Asian Dragon Market breaks loose!

Asian stocks entered a dragon (kinda like a bull) market yesterday after central-bank easing from the U.S. and Europe to China and Japan fueled the fastest rally in more than two years.

A Financially Inclusive World...you may call us dreamers but we're not the only ones....come and join us!!!

Letter from the CEO of ACCION:


Fifty years ago this year, ACCION was founded on the belief that we can create a better world by helping people to help themselves. Half a century later, we continue to fulfill this mission by providing high-quality, affordable financial services with dignity to those who need it most – those living in poverty.



Our vision is to build a financially inclusive world with access to economic opportunity for all. Over the last year, your support has enabled us to advance our mission and vision in many ways, including the provision of loans and other key financial services to millions.


Despite this progress, more than 2.7 billion people remain excluded from the world’s financial systems and the opportunity such access can create. With your support we can continue to bridge this gap, bringing life-changing microfinance services to the poor.

This year, ACCION made significant progress in all three of our strategic focus areas.


First, we are building the next generation of top-tier microfinance institutions – enabling these institutions to deliver a range of high-quality, affordable financial services. Highlights include:

• Inaugurating ACCION Microfinanças in Brazil, in June – a new MFI in the heart of the Amazon, where half of the region’s 14 million inhabitants live in poverty.

• Creating microfinance services for rural clients in Latin America through a grant from the Inter-American Development Bank. Over 130,000 clients in Peru, the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, Colombia and Ecuador have already been reached with rural credit products. Micro-savings programs that help clients recover from natural disasters and other unexpected events have been rolled out in Peru, Colombia and the Dominican Republic.
• Building and strengthening EB-ACCION Microfinance, a new microfinance institution in Cameroon, where more than 65 percent of the actively employed population lacks access to any form of secure, financial services.

• Providing secure savings accounts for more than 250,000 low-income people served by our partners in Tanzania, Nigeria and Cameroon, and proudly recognizing the achievement of both ACCION Microfinance Bank (AMfB) in Nigeria as ‘Microfinance Bank of the Year,' and EB-ACCION Savings and Loans in Ghana as African Banker’s ‘Microfinance Institution/Project of the Year 2011.’

• Strengthening our pioneering microfinance work in Chifeng, Inner Mongolia, China through partnership with the International Finance Corporation.

• Redoubling our commitment to the future of Indian microfinance, through equity investments and guarantees for our Mumbai- and Bihar-based partners, Swadhaar and Saija.

• Increasing opportunity here at home by working ever more closely with the ACCION U.S. Network – the largest microlending network in the country. Since inception, the Network has extended more than $300 million in small, working-capital loans.

• Continuing to explore un-served and underserved countries and regions of the world, such as Kenya, the Philippines, Pakistan and beyond, where our management, investment and governance skills can help foster financial inclusion.

Second, we are fueling innovation in financial inclusion, providing funding and technical assistance to promising start-ups and sustainable technologies beyond MFIs that serve people at the bottom of the pyramid:

• ACCION’s Frontier Investments Group continued to invest in ground-breaking financial services this year, such as mobile payments in Zambia, cashless payments in Peru, and a new technology services company in India staffed by people with disabilities.

• We are developing plans for the launch of a new venture capital fund that will provide patient capital to very small start-ups whose experimental but promising business models could catalyze the next leap in financial inclusion.

Third, we are proud to report that your support is helping us to build a strong microfinance industry with the highest possible standards:

• Through the Smart Campaign, ACCION’s Center for Financial Inclusion is helping to direct the industry’s first-ever, global consumer-protection initiative. With over 2,400 signatories serving more than 40 million clients in 130 countries, the Campaign is helping to ensure quality delivery of services, worldwide.

• We are helping to build industry capacity at training centers in India, Ghana and China, and in the last three years have taught more than 3,000 industry professionals new skills for delivering high-quality services.

• We continue to publish leading-edge, thought-provoking research on the industry, such as the recent reports on the state of client protection, and ‘opportunities and obstacles’ to financial inclusion.

• And we are expanding our collaboration with other industry leaders, including the ACCION Network of partners in Latin America and a working group of microfinance organization CEOs, on a common agenda to address key industry challenges. Our goal is to redouble the industry’s commitment to consumer protection, pricing transparency and meaningful measurement of social impact.

ACCION’s work has helped the microfinance industry to grow by orders of magnitude – from reaching tens of thousands of the world’s poor a few decades ago, to approximately 200 million today. Yet we know that much more remains to be done. That is why we are asking you for your continued support for our work around the globe.

As we look ahead to our next 50 years, we renew our pledge to build a truly financially inclusive world, where all of society can benefit from all that society offers. Thank you again for your participation. It has already made a difference; together, we can do so much more.

We are the World = remember that...

Protests against widening income disparity took place across western Europe and Asia today as the Occupy Wall Street movement spread around the globe. Rome’s demonstration turned violent, contrasting with events elsewhere.

More than 500 marchers wielding clubs attacked police, two banks and a supermarket in Rome, Sky TG24 reported. Authorities responded with tear gas and water cannon. In London, police barred protesters from entering Paternoster Square, home to the London Stock Exchange. In Frankfurt, 5,000 marchers gathered by the European Central Bank headquarters, firing soap bubbles from toy pistols with plans to camp out, said ZDF German television.


In the shadow of London’s St. Paul’s cathedral, protesters waved banners with slogans that read “No bulls, no bears, just pigs” and “Bankers are the Real Looters.”


“The financial system benefits a handful of banks at the expense of everyday people, the taxpayers,” said Spyro Van Leemnen, a 27-year old public relations agent and a core member of the London demonstrators. “The same people who are responsible for the recession are getting away with massive bonuses. This is fundamentally unfair and undemocratic.”


The Occupy Wall Street rallies started last month in New York’s financial district, where people have been staying in Lower Manhattan’s Zuccotti Park to protest inequality and advocate higher taxes for the wealthy. The Occupy London Stock Exchange protest drew about 4,000 people, according to its organizers. Police didn’t provide a number.

What a ride!!!

Global stocks fell to a 15-month low on Tuesday, pinning Asian stocks near a 16-month low, as investors shed riskier assets on growing doubts over Greece's ability to avoid default, fuelling fears of global financial turmoil and recession.



Fears over the banking sector's exposure to euro zone sovereign debt and plummeting value of assets across the board further led to a sharp widening of credit default swaps.

Weakening outlook for industrial demand weighed on copper and oil while flight-to-safety strengthened gold, yen and the dollar.

"Investors are cutting their exposure to risk as the most extreme risks -- such as Greek default -- are looming closer than they expected," said Jung Sang-jin, a senior fund manager at Dongbu Asset Management.


MSCI's broadest index of Asia Pacific shares outside Japan .MIAPJ0000PUS fell 1.58 percent, hovering near a 16-month low hit in late September. It fell about 3.6 percent on Monday.

The MSCI All-Country World index .MIWD00000PUS fell 0.52 percent to its lowest level since July 2010, adding to declines on Monday when bank shares were battered, with Franco-Belgian financial group Dexia (DEXI.BR) calling an emergency board meeting after concerns about its exposure to Greece.


Japan's Nikkei markets/index?symbol=jp%21n225">.N225 fell to a 6- month low as a sell-off in commodities pushed trading houses lower and the Greek woes pressured the financial sector.

"We could be in for a shakeout even larger than the Lehman shock," said Hideki Amikura, forex manager at Nomura Trust Bank.

The massive selling pressures prompted some authorities to step in to help restore some order.


The Korea Exchange temporarily suspended programme sales on the main Korea Composite Stock Price Index finance/markets/index?symbol=kr%21kspi">.KS11 in early trade on Tuesday due to drastic falls in futures as the broader market tumbled more than 5 percent.


Taiwan state funds were seen stepping in local market to prop up heavyweights such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (2330.TW), the world's top contract chipmaker, helping the market erase earlier losses to trade flat.

June Swoon or not? My bets are on that which feeds us….

No nation is an island and the world continues to motor on even in the wake of European Debt crisis after crisis and environmental wake-up calls in select parts of the globe.

What do we know…feedstocks are all in growing demand. Oil, metals, corn and wheat. Guess what? All have faced big challenges in delivering on growth to meet increasing demand. Think about civil unrest, environmental impacts and a global population that grows at 2%+ year and is urbanizing at 10% pa. All equal: upward pressure and strains on supply lines…

Speculators raised their net-long positions in 18 commodities in the week ended May 31, government data compiled by Bloomberg show. The Standard & Poor’s GSCI Spot Index rose for a fourth straight week as Chinese metal inventories plunged and droughts lingered in the Asian country and Europe, trimming prospects for wheat and cotton crops. The global recovery “is gaining strength,” the Group of Eight leaders said May 27 after a summit in Deauville, France.

One final note: The Asia-Pacific region overtook North America last year as the world’s biggest derivatives market amid increasing demand for futures and options contracts in the region’s fast-growing economies, according to data from the Washington-based Futures Industry Association.

Pure plays, like commodities are trader’s friends. Asia – Pacific and Southern Cone are going to make huge strides this year and next and that means more volatility!!!