After our year-ago re-start-up of Global Investing following the bankruptcy of the former publisher, Rightside Advisors, I have good news and bad news.

The good news is that we are in the process of creating a new website which will be much better than the temporary site we settled for a year ago in desperation. The web designer has managed to extract from hashed files the Global Investing issues which I wrote during the Rightside period, so we have our track record back. This will be made available on the new site which will go live in about 10 days.

We also have the issues we printed monthly until Jan. 2008, more of our track record. I am not sure if we can put them onto the site because I do not have them in PDF format. But that is something we will work on.

The bad news is that technology does not come cheap. My newsletter will have to charge more for subscriptions. Of course we will honor all existing subscriptions. But we have to substantially boost what we charge for new ones and renewals. We are offering a daily stock advisory with a strong track record. I need to pay myself properly, which I haven't done since the re-start-up. We need to pay our team of brilliant contributors for their ideas and articles.

You can beat the boost in prices by subscribing or renewing right away before the switch takes place. One month and 3 month trial subscriptions will not be offered on the new site, so those holding them should seriously consider switching to a full annual or two-year sub now before the increase. In future, for trials, we will offer a day's access for $10, much less for the money.

A few notes about recent issues. First of all I was asked by CZW why I do not mention 'safer? cumulative preferred shares in the newsletter or in my piece yesterday quoting Institutional Investor. Non-cumulative preferreds do not make up dividends if they have been omitted.

Under the rules of the Bank for International Settlements in Basel, only non-cumulative preference shares count toward a bank's capital ratio. So banks do not issue cumulative preferred shares.

A Canadian reader asked what to do about ADR fees (on American depositary Receipts held in brokerage accounts.) I have been fighting against them for years, starting in 2006 when they started. The number of unsponsored ADRs has since skyrocketed as banks saw this as a money-earning business. Fees are not charged on sponsored ADRs as the foreign company itself pays the fees.

I organized our readers to complain to the SEC and their brokers about these charges. We did not succeed.

ADR fees charged by the depositary banks serve a couple of nefarious purposes of the US govt. First, fee earnings help banks make money to help them survive the financial crisis. Secondly, fees discourage foreign investment helping keep Americans in USA-only stocks.

Fees can be added to your basis when figuring out US capital gains. In fact, I have simply been adding the fees to my basis on a separate line when I file rather than inputting them individually into my portfolio. So far I have passed audit.

However I have no idea what Revenue Canada will do.

Another technical note discovered when my accountant said to turn my IRA into a Ross IRA. This will have one great advantage. My new account has to pay taxes on every stock transferred, so the prices of obscure ex-ADRs I own will have to be updated. I own in my IRA a former Citigroup ADR for a Thai fund management co., MTD, still listed and trading happily in Bangkok. But I have no idea what it is worth as the price in my IRA account is 18 months old. Now I will know.

Speaking of Thailand, a correction from Paul Renaud, our Thai-based contributor, for my note yesterday about Michel Camdessus. He writes: ?the ?Asian Contagion? was in 1997, not 1995! How can you forget?? The worst thing the IMF did is mandate that SE Asian countries raise interest rates, and dramatically. Imagine rising interest rates just as economies contract. This is in fact one key reason why the crisis become so devastating after the initial bang.

?Can you imagine in this current US financial crisis, if the US was mandated by some global body to raise interest rates, rather then drop them to near 0, as they did??

Apologies for getting the date wrong and failing to stress raising interest rates.

News from our portfolio companies and two sells today. We have four Q4 reports to cover. News comes from Israel, Brazil, The Netherlands, Finland, China, Britain and, to give you a taste of things, New Jersey.



*Bonus stock Cognizant Tech CTSH was raised to buy from hold by Stifel Nicolaus. It is incorporated in the US but is a major player in Indian IT outsourcing. It is cheaper (in p/e) and faster growing that the Bharti Indian rivals.

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