Why does Finance Monitor care? Well, I can be our first investigative journalist! I will do my best to keep my eyes open for unique companies as well as seeing the depth to which international companies have penetrated the far reaches of the earth.
For example, when I visited China in 2008, I learned that Western toilets were a huge deal. The Chinese were (maybe still are?) transitioning from pit toilets to what we would call toilets. And the company to get a toilet with? Kohler! Too bad they are private...
So here is a list of places I will be in China (most likely flying, so these will be the only places):
Shanghai
Chengdu
Hong Kong
And in Europe the big cities are (with car and train travel between them):
London
Glasgow
Paris
Brussels
Amsterdam
So questions for everyone:
1. Any international company you want me watch for?
2. Any Chinese or European company I should look into?
3. What else should I look for?
Nicely done Alex.
ReplyDeleteI am curious what you might hear about the Chinese property market while you are over there. Also, see if you can get a sense of whether or not there is an issue of people just not trusting the stock market there or if this decline is actually meaningful. There's a lot of debate here about it, but surprisingly little good actual data.
One thing I am also interested in is the proliferation of knock off brands of major consumer goods. Is this a bigger problem than it used to be or is the government cracking down? A lot of U.S. companies are relying on the idea that the Chinese market will provide a new boost to their products.
These are more general trend issues rather than specific company issues, though the knock-off brand issue is a big deal to U.S. consumer products companies whether it be General Mills or Procter and Gamble.
As far as Europe, I think I have a pretty good sense of it and I don't have any specific companies in mind at the moment. If you were going to Africa, I would ask you what the cell phone markets are like there because MICC has been expanding in sub-Saharan Africa.
Of course, any sorts of new consumer products that you see proliferating that you have not heard of, please do share. There are all sorts of trends that appear all too late in our financial media and then you can't make money off of them.