Volume III, Issue 6 / June 2009
Welcome Letter
Fitz here. Since our last missive there have been many changes here at Without Borders. After thirty days of trying to juggle our travel schedules and portfolios while making a shift to a much more hands off , albeit supportive, publisher we are just about to the point where we know what we don’t know. One thing that we know for sure is the folks at Casey Research are some of the best financial minds found anywhere in the world as well as great publishers. We will always be grateful for their willingness to foray into the world of newsletters and publishing. If we can learn half as much as David Galland, Doug Casey and Terry Coxon have already forgotten then the new Without Borders will be a tremendous success.
What to Expect? A New and Improved Without Borders!
We think you can now expect a lot more from your subscription. There will be lots of good in store for our subscribers but surely some bad and ugly so let’s start with the bad and the ugly. We know we need to focus on the markets and political situation. While it is natural for us to want to “fix the damn website” we force ourselves to stay focused and let the very capable staff new to Without Borders work through these issues. These issues are often compounded because everything I know about HTML can be written in block letters inside a matchbook with a crayon.
So in the interim, and we promise to make it as short an interim as possible, you can expect some typos, technical glitches, a few broken links and even a dangling participle or two. Since the birth of Without Borders we have been the beneficiaries of some of the best editors, proofreaders and graphic artists in the business and it will take a while to get in synch with the new team. Please don’t think we don’t care. We do care. We just want to apologize in advance for any glitches and assure you that we will do everything we can to improve our service. Just not at the expense of our research. It would not be wise to have the world’s greatest website and prettiest graphics if it meant we skimped on our research in the field. If we have to choose between getting on a plane to visit an existing or potential investment and…. well you know you will find us in seat 15C before you find us in the programmers office. So in the “interim” please send your questions, comments and snide remarks to info@withoutborders.com.
Now on to the good stuff. We are really excited to bring you more opportunities on a more frequent basis. We have been frustrated in the past because we were unable to tell you about many of the best opportunities we discovered. We wanted to but we could not because the opportunities were either time sensitive and fell between publication dates or because of regulatory issues. Now we aim to fix that.
Private Deal Flow
While investing and speculating in the public markets is a great way to increase your wealth, there are times when the best deals are not publicly listed. This is especially true in many of the places we spend our time. There have been numerous times in the past couple of years where we simply could not bring you the very best opportunities because they did not meet the mandate of Without Borders. Well now they do. So as we come across private deals, and we are looking at three right now, we will bring them to you once we have done our due diligence. Think of us as your deal scouts. We have built up a sizable rolodex in out of the way places where being an insider and a known entity are a prerequisite for getting in on the best deals. Now we are going to bring our subscribers into the proverbial back rooms where you will have the opportunity to get in on deals at the founding shareholder level. We will only be bringing you deals we would personally invest in for our own account. We will never “sell deals” or offer a “blind pitch” the way many other publications do. We will never receive fees based on raising money from our subscribers. What we will do is help the Without Borders community benefit from our travels and research. Our subscribers will have the opportunity to invest on the exact same terms as we invest. All we are doing is opening the door so our loyal subscribers can have a seat at the table. We are very excited about this and we think you will really benefit from these opportunities financially and from having your money outside of your home country.
FLASH CABLE:The Without Borders Alert Service
Also with all the volatility in the marketplace we see some massive dislocations between the price of certain securities and their underlying values. Sometimes this is because a hedge fund or a big bank is forced to dump a position to raise cash. Other times it is because there is a general market sell off and the shares get hammered for no good reason. There have been many frustrating occasions when we wrote about a fantastic opportunity only to have the shares recover, sometimes doubling or better between the moments we find the miss priced security and our publication date. Well that’s not going to happen anymore. So starting next month we will be offering an alert service entitled FLASH CABLE.
We expect volatility to be the order of the day and this will produce powerful profits for those that sign up for FLASH CABLE. Because many of these shares are small companies with low volume we are going to cap the number of subscribers at 400. That way everyone will be able to capitalize on these opportunities. If we did not limit the number of subscribers to this service not everyone would be able to get in at the right time. This could really be the most powerfully profitable service as we enter what we think will be another volatile and painful correction similar to what we saw in the last months of 2007. Stay tuned and if you are interested please email us at flashcable@withoutborders.com
If more than 400 of you express interest then we will base membership on your “seniority” as subscribers so those that have been with us the longest will have the first chance at getting in. You have been loyal to us. It is only right that we return the favor.
What’s Next?
Next month will be our semi annual portfolio review and we will be taking a hard look at all of our positions with an eye towards another correction coming fast and hard. In the meantime, unless you believe in a particular position enough to hold it for the next five years, we recommend putting a stop loss order in with your broker at 5% below where the shares are trading today. This will save you much pain and heartache should another big market sell off occur before we go to print again. We don’t know when it will happen but we are sure it will happen. We are also evaluating some short selling opportunities and will be updating you on this starting next month. While not a full recommendation yet because we are still combing through the prospectus and trying to grasp the fine nuances of the ETFs, you might want to buy some of the new Proshares Ultrashort Emerging Market ETF (NYSE: EEV). This will offset the decline of some of our “will to your grandkids” shares should there be another steep sell off.
The Without Borders Community
Finally, let us just reiterate how appreciative we are to have such an interesting and loyal group of subscribers. Just this month alone, while struggling to sort out the technological transition, we have had the opportunity to break bread (bend elbows really) with seven subscribers from three countries who were just passing through plus a few who have relocated and are fast becoming friends. Although the mix included retirees, young singles and families with kids each and every one of the fellow intellectual adventurers are impressive in their love of life and freedom. We all seem to share a universal belief in the human spirit and individualism. It is very refreshing to know the “Rational Wing of the Lunatic Fringe” is alive and well. A special thanks to Ron from California for the peanut butter and the toys for the kids!
We are honored and humbled by the caliber of people who make up the Without Borders community and we want to improve that sense of community as we craft new services. We don’t know when or where but there will certainly be a Without Borders conference this year. We are also hoping to find new and innovative ways to make Without Borders become more of an interactive community where subscribers can communicate better with each other. We are toying with some ideas and look forward to hearing your thoughts when we conduct our next subscriber survey in July.
Well that’s enough of a preamble for this month….thanks for tolerating the housekeeping and overlooking the typos. This issue will take us from Colombia to Japan with a quick diversion through Central Asia. And by overwhelming popular demand we will start a new feature that will run sporadically entitled “Off the Shelf” where we highlight books we deem worthy.
This post is just an excerpt from a full issue of Without Borders. If you would like to read the full article and gain exclusive access to all of the actionable investment intelligence that our current subscribers are profiting from every month, then we invite you to try out or subscription, risk-free, for 30 days. So, try it out today and discover a new world of undervalued opportunities – and a fresh new world perspective.