HedgeCo.net (West Palm Beach) – Uzbekistan hedge fund manager, Ansher Fund Management, has reported that their flagship hedge fund, Ansher Regional Property Fund, (ARPF) has maintained its performance moderately stable at –0.37% during April-June 2009 despite the still lagging property markets around the globe.

"Property markets in the region, especially Kazakhstan residential segment, continued slowing in the quarter owing to still limited or expensive mortgage facilities for buyers," Khurshid Kholov, fund manager and CIO said. "However, the decline rate in the region has been slower during the 2nd quarter as compared with previous quarters, showing signs of market recovery. Thanks to active portfolio management ARPF is still up by 0.80% since inception, thus comfortably outperforming all three benchmarks."

Despite the fact that the economy of Kazakhstan has been under pressure amid the global financial turmoil, a slight signs of economic recovery has been observed in the country, the fund manager said. It’s expected that the GDP of this oil rich country will not post negative growth for the year 2009, owing to currently recovering oil and commodity prices in the world markets.

This is the result of the antirecessionary measures the Government undertook in which $25 billion of funds were injected into the economy. About $4 billion out
of this amount was directed particularly into the real estate sector of the country.

ARPF has seen new investment opportunities in the hotel sector after the residential real estate market dropped out. "The hotel sector is immature and currently existing 4 five star hotels in Almaty operate with 90% occupancy rate," ARPF said.

A sharp deficit is expected to emerge with the Asian Winter Games which will take place in Almaty in 2011. Real estate sector of this energy house country still offers promising investment opportunities for property investors in the long term.

Alex Akesson
alex@hedgeco.net

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Tags: active portfolio, commodity prices, economic recovery, economy of kazakhstan, five star hotels, global financial turmoil, hedge-fund-manager, hotel sector, mortgage facilities, occupancy rate, promising investment opportunities, property investors, property markets, real estate sector, recovery thanks, regional-property, residential real estate, west palm beach, winter games, world markets

Economic Times - Gold, the traditional safe haven in times of economic turmoil, proved to be more a commodity that everyone loved to hate last year even amid the turbulence that engulfed world markets.

But as 2009 gets under way the yellow metal has found huge traction with money managers. In the last eight sessions, gold has rallied as much as $100 an ounce to hit a near four-month high of $915.30 on Monday — in spite of a rising dollar.

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Tags: commodity, economic turmoil, economic-times, gold, mdash, money-managers, ounce, safe haven, sessions, spite, traction, turbulence, world markets

Thai News Agency MCOT – Gold traders in Bangkok’s Chinatown closed their doors at their peak annual sales period for their shops during the Chinese New Year for the first time on record due to the high fluctuation of gold prices in the world market, Gold Traders Association president Jitti Tangsithipakdi said Monday.
 
The area’s gold shops will be closed on both Monday and Tuesday, Mr. Jitti disclosed.
 
The gold trade in Bangkok’s Yaowarat Road Chinatown was halted for the first time in memory during the Chinese New Year holidays when Thai Chinese normally buy gold as New Year’s presents. However, the high and erratic price of gold this year led potential customers to give their family members cash instead of gold. 
 
Fluctuations in gold prices on the world markets caused difficulty for gold dealers as they are forced to adjust the price many times a day. The price currently has been moving in a range of as much as 400 baht per day.

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Tags: association president, baht, bangkok, chinatown, chinese new year, fluctuation, fluctuations, gold dealers, gold prices, gold trade, gold traders, new year holidays, price of gold, sales period, thai chinese, thai news agency, traders association, world market, world markets, yaowarat road