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    • Fri Sep 26th 02:17 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Is Eni Becoming Gazprom's European Twin?
      Another update...

      A2A, Iride in gas sales joint venture with Gazprom
      Reuters - 25/09/2008 18:53:56
      MILAN, Sept 25 (Reuters) - Russia's Gazprom has signed a joint venture deal for gas sales on the Italian market with utilities A2A and Iride (IRD.MI), the companies said in a joint statement on Thursday.

      The companies also signed a long-term gas supply contract for an initial volume of 900 million cubic metres per year, which could be increased.

      The contract starts on Oct. 1, 2008 and runs to 2022 and could be extended for another five years. Gazprom will have 50
      percent of the joint venture while A2A and Iride will divide up their half, giving Iride 30 percent of their share and A2A the rest.

      Gazprom will appoint the chairman of the joint venture while the Italian utilities will appoint the managing director.

      Another group of Italian utilities, Sinergie Italiane, was also working on creating a gas sales joint venture with Gazprom before the summer.

      Ascopiave joined Enia and Blugas in the venture along with three small northern Italian utilities and in July they were looking at a venture with Gazprom.

      (Reporting by Jo Winterbottom; editing by Elaine Hardcastle)
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    • Thu Sep 25th 10:58 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Is Eni Becoming Gazprom's European Twin?
      Well, Italy has had a poor energy policy in the past 30 years and is largely dependant on foreign oil and gas supplies. Both Eni and Gazprom are partly state owned enterprises, so it's not just money here, but politics as well. Although Italy has been a strong ally of the US for the past 50 years, things are going to change in the future; new superpowers , the BRICs, are beginning to eat into US's supremacy; also the recent financial crisis has made a big dent in the US economy and Bush will soon be gone, while Putin is still there and Berlusconi knows this. Also peak oil is a menace and gas, at least until renewable energies become widely adopted (but my guess is that it will take decades to completely replace hydrocarbons), is the only ready to use alternative to generate power. Nuclear power plants take years to build and Italy won't have a working plant for the next 10 years at least.
      So it's not just a question of money; of course Eni will get its share, i can't quantify how much, too many variables, but the point is that our country's economy has been lagging these past years, and high energy prices an oil dependancy are big obstacles. So Italy is trying to mend all the mistakes it made in the past decades and it is not a coincidence that now Eni it is trying to get hold of oil and gas reserves in risky places like Angola, Venezuela and Libya. Russian gas is too important for Italy and the russians know this so, in exchange for their supplies, they're exploiting this situation buying strategic assets to sell their gas in Europe wearing Eni's mask.
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    • Sat Aug 2nd 10:49 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Three Stocks To Be Held To Infinity and Beyond
      well, i could swap GE, JNJ, and BAC with XOM, MSFT and KO or , you choose, any successful story of the past decade. For example: "had i bought $10000 worth of PTR in 2003 for $20 a share and sold it in 2006 for $120 and reinvested the $60000 i made in FSLR in january 2007 i would own circa $600 thousand worth of FSLR stock now"

      Point is: everything is easy in hindsight - finding today the next 10 bagger is a different story;

      Investing in great companies is safer than trading on margin, but investing requires great fundamental analysis skills and a lot of PATIENCE - It took Buffett DECADES to become what he now is, and we're talking about an outlier, a one in a million phenomenon.

      Ask yourselves:Are you willing to hold a stock of a promising mid-cap company you buy today until the year 2025 and reinvest all the dividends you get? How old will you be in 2025? How much stock are you going to buy? What if 5 years from now it is only up 40% from your buying price?

      Are you willing to put aside all the extra money you could spend today to have fun while you're young , to save it for investment in a promising company because MAYBE it will make you rich 25 yrs from now when you'll be 55?

      On the other side we have Trading, which may seem like a shortcut to riches, (a lot of successful stories are there on the web - what they don't advertise is that for every guy that made it with trading there are 500 more that went bankrupt) but it requires guts, blood, costly experience and emotional skills very uncommon - not to forget that luck plays its part and that it's very easy to go bust when you play with margins, leverage and futures.

      Diversify? You risk investing too little in the next ten bagger

      Don't diversify? You risk putting too much money in the next Bear Stern.

      Making money is NOT easy.
      View article »
    • Tue Jun 17th 04:03 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Ukraine: Overlooked, Yet a Promising Emerging Market
      Well, a lot of interesting points here - it looks like the main theme here is "Avoid Ukraine" because of this and that - BUT - imagine this thread was shifted ten years backwards and substitute Ukraine with Russia, Brazil, India, China...i know these are much bigger countries with lots of natural resources, but back then a lot of people was raising the same questions about politics, infrastructures, energy, inflation etc etc - the point is, once an economy is in its infancy it's easier to overweight the risks and overlook the opportunities.
      To michaelschn: come on! Climate the big difference? What about the baltic states, scandinavian states or Canada then? they should all be living in the dark ages according to you. Besides, back in soviet times, Ukraine was providing most of the crops for all of the CCCP. Open Wikipedia and read about the climate in Crimea - you'll find out something interesting.
      Once again, some of you are missing the point: we're dealing with Frontier Markets here, so avoiding risk shoud be taken out of the picture and thus risk shouldn't be made the case against investing in a frontier country. What i was stressing is that, compared to other frontier markets, Ukraine is overlooked; i am not complaining for the lack of a single country etf or fund, although i would like to see one, but for the lack of interest from the financial community in a country that has a lot of upside potential.
      "A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty."
      - Sir Winston Churchill -
      View article »
    • Mon Jun 16th 10:34 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Ukraine: Overlooked, Yet a Promising Emerging Market
      Well netscorer, i know investing in Ukraine implies a lot of risk, but aren't we talking about Frontier Markets? Are Pakistan, Nigeria or Oman any better regarding corruption, political instability and the like? Yet they're all included in the Frontier 150 index - If i had to place a bet on a single state, for sure i'd choose Ukraine in place of the above mentioned countries.
      View article »
    • Fri Jun 13th 08:45 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Claymore Launches First Ever Frontier ETF; PowerShares, Van Eck Close Behind
      I am disappointed in not seeing any stocks from Ukraine in the new Frontier etfs - Ukraine is one of the most promising country in the frontier world and it's being completely overlooked
      View article »
    • Fri Nov 9th 05:14 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Online Gaming Equals Profits for GigaMedia
      Where did you read that Gigamedia is developing games for mobile phones? If you're referring to the Gigaslots website, well, it looks like it belongs to a company called Gigamedia SA from the Comores Islands which is NOT the Gigamedia from Taiwan we're talking about. Am i wrong?
      View article »
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