NZ Anecdote

I have not written about New Zealand in a while but nothing has changed with my long term outlook and clients and I still own New Zealand Telecom.

That being said, there is visibility for the economy to slow down and for the currency to get weaker over the next few months or even longer.

Last night before my interview on CNBC Asia I asked show host Lisa Oake and reporter Mark Laudi if CNBC Asia is available in New Zealand. Mark had the details on the situation. They used to carry it but the audience for it was too small so they cut it from the channel lineup.

I think this speaks to the investing class being very small (while this is far from surprising it is a little bit of evidence to support the idea) which I take to mean that there is potential for the investor class to grow as a percentage of the population.

This builds in a possible future source of demand for shares. This may or may not pan out but the potential exists. A lot of the foreign markets I write about are quite small. The extent to which residents participate can matter. The automatic public pension funds purchases are a big part of why I view Austria and Chile so fondly.

This is worth paying attention to.