LOS GATOS, Calif. — Netflix, Inc., the leading Internet movie subscription service, today announced it will expand to 43 countries throughout Latin America and the Caribbean later this year, offering unlimited TV shows and movies streaming instantly over the Internet to TVs and computers for one low monthly subscription price. Netflix has been streaming to U.S. members since 2007, adding the service in Canada last year.
Upon launch, Netflix members from Mexico, Central America, South America and the Caribbean will be able to instantly watch a wide array of American, local and global TV shows and movies right on their TVs via a range of consumer electronics devices capable of streaming from Netflix, as well as on PCs, Macs and mobile devices.
Members in the region will be able to access Netflix in Spanish, Portuguese, or English, depending on their preference. People interested in Netflix can go to …
Colombia Returns to Investment-Grade Status
July 1st, 2011NEW YORK – After decades of social, political and economic struggles, Colombia has achieved an important milestone: Fitch Ratings became the third credit rating agency this year to raise the South American nation’s debt to investment grade.
Colombia’s rating was upgraded by one notch to BBB-minus. Fitch cites prudent economic policies and increased resiliency to internal and external shocks. Fitch also praised Colombia’s capacity to navigate the world’s weak economic climate.
Alberto Bernal, head of research for Bulltick Financial, believes the upgrade is the last step in Colombia’s quest to restore its pre-1999 credit worthiness.
“Colombia is the only Latin America country that has never defaulted on an external debt commitment,” Bernal said. “The return to investment grade implies that good policies pay-off in time. Good policies, meaning policies that respect the premises of low inflation and stable business cycles, are the only ones that can consistently reduce poverty in …
Report from Lima: Prosperity Brings Changes to Peru
June 29th, 2011LIMA –– Lima was always gray. The Peruvian capital, for much of the year, had this overcast dullness; the sun rarely shone, it never rained, it was just damp and gray. Your hair didn’t dry. Your clothes molded, literally, in the closet.
When I returned to Peru this month for the first time in 26 years, Lima was still damp and gray. That had not changed. But many other things had.
Peru has the fastest-growing economy in Latin America, having registered substantial growth nearly every year for a decade. Where that prosperity has touched, the change is remarkable. There is a dynamism, an optimism, that did not exist in the 1980s and ’90s, periods of fratricidal guerrilla violence and divisive political turmoil. At the same time, Peru continues to be beset by unresolved issues of poverty and the legacy of war.
When Francisco Pizarro founded Lima in 1535, …
Latin American Stocks Thriving, Thanks to China
June 29th, 2011Source: Uncommon Wisdom / Tony Sagami
This column is devoted to Asian investment opportunities, but it doesn’t mean you or I should ignore the rest of the world. That is especially true when companies in other regions are making big profits by doing business with China.
In fact, one of my long-running, consistent investment themes has been to urge you to get ‘long’ whatever the Chinese are buying. In most cases, they are buying the strategic natural resources it needs to fuel its future growth, which includes popular consumer goods for the country’s growing, affluent middle class.
The Chinese have been blitz-buying everything from oil reserves to Louis Vuitton purses, from copper to iPhones, and from soybeans to Yum Brand pizzas. China’s government is using sovereign wealth funds and state-owned enterprises to buy up economic assets. One place where it is spending a mountain of money is Latin America.
Latin America is …
Walk around the Bangalore and Mysore campuses of Indian IT outsourcing giant Infosys and it’s easy to become despondent about Britain’s competitive future.
It’s not the grand replicas of the White House, the pyramids and Sydney Opera House so much as the numbers that tell the story.
Infosys adds 20,000 Indian IT and engineering graduates to its 150,000-strong workforce each year, paying salaries of just £5,000 and training them, 200 at a time, in huge auditoria.
It’s nearly all aimed at the West with Infosys, India’s fifth largest company, getting 90pc of its $6bn (£3.74bn) turnover from the US and Europe.
Britain accounts for 12pc – about $720m a year. No wonder the Bangalore campus was a key stop on David Cameron’s India tour last year.
Infosys is a household name in India, with a market capitalisation of $35bn in Mumbai and on Nasdaq. Last week it was the top-rated business …
Brazil Must Be ‘Vigilant’ Against Global Capital Inflows, Central Bank President Says
June 27th, 2011Brazilian central bank President Alexandre Tombini said the government needs to remain “vigilant” in fighting capital inflows that have pressured the currency, domestic demand and consumer prices in Latin America’s biggest economy.
Tombini, speaking yesterday at an event in Porto Alegre, said the very “strong” levels of inflows have slowed, in part at least due to the government’s imposition of capital controls. “After the very strong first quarter, which made the job of containing demand to control inflation all that more difficult, we’ve seen a important reduction in these flows,” Tombini said.
Near record-low interest rates among many of the world’s developed economies has led to a surge of inflows into emerging market economies, where policy makers have been raising borrowing costs this year. Brazil’s central bank, led by Tombini, has raised its benchmark rate four times to 12.25 percent in 2011. Net private capital inflows to emerging economies …
KOLKATA, India — The Central American republic of El Salvador is keen on trade and investments from India and stronger bilateral relations between the two countries.
Speaking at an interactive session fielded by the Indian Chamber of Commerce in Kolkata on Wednesday, the ambassador of El Salvador to India, Dr Ruben Ignacio Zamora Rivas said that the nation can open up the vast markets in Guatemela, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama, besides being an ideal hub for access to the US and European markets.
Dr Rivas said that currently India exports pharmateuticals, fabrics, textiles, electrical goods and auto parts to El Salvador, but there is ample scope for trade in the areas of IT, agro-chemicals, BPOs and medical services from India. He said advanced countries of the world have realized that the future of global trade and commerce lies in China and India, and given proper importance, …
Economy Boosts Number of IPOs in Chile
June 20th, 2011SANTIAGO — The list of Chilean companies waiting to debut on the local market continues to grow, as recent successful initial public offerings confirm a healthy appetite for new investment opportunities amid robust economic growth.
Three companies have already listed shares on the Santiago Stock Exchange this year and another one is set to debut later this month, after the lone 2010 IPO of farmed-salmon producer Compania Pesquera Camanchaca SA .
As surging domestic demand has fueled Chile’s quick economic recovery following a 2009 recession and a devastating February 2010 earthquake and tsunami, investor confidence has consolidated and corporate expansion plans have taken off. The central bank forecasts a 5.5% to 6.5% on-year expansion of gross domestic product in 2011.
“Forecasts for strong economic growth this year and next couldn’t be better. To take advantage of this growth, companies are putting together aggressive expansion plans, which necessarily require financing, and …
Region’s Evolution Beats Skepticism
June 13th, 2011
By Eric Hochstein
A few years ago, when I heard people talking about Latin America as an emerging location for call centers and outsourcing delivery operations for companies in the United States, I was extremely skeptical.
At that time, I was working for a Canadian provincial government trying to attract investment to Canada. Central and South American alternatives were rarely considered by companies considering Canada. Sure, the exchange rate between the U.S. and Canada favored the U.S. then (now, the dollars are at par), and there were major concerns about the quality and capabilities of Latin American workforces.
I believed that Latin America had great potential for Spanish-speaking contact centers, perhaps to respond to the expanding needs of the U.S. Hispanic market, but I doubted there was enough bilingual and English-language talent to meet the needs for those types of agents …
Latin American ETFs for Investing: The Top 9
June 13th, 2011In recent years, investors have become increasingly more interested in emerging global economies. In addition to China and India, investors are also keenly looking at South America. Here we have identified the major latin exchange traded funds that maintain high liquidity and depict the real economic growth of Latin America.
Your Cheat Sheet to Latin Exchange Traded Funds
iShares S&P Latin America 40 Index (NYSE:ILF) is among the most traded Latin ETFs with average volume of 1.30 million shares per day. The respective ETF tracks the performance of S&P Latin American 40 Index, which consists of most liquid Mexican and South American equity securities. ILF consists of companies from Mexico, Brazil, Chile and Argentina.
Though a considerably low volume in comparison to other Latin ETFs, SPDR S&P Emerging Latin America (NYSE:GML) is still categorized as liquid enough to be included in the list, with an …
