November 17, 2011, - 5:32 pm
Want Your Pension $s in Palestinian Stock Market? You Might Not Have a Choice
Although I’m not a licensed investment adviser, I think it’s safe to say there are a few things in which it’s probably NOT a good idea to invest your money: MCI, Circuit City, Syms, Borders Bookstores, Oprah Diet Mints, the Penn State Child Welfare Services Corporation, and the Palestine Exchange (the Palestinian stock market). But New York investment firm Auerbach Grayson & Co. is betting on huge pension funds and other institutional investors from America executing trades with the people of Arafat and blown up pizza joints. My best advice: buy low on explosives, sell high the next day (if you still have arms)! I’d also advise investing in any new chain of Palestinian nosejob mills and mustache grooming material producers. Most Palestinians are a great target demographic for at least one of those two services, and for many both of them.
The thing is, while you probably wouldn’t choose to invest with the people of HAMAS and hummus halitosis, you might not have a choice. Your pension fund managers might invest your hard-earned pension money with the Palestinians and their lack of civilization. And that’s something you should watch out for. Auerbach Grayson is seeking their, er . . . your, money though those pensions. The firm says it’s seeking investors with a minimum of $100 million to invest. That’s a lot of blown up coffee shops and bars. By the way, I can’t wait until Al-Occupy Palestinian Wall Street begins! Also, don’t forget: Camel . . . it tastes like chicken.
Auerbach Grayson & Co. is opening up Palestine’s stock market to institutional investors in the U.S., the first brokerage to offer trading in shares of the 46 companies listed in the war-torn region.
The New York-based brokerage, which connected investors to Iraq’s stock market in 2009, in June partnered with Palestinian broker Sahem Trading & Investments to execute trades on behalf of qualified institutions that have a minimum of $100 million. The first such trade took place in July.
With a combined market capitalization of $2.8 billion, companies listed on the Palestine Exchange are too small to be included in any major emerging-markets index, so they don’t show up on most investors’ radar screens. “It’s a tiny market, but it’s also an undervalued market,” said Auerbach Grayson Managing Director David Grayson. West Bank and Gaza posted 7% growth in real gross domestic product in 2009, the most recent figure available from the Central Intelligence Agency.
One obvious deterrent is the constant threat of war and political upheaval.
Ya think?! Hey, investing in the Muslim world sounds really rewarding:
Egyptian stocks have lost a third of their value since mid-January, and Israel’s TA-25 index is down nearly 17%. Meanwhile, the Palestinian Al Quds index has lost 7%.
“It’s an exchange born in a place where political turmoil and uncertainty are a constant,” said Ahmad Aweidah, chief executive of the Palestine Exchange. But shares in Palestine are affected by these factors to a “much, much lower extent.”
Larry Speidell, chief investment officer at Frontier Market Asset Management in La Jolla, Calif., said he holds shares in Palestine Development & Investment Co., or Padico. Roughly half of the $100 million under management at his firm is in sub-Saharan African stocks, with holdings in places as farflung as Zimbabwe and the Ivory Coast.
“The beauty of it is, the stocks are not so efficiently priced,” Mr. Speidell said. “There are some excellent and very well-run companies.”
Yeah, like Ahmed’s Bomb Belt Factory! Sadly, this Speidell dhimmi-whore is probably Jewish, too.
The low correlation with global markets is another draw, Mr. Speidell added.
Padico is one of the most heavily traded stocks on the exchange, as well as the major shareholder of it.
The exchange is one of the smallest in the world, with trading volume this year at about $306 million. That is larger than Bahrain Bourse’s $243 million but well behind the Amman Stock Exchange’s nearly $3.6 billion, according to the Federation of Euro-Asian Stock Exchanges.
The low liquidity and the specter of war so far have kept most of the international investing community at bay.
Thank Heaven for small favors!
“Why go to what is one of the historically most politically risky areas there are?” said Tony Norris, co-manager of the Wells Fargo Advantage International Bond Fund. The fund has held Egyptian bonds.
Yeah, you can bet those bonds were under Mubarak, not under the current Islamic jungle formerly known as Egypt.
Note to self: Never invest with Larry Speidell’s Frontier Market Asset Management. He probably never gave it a second thought that all these companies on the Palestine Exchange have to pay off the Fatah and HAMAS officials running the place, that all the people who run those companies openly support these terrorist groups. And who cares if a good cut of the money will go to terrorist attacks on innocent Israelis?
After all, Larry Speidell is in it to make money on the “undervalued” Palestinian stocks. How sad that, for him and his Palestinian buddies, the most undervalued thing is non-Muslim human life.
Tags: Auerbach Grayson & Co., David Grayson, Frontier Market Asset Management, Hamas, Islam, Islamic Terrorism, Larry Speidell, Padico, Palestine Development & Investment Co., Palestine Exchange, Palestinian Stock Market, pension, pension funds, Sahem Trading & Investments, Tony Norris, Wells Fargo Advantage International Bond Fund
Especially Jewish life.
The Tul-Karem rule applies to these Jewish dhmmis financing the Palestinians’ war against the Jewish State.
Don’t listen to anti-Semites who claim Jews are the smartest people on earth. When they invest with their enemies, the opposite is the exact truth.
I can see Larry Speidell’s investments in Palestine going up in smoke someday. Just be sure to refrain from telling him its a “risky bet.”
He and his fellow investors will be lucky to lose their shirts. Clueless Israelis who dined with the Palestinian barbarians got served on the menu. Remember Tul-Karem!
NormanF on November 17, 2011 at 6:28 pm