Nordic countries include Denmark , Sweden , Norway , Finland , Iceland and their accociated territories (e.g. Greenland ). “Scandinavia” is also used often as a synonym for the Nordic countries, but it the strict sense Scandinavia only includes Denmark , Sweden and Norway Greenland accounting for around 60% of total area alone). [source: Wikipedia]
Picture: “Scandinavia from space in winter”. Source: NASA via Wikipedia.
If you are not familiar with these countries, you probably have heard about Vikings. They came from Scandinavia and between eight and eleventh century settled or raided most of Northern Europe including coastal Finland and cities like London. They sailed in the south all the way to Sicily in Mediterranean Sea and in the west all the way to North America. Their heritage can still be seen in the successful shipping and ship construction companies.
Denmark, Sweden and Finland belong to European Union. Out of these, only Finland belongs to eurozone, while others maintain their own currency. Danish krone has been tied to euro via ERM II mechanism since 1999 and is required to trade within 2.25% range of the specified exchange rate of 1 EUR = DKK 7.46038. [source: Wikipedia]
Here is a list of Nordic companies yielding more than 4% and which I believe are available to US investors either as NYSE/NASDAQ listed companies or via pink sheets (OTC). The source of the data is from FT.com stocks screener:
* While some of the companies are incorporated outside Nordic countries, I have counted them as Nordic companies because they are primarily listed in one of the Nordic stock exchanges and their roots and much of the operations lie in the region.
(pk) = Should be available via pink sheets / OTC market. I did not want to include the ticker symbols for pink sheets as you should do your own due diligence before investing in them or before deciding which is the right instrument to trade.
The companies directly listed either in NYSE or NASDAQ in the list above are:
Frontline: “The worlds largest oil tanker company”.
Millicom: “Millicom provides affordable, widely accessible and readily available prepaid cellular telephony services to more than 30 million customers in 13 emerging markets in Latin America and Africa where the basic telephone service is often inadequate and where economic development and rising personal income levels are creating increasing demand for communication services.”
Seadrill: “leading offshore deepwater drilling company”
Nokia: Worlds largest mobile phone manufacturer and a leading provider of telecommunications networks (via a joint 50/50 company with Siemens).
Statoil: “a leading energy company in oil and gas production”
For readers that have access to OMX Nordic, here is the full list of companies:
Remember to check forecast for 2010 yield & conduct do diligence before investing!
No comments:
Post a Comment