For the second time this trip, I’ve seen the sunrise in a foreign country.

This time, my over-night bus was passing through Suipacha, an agricutural area about three hours outside of Buenos Aires. There were flowing wheat fields and young corn growing everywhere, and in between these crops were thousands of head of cattle. It was a farmer’s paradise, and companies have flocked to this area for generations: Agrimex, Coincer, and Cargill.

Argentina is, after all one of the world’s largest exporters of wheat, and it’s also home to some of the best steaks in the world.

I’ve yet to have one, but I’m sure I’ll be accomodated at dinner tonight.

But I’d like to talk a little bit about Buenos Aires. I knew we were getting close to the city when big stores, like Wal-Mart, and Easy (the BA version of Home Depot) started popping up on the side of the road. And then came the fashion billboards…

And then came the container stacks.

Buenos Aires is - quite literally - the mouth of South America. It’s situated on the Punta Indio Channel, a wide delta of sorts that serves as the main port of all of South America. Imports, exports, agricultural commodities, automobiles…

You name it, it passes through here.

And unlike Santiago, Buenos Aires has retained a bit of its Old World Charm, with European architecture and lovely city parks, it will be a pleasure to walk around the city later.

Continue Reading »

Surprising news out of Argentina today: Ternium (TX:NYSE), a steel maker with operations in Argentina and Mexico, reported a 15% rise in net income (year on year).

But here’s the thing. That 15% rise is overshadowed by the fact that its net income of $247 million is only half that from the previous quarter. The main reason for this drop? Lower net foreign exchange results.

This wierd fluctuation is seen in the company’s EBITA. This figure grew 101% year over year in the third quarter, but is down 11% from the second quarter.

Next quarter, the company expects further contraction in income, which doesn’t bode well.

These kinds of earnings reports are going to become more prevalent, I think… So long as major currencies continue to seesaw back and forth.

You see, most international exporting companies have to hedge themselves against their own currencies. But with the global mayhem shoving some denominations higher and knee-capping others, it’s obvious that some companies are going to be left holding the short end of the stick.

Argentina’s in that bracket.

Continue Reading »

With cash-strapped companies coming cup-in-hand to their equally cash-strapped governments, the world over is looking for Warren Buffett-sized checkbooks to help ease the credit crunch.

Increasingly, the world is looking to China and its $1.9 trillion in reserves.

Should China whip open its gigantic checkbook to bailout the global financial system?

Does it even want to?

China’s been burned before with its investments in the U.S. financial sector. It has a 9.9% stake ($5 billion) in Morgan Stanley (MS:NYSE) that has been pummeled by the industry-wide downturn. And some Chinese leaders believe that the U.S. and Western Europe should clean up their own mess.

Continue Reading »

No doubt everyone who wasn’t net-short the market has a smile on his face today.

Today’s rally is some welcome news, especially for those companies and countries who have been unfairly sucked down by the “Black Hole” I talked about last week.

Now, I’m not gonna say this is the end of the downside global markets have been experiencing over the past weeks and months. I don’t have a crystal ball, and I don’t read Tarot. And in a market where everyone’s looking for “the answer” I don’t want to tell you something I’m not absolutely sure of myself.

Instead, we’ll look at some of the best analysis we can and make some educated decisions about what to do next in Taipan Trader.

In the mean time, let’s take a look at what this recent upswing has done to emerging markets.

Continue Reading »