When will new Europe run out of steam?

al_yrpal

In summer 2004 I bought my first new Europe fund, since then its almost doubled in value. The underlying shares are heavily into Banks, Energy and Telecoms. In summer 2005, the manager switched his top holdings into Gazprom and Lukoil thus ramping up growth. The Energy move is pretty clear, but telecoms and financial services growth point to wealth increasing spreading to the masses.

A recession in America will no doubt kill off, or at least slow down this spectacular growth, and one sees a lot of media attention to Russias new rich, indeed we see many rich Russians settling here.

When do you see this massive Bull run in the East running out of steam?

nb I am posting this question so that I get better educated on current investment trends without going into specific investment recommendations (which Martin doesn't like). Hopefully it will make the Savings and Investment board more useful, make some of us all better educated, and reveal opinions of specific investment types.

cheerfulcat

FWIW, I think that Eastern Europe now is where Ireland was twenty years ago and I would expect to see a similar performance. Nothing to do with the US, everything to do with large amounts of ( our ) EU money so I wouldn't think that a US recession would spoil the party...

angelica

I do not see what EU money have to do with Russia, they are not part of EU.

carnet

CC did not mention Russia

There are other counties in Eastern Europe which are now part of the EU.

innovate

carnet wrote:

CC did not mention Russia

But the OP did

cheerfulcat

I assumed that the mention of rich Russians implied a flow of funds from them to the Eastern European economies, which seems fairly likely given the geographical and previous political ties...

al_yrpal

To clarify, some 53.3% of the fund I mentioned is in Russia, 15 % on Hungary, 10 in Poland, 8 in Austria.