Greek Downgrade: Three Years of Disappointment (CNBC)
European investors awoke to a significant change in their world on Monday. The Greek economy has been reclassified from a ???developed??? market to an ???emerging??? one by Russell Investments - a fund manager with $162.9 billion in assets. While reclassifications such as this one are uncommon, they are not without precedent. That situation is especially true in cases like that of Greece, where the country the ???no longer met macro- and operational risk criteria, according to Jerry Webman, an economist at Oppenheimer Funds. In addition, to ensure reclassification doesn???t occur due to an anomaly in the markets, there must be three-straight years of significant difference in market performance. The question for investors today is whether it will take three years for the Greek economy to resume its ???developed??? status.
Latin Telecom Crackdown Aimed at Slim and Fat Cats Alike (Bloomberg))
Carlos Slim???s estimated $81 billion in personal net worth lost $10 billion last year, but remains $4.8 billion ahead of the second richest man, Warren Buffett of Berkshire Hathaway. The main culprit in the $10 billion disappearance of wealth appears to be Slim???s America Movil SAB (AMXL), where a spate of new regulations is aimed at tightening controls on the Mexican telemarketing landscape. As a tell-tale sign this Latin American model is changing, outside shareholders of AMXL are getting out now, with as much of their wealth intact as possible. The rest of 2013 will be a race between Slim and Buffett for the title of the world???s richest investor.
The Week Ahead??? Asian Markets Mixed, Europe Down, U.S. up (Bloomberg)
Depending on your overall sentiment as an investor, it appears like you can pick a region of the world to fit your style. Various markets around the globe are reacting differently to the United States not reaching an 11th-hour solution to sequestration. This morning, Asian markets are mixed with the Nikkei up .4 percent and the Hang Seng and Shanghai Composite falling 1.5 percent and 5.2 percent, respectively. In Europe, the FTSE 100 and German DAX are down .37 percent and .25 percent, respectively. Finally, U.S. Futures are ahead at the time of this writing, with the DJIA, S&P 50 and Nasdaq up .25 percent, .23 percent and .3 percent, respectively.
