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

What if you discovered that America actually lost the Cold War?

When you accept the truth that the Cold War was an American catastrophe, everything starts to make sense from an investment perspective. Even the craziest money-making ideas, like giant shopping malls in Siberia.

You have to check it out…

This article about the new Siberian mall ran in the May 17th issue of the New York Times. It’s a must-read for investors interested in emerging markets such as Russia. The story is important, not only for its gist, but for what it doesn’t tell you. It’s a classic case of Big Media delivering the sizzle without the meat.

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Mention Brazilian supermodel and the name that immediately comes to mind is Gisele Bündchen.While Ms. Bündchen remains hopelessly out of our league, there is another supermodel far more accessible to us mere mortals. It’s Brazil’s stock exchange, the Bovespa (^BVSP).

Year-to-date, ^BVSP is up 56.5%. The 12-month gain for ^BVSP is 186.1%. And the five-year rise is 81.7%.

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Andrew Mickey of BreakAway Investor wrote a piece about why Russian President Vladimir Putin is the world’s most dangerous man (you can see it here).

Mickey makes a darn good argument to support Putin’s infamy. He accuses Putin of playing “a deadly game of resource roulette.” That Putin is ready to plunge a “red dagger into America’s financial heart.” And that Putin is “already in the early stages of a strategic strike on the United States economy, the likes of which could cripple our nation for decades.”

I have no argument with Mickey’s take on Putin. But I can’t believe for a moment that Putin is the world’s most dangerous man. Because the most dangerous man in the world is clearly Alan Greenspan. Continue Reading »