3 Risk Evaluation Strategies: How to Measure a Country’s Investment Potential

Most investors are attracted to investing their finances internationally. An opportunity to diversify one’s portfolio and increase monetary return, participating in the global market also presents a certain amount of risk – which is why evaluation is essential to success. Below are three strategies to measure the degree of leverage within a country’s corporate fundamentals.

Keep in mind that analysing foreign risk factors should always create a ‘macroeconomic’ picture/preview of the operating environment, a similar concept to Forex trading signals. More importantly however, this type of evaluation should also always take an in-depth look at company-level investments.

3 Foreign Risk Evaluation Methods:

1. The Economist Intelligence Unit: The research arm of the economist, the EIU is a form of risk evaluation that involves ‘country risk service’ ratings. These ratings include economic and political risk on a 100-point scale, and are updated on a monthly basis. A great resource for investors, the EIU can help financiers get a sense of the financial direction a country is headed in, as well as a two year forecast of a variety of pertinent variables.

Brazil FIFA World Cup Stadium Construction on Schedule

The construction of the Brazil World Cup stadiums are on schedule, that is according to FIFA Secretary General Jerome Valcke after his visit to sites ahead of the 2013 Confederation Cup and the Brazil FIFA World Cup. Valke recently completed a three day trip to inspect the construction in various host cities, and to discuss preparations with Brazilian organisers.

After a board meeting of the local organizing committee in Rio de Janeiro, Valke stated that his greatest source of satisfaction was that the events were getting closer. After seeing the progress of the work in Cuiaba and Manaus, two host cities of the Brazil World Cup, he was convinced that progress was going to plan; workers in hi vis vests, engineers and officials have worked hard to reach these impressive results. The only Brazil World Cup host city that needs more work is Recife, which is also the host of the Confederations Cup next year. However, FIFA official will continue to monitor the progress closely. The deadline for Recife as well as Salvador is set for November. The Confederations Cup, the warm up tournament for the Brazil World Cup, will also be hosted by Brasilia, Belo Horizonte, Recife and Fortaleza.

The Second Most Expensive Luxury Apartment in the World

Thanks to the recession, eurozone crisis and public housing plans in China the property market has slowed down somewhat. Even the affluent have found themselves struggling to afford luxury apartments that would normally be within their financial grasp. And yet there are some who just have not felt the pinch at all.

Hong Kong’s Luxury Apartment

Asia’s most expensive luxury apartment has just been sold for £40 million. The apartment takes up the entire eighth floor of the illustrious Opus building in Hong Kong’s affluent Peak residential area. The unit price breaks down to a staggering £6,187 a-square-foot, making it the second most expensive luxury apartment next to London’s One Hyde Park luxury apartment, which recently sold for a solid £100 million. The buildings construction drew interest as people watched workers in their work trousers, hard hats and safety gear scaling the walls which were constructed to appear as if they are wrapping themselves around an invisible cylinder. The buyer of the new apartment certainly invested in a curious design

House Prices Rise by £1,000

London property news

In recent London property news, the average house price in the UK and London has risen by £1,000, more than 0.8%. One of the causes of the rise is the demand for premium and exclusive homes that continues to grow. This comes as unfavourable news for London home buyers and apart from shared ownership, there are a few other avenues that can be taken.

Rise in house sale prices

From data sourced from the Land Registry, it has been evaluated that the average house price in July was £162,900, up from £161,777 the month before. This indicates that house prises rose by 0.3% from 2011. Other interesting house sales figures from the Land Registry show that homes worth prices more than £1 million rose from 271 to 562. There is a sharp contrast between the mini boom of London and the rest of the country that has remained particularly inactive. London seems to be moving full speed ahead, leaving the rest of the UK property market behind. House prices in London significantly outperformed other regions seeing values up 6.5% over the past 12 months. The exclusive areas of Kensington and Chelsea, City of Westminster and Hammersmith and Fulham saw 16.1%, 14.4% and 10.6% growth correspondingly.

Paul Allen’s Yacht Used to Recoup a Piece of British History

The loss of the HMS Hood 70 years ago is considered one of the darkest hours in the Royal Navy’s history. 1,400 Crew went down with the vessel as the battle between Hitler’s Bismarck sent the battleship to her watery grave. Decades later and Paul Allen – Microsoft billionaire – offered his luxury yacht, Octopus, to the British navy as they prepared to raise the HMS Hood’s bell from the murky depths of the Irminger Basin between Iceland and Greenland.

Changes Brewing for South African Wine Exporters

South African wines are undoubtedly among the world’s finest, and wine exports from the country’s picturesque winelands play a major economic role; not only that but the 2012 harvest is expected to be the first or second largest in recorded history!

One might think the average South African wine producer’s cup runneth over, but concern is growing over the wine packaging industry, which plays a key role in the export process.

Glass Half-Full?

In the past, UK supermarkets would typically purchase shipments of pre-packaged South African wine – all of which had been bottled and labelled on South African shores before they were exported. However in recent years the UK has showed a growing trend towards buying the country’s wine in bulk instead. Those in the import and export industry will recognise just how widespread the effects of such a trend would be.

UK Property Rentals Experience Steady Price Increase

According to the latest Residential Lettings Survey conducted by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, rental property prices in the UK have increased by 4.3% over the last year, and as a result many first time buyers continue to find themselves financially excluded from the property sales and homebuy market. Furthermore, the UK rental property price growth is a trend that is set to continue; participants of the survey expect property rent to grow by a further 3.9% over the next yearly period.

High Demand for Properties

The increase in London rental property prices is primarily caused by high demand. There is currently a massive shortage of quality rental properties on the market in certain areas, driving up prices. In the second quarter of the year, the same amount of new properties entered the property rental market compared to the same period the previous year, whilst demand continues to grow. In the survey, regional differences in London rental property were apparent. The North West experienced the largest property rental increase in the UK, hitting the 6.9% mark. On the other end of the scale, rental properties in Wales stayed the same over the twelve month period.