The Great Debate UK
from Global Investing:
Who were the investment winners and losers in 2009?
Let's not beat about the bush: the winners in this year's investment stakes were those who cashed out early in the financial crisis, looked at hugely oversold stock markets in March and jumped back in. The losers were those who spent too much time thinking about it or, worse, thought it was a good idea to put all their money in Dubai stocks and Greek government debt.
For the winners, it all had to do with market timing. Buying MSCI's emerging market stock index at its March 3 low brought gains of close to 110 percent. It was "only" a bit above 72 percent for the full year. World stocks as a whole gained around 30 percent for the year and nearly 75 percent from the March low.
Gold bugs grabbed a bit of the spotlight because of the record nominal highs for the metal. But with a gain for spot gold of around 24 percent, you would have done much better buying oil, which gained more than 75 percent.
Now for the losers. Two types, really -- those who found themselves clobbered by a Black Swan (a surprise) such as the Dubai debacle and those who were too slow to recognise the market recovery. Entering the global stock market at the beginning of June, for example, would have meant gaining around 22 percent -- not bad, but a pittance of what was available by taking the risk earlier.
from The Great Debate:
Welcome to the Teenies, sorry about those returns
-James Saft is a Reuters columnist. The opinions expressed are his own-
As we say goodbye to a decade so abysmal it never even earned a nickname, it is time to take bets on how the coming 10 years will shape up in economics and financial markets.
Welcome, then, to the Teenies, a word that will describe the decade as well as the small returns in financial markets and the shrinking financial sector it will bring.
from Global Investing:
Time to kick Russia out of the BRICs?
It may end up sounding like a famous ball-point pen maker, but an argument is being made that Goldman Sach's famous marketing device, the BRICs, should really be the BICs. Does Russia really deserve to be a BRIC, asks Anders Åslund, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, in an article for Foreign Policy.
Åslund, who is also co-author with Andrew Kuchins of "The Russian Balance Sheet", reckons the Russia of 
Putin and Medvedev is just not worthy of inclusion alongside Brazil, India and China in the list of blue-chip economic powerhouses. He writes:
from The Great Debate:
Africa and the global economic crisis
- Jorge Maia is head of Research and Information for Industrial Development Corporation of South Africa, established in 1940 to promote economic growth and industrial development. The opinions expressed are his own -
Serious shockwaves are hitting Africa's shores as the global economic crisis unfolds.
