Definitely out of the question for the custodial accounts.
It's nice to know that at least one person in the world is looking after their clients money in a responsible manner.
Meanwhile, us crazed gold bug loonies continue with our plots of world monetary domination -g-
Message 18186700
Got Iranian stocks??
payvand.com
Iran Financial Times
Dated: 15 October 2002
The Financial Time reported, that for the first time since the 1979 Islamic revolution, Iran has experienced a net inflow of capital and gold bullion, drawn by domestic investment opportunities as well as driven by a sense of financial insecurity outside the country following the September 11 attacks on the US.
Bankers say the amounts returning to Iran cannot be compared with the outflow of Saudi capital from the US, but probably total several billion dollars over the past year. Official figures have not been disclosed. The fear factor is considerable – of collapsing stock markets but, more significantly, the danger of private assets being frozen by a hostile US government that has branded Iran as part of an ‘axis of evil’. That sense of insecurity, according to one banker, persuaded the Iranian government to repatriate all or most of its gold bullion from the vaults of central banks in Europe. “They were worried that the post-September 11 world order had changed and that it was safer to have the gold at home,” he explained.
Central Bank of Iran, after taking several weeks to reply to questions about its gold reserves, eventually said “no comment”. According to official figures, Iran’s gold is valued at around $2.5 billion. Much of that was deposited in the Bank of England, which also declined comment.
Bankers suspect that tighter policing of dirty money in the west was also a factor behind the return of some capital to Iran. This in turn prompted the government to start drafting its own first law on money laundering. It is not clear, however, whether a recent decision by the state-run National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) to move the headquarters of Naftiran Intertrade Co, its external financing arm, from London to Switzerland was driven by politics. Both companies declined to comment.
Nonetheless, bankers generally believe that the improving domestic investment climate, fuelled in part by high oil prices, has acted as a powerful magnet for capital that has long flowed in the opposite direction. The CBI has kept the value of the Rial steady against the dollar for the past two years, while keeping interest rates yielding an annual 17% on bonds.
The inflow of capital has triggered a surge on Tehran’s stock exchange – one of the world’s best performing but most poorly regulated markets – and a construction boom with soaring property prices.
The Tehran exchange saw its trading volume rise by 170% in the six months to September, while the all-share index rose 26%. |
