Strange Omissions

There is a good article on Marketwatch about Turkey. If you know nothing about what is going on there, this article will go along way to getting you up to speed.

What is weird is what was left out.

The story talks about Turkey's effort for entrance into the EU, the consequences to that with the votes in France and The Netherlands, how the political news from Germany could also influence this part of the story.

The article also gets comments from various emerging market funds that have some Turkish exposure and mentions the one NYSE listed ADR; Turkcell (TKC).

What was left out, news wise, may be more important than the EU. There is now an oil pipeline that carries oil from Azerbaijan, across the Caspian Sea, through Turkey to the rest of Europe. Turkey collects what amounts to a toll for this. I first read about this months ago in Bloomberg. The estimate was that Turkey would get around $100 million per year for this.

I think this is a major part of the story and it was left out. Also left out was the Turkish Investment Fund (TKF) as a way to access the country.

I sent the author an email to ask about these things and she said there was not enough room for the pipeline issue and that calls to TKF were not returned. I think I'm being naive but this makes no sense to me. It makes me wonder what I'm missing when I read about things I know less about than I do with Turkey. Yikes.