost certainly see him retaining power In the second political bombshell in three weeks—following the surprise mid-September appointment of the obscure Victor Zubkov to replace prime minister Mikhail Fradkov—Russian president Vladimir Putin in ...

LATIN AMERICA     Lipsky: Sounds a warning. When the meltdown in US subprime mortgages triggered forecasts of a possible US recession, unleashing global credit and money market volatility, Latin America proved to be relatively insulated from the debacle. Though ...