Investing Internationally

Filed in archive Global Economy on February 6, 2005

One of my closely held beliefs is that influencing and predicting long-term changes is a science but doing it short-term is pure luck. Insofar I try to put some significant amounts in equity that will grow and make sure I have the patience to wait a decade if things go south.

The easiest ways for such an investment are mutual funds/ indexes or hopeful companies in emerging economies. There are simple rules - buy something that has a competitive advantage and will therefore grow over time (even if it takes a good time for others to realize that it is a better product that is being produced).

Now I came across Jim Rogers book Adventure Capitalist: The Ultimate Road Trip about his (second) trip around the world. His trips serve besides private pleasure the purpose of analyzing a countries competitiveness by hands-on research instead of analyzing GDP stats that anybody could have forged. So his book is a pretty good guide - however 400 pages for so many countries is not muc. Also a substantial part of his book is made out of many travel related facts (i.e. we took this train, we made this trip, we've seen this). Also Jim is offering us his criticism about nearly any international institution in this world (UNO, IMF, Worldbank). While the reader might share some criticisms I have missed some more pragmatic ideas to improve the shape countries that suffer from slow growth.

Most interesting the countries he recommends to invest in are China, Tanzania, Turkey, Bolivia, Uruguay, and Argentina.

In all I found this book pretty entertaining and a quick (400 pages) trip around the world.