I don't know what to say when I see individual holdings jumping double digits in a single day on no news other than "WOW"! Just this week, I've purchased some international ETFs and ADRs that are already up double digits since purchase. Today for instance, WBD rose over 11% on no news. They do have earnings coming out next week and I'm debating if I should just unload the shares and be happy with a quick double digit bump and a few hundred bucks to boot. Not exactly Buffetesque long term investing, but if your daily returns exceed a typical annual return, is holding now anything short of greed?


Of some other recent purchases and recommendations, AMOV was up 3.6% today, PCU was up 5.3% (plus a 10% yield at time of purchase), TSP was up another 2% and HMX was up 1.7%. These are in various markets on different continents.


My strategy on international investments hasn't changed. Now is the time to load up on some international holdings, perhaps even in a leveraged fashion, but only invest with your speculative portion of your portfolio and diversify if exceeding about 20% of your normal holdings. Plan on gradually unloading as the year wraps up and perhaps exit out of most of your volatile plays by next spring. Not that I have a crystal ball, but come on, this isn't going to last forever. It will be agonizing to see 50-100% gains wiped out in 3 days when the precipitous decline finally occurs. It's just a matter of selling when the noise becomes deafening; right now it's getting loud in here. With a new election looming, the international markets won't need much to be spooked; continued Nigerian oil rig interruptions, China sabre-rattling, North Korea madness again. In lieu of these recommendations, I've researched several international options over the past few months in prior posts - see the top posts section.


Since WBD has been so hot, I've continued to research the Eastern European market a bit and found Central European Distribution (CEDC) as well. They're set to exploit to Poland market which is showing robust economic growth. Last year's GDP grew 5.8% and this year's is projected to exceed 6%. Construction is booming across the country and people are buying houses at a rapid pace as evidenced by their mortgage activity. Here's a chart showing a strong YTD performance vs. our S&P here at home.





Due to the recent popularity of the international markets, I'll be doing some thorough research on additional ADRs and ETFs for different regions and break out by sectore, dividend yield, recent returns and the like. Stay tuned.

Dan