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So the trading and the bettingworld has changed immeasurably even within the last 12 months and definitely more radically than most traditional brokers currently realise; the investment world or, rather, the world of investment (of investment choices) is now every man’s financial oyster and is literally, technologically and factually there for the taking, for the ‘investing’. There are now really no such things as exotic markets: there are simply those markets that are MORE or LESS executable in terms of trading. It is as simple (or as difficult) as that! Take a look at that eternal basket case, Africa, at present on an upward economic surge on high mineral prices and Chinese investment. On the Sub-Saharan African continent, apart from South Africa, the exchanges are difficult to access with low liquidity which can be risky for an investor but this is improving fast in tandem with the economic growth shown by this continent over the last five years. A good point in case would be Angola, which is now the biggest Sub Saharan producer of oil in Africa, having overtaken Nigeria over the last few years. Angola’s heretofore unknown stock exchange is currently shaping up and investors should watch this space as Angola is a huge store house of mineral wealth. If they could just jettison the legal hangover from their Scientific Socialism (Communist) period, namely full ownership of land by foreign investors, then the process would be ten times more dynamic. As it stands, this throwback to Agostinho Neto and the Cubans in the 70’s only serves to promote more graft and corruption as disaffected foreign investors get their investments ‘squeezed then seized’.
Other continents such as the Australian continent boast very mature and innovative stock exchanges and Australia is setting up a formal CFD stock exchange and it has effectively become the gateway to other potentially more important stock exchanges such as the Japanese and Chinese exchanges. Back in Europe, another gateway-type exchange is the Austrian Stock Exchange whose brokers are highly specialised in Eastern European exchanges such as Russia and erstwhile satellite countries now vying for a piece of the international investor’s pie with a significant offering of their own. These exchanges (e.g. Poland, Czech Republic, Latvia, Lithuania etc) are coming from virtually a zero base with a highly intelligent, highly educated populace and will outstrip growth of more mature exchanges such as the Belgium Stock Exchange (read EURONEXT in its many manifestations) over the medium term. On the South American continent, the Brazil Stock Exchanges, the Brasil (as it is spelled in Portuguese) Stock Exchanges have been stellar performers but they have 3 significant impediments when compared to the budding Eastern European Exchanges for which reason they will not show the same explosive growth over the next 3-4 years unless they get their economic, technological and legal act together quickly:
2. The legal investment and regulation framework favours banks and very large financial institutions; it is weighted against foreign brokers and a closed shop of Brazilian brokers has been effectively created.
3. This makes for very expensive operating costs for a foreign broker and a lengthy (and costly) set up
