Our Taipan Emerging Market Index saw a slight gain today of .52%. Nothing to cheer about — except when you compare it with last week’s trouncing of 14.28%. So that puts us at a five-day gain of 103.6%.

We’ll take it…

Key
ALL ORDINARIES IDX (ASX: ^AORD) Australia
BSE SENSEX (Bombay: ^BSESN) India
IBOVESPA SAO PAULO (^BVSP) Brazil
EGYPT CMA GENL INDX (Cairo: ^CCSI) Egypt
HANG SENG INDEX (HKSE: ^HSI) Hong Kong
COMPOSITE INDEX (Jakarta: ^JKSE) Jakarta
COMPOSITE INDEX (Kuala Lumpur: ^KLSE) Kuala Lumpar
KOSPI Composite Index (KSE: ^KS11) South Korea
MERVAL BUENOS AIRES (Buenos Aires: ^MERV) Argentina
IPC (Mexico: ^MXX) Mexico
NZX 50 INDEX GROSS (NZSE: ^NZ50) New Zealand
IGBM (Madrid: ^SMSI) Spain
TEL-AV TASE-100 IND (^TA100) Israel
TSEC weighted index (Taiwan: ^TWII) Taiwan
SSE Composite Index (Shanghai: 000001.SS) Shanghai
iShares MSCI South Africa Index (EZA) South Africa
RTSI INDEX (RUS: RTS.RS) Russia
ISHARES MSCI THAILAN (NYSEArca: THD) Thailand
iShares MSCI Turkey Invest Mkt Index (TUR) Turkey

The biggest winner this week is the New Zealand ^NZ50 Index Gross, which closed with a gain of 1.72%. Although the business climate in New Zealand suffers from inflation fears, the ^NZ50 rose mostly on energy, media and healthcare.

Our weekly 103.6% surge compares with a lackluster weekly gain of 1.61% by the S%P 500 and the Dow’s virtually flat performance as of this writing.

The big swing in our index confirms two important factors for investors interested in emerging markets…

The first confirms that emerging markets are certainly volatile. The second factor could be framed in the spread of global inflation.

The inflation contagion is driven by stratospheric increases in food and energy. What’s important, though, is that a closer look at the global economy reveals that no market is truly safe anymore.

We are living in a new age of volatility — leaving investors to reconsider emerging markets as a successful diversification strategy. After all, if you believe that all markets are now equally volatile, it only makes sense to put your money with higher growth economies.

–Irwin Greenstein

Look no further than the Q2 earnings of Coca Cola (NYSE: KO) to see that America lost the Cold War.

As emerging markets thrive, we can no longer afford the staple of Yankee Doodle consumerism: a bottle of Coke. Even the CEO of Coca Cola admitted that the U.S. market is slipping, and he will place greater emphasis on emerging markets.

Any investor who seriously wants to make money in emerging markets can probably do much better for himself by recognizing the truth that America lost the Cold War to Russia and China. This is not an ideological belief, but an economic one. As the middle class in Russia, China and other emerging markets continue to grow, we now cannot afford a 20-ounce bottle of Coke.

That’s completely incredible…

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An article in CNN.com today sent shivers down my spine.

My gut reaction to the story was that America is in an economic nosedive it may never recover from. Then came this sense of anguish that so many Americans are missing out on the long-term opportunity of diversifying into emerging markets.

Why don’t more of us consider emerging markets as the next big payoff? Because we cling to the belief that we won the Cold War. And in turn, we hold fast to the dream that America is less volatile than emerging markets.

American’s surround themselves with the trappings of Cold War victory — the comfortable home, four cars in the driveway, credit cards jammed into our wallets, and an armada of electronic gizmos that shield the new economic realities of the vanquished.

But just look at the CNN.com story…

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Hey, Irwin…

Did you notice that Russia was the only emerging market that was up in your index on Friday? Shouldn’t have been hard to spot that bit of green in the sea of red…

Well, I did some digging and found a couple articles that might help explain why…

The BBC reported late Thursday that Russia’s new president, Dmitry Medvedev, is headed to Kazakhstan. It’s his first stop on his first trip as the new president. And what’s first on the agenda? Oil.

K-stan exports most of its oil through Russian pipelines. That means a great deal of revenue for Medvedev and friends. We’ll see if K-stan signs a long-term deal with Russia or not, but you certainly can’t ignore Russia’s influence in the region.

Kazakhstan isn’t the only place Russia’s looking to boost revenue - and influence.

The Russian News and Information Agency, Novosti, announced, “Russian oil and gas companies are interested in developing the Mediterranean region.”

In fact, one Russian company has already bought a 50% stake in the El-Arish offshore concession agreement in Egypt.

Russia wants to consolidate its power over energy resources in Asia, and extend its influence in Western markets, too. I think these announcements are just the beginning, and you’ll start to hear more about investing in the Russian oil and gas industry.

Sara Nunnally