"Having successfully sold my Wealth Management business over 30 months ago (timing is everything) I am now enjoying retirement and maintain a keen interest in managing my own funds and following the Financial Markets and general investment opportunities. I also continue to be a great fan of Fullermoney's excellent service.

"Below [Ed: here) is a Bloomberg link where a BlackRock portfolio manager and an equity strategist for Collins Stewart LLC put forward their views supporting one of Fullermoney's favourite markets, Brazil. Many excellent points are made although the BlackRock Latin American fund is over 80% allocated to Brazil. Still, well worth a listen. The last section of the interview is with the strategist alone and he makes some very valid points regarding the current over bullish sentiment readings.

David Fuller's view Very well done and I hope your timing is just as good in forwarding this info on Brazil (monthly & weekly). It could because the market has done nothing over the last year which means that the valuations are relatively attractive today, at an historic PER of 14.11 and yield of 3.29, according to Bloomberg - good for a growth market.

Moreover, if you watch the interview with William Landers of BlackRock and Anthony Dwyer of Collins Steward, which I commend to you, you may find it as interesting as I did. Landers attributes Brazil's underperformance last year to poor corporate governance regarding the state-controlled Petrobras, which had a massive $70bn rights issue and did not let the ADR shareholders participate.

I would not buy Petrobras for this reason and also because it has a low dividend of 0.49%, although it looks like a recovery candidate to me. However, it has always been my long-term intention to buy a Latin American fund which would inevitably have a significant weighting in Brazil, or perhaps a Brazil tracker. A number are listed in the Library, including BlackRock's fund, managed by Landers. Search the Library under Latin America and also Brazil.

Incidentally, Landers says Brazil is trading on a forward PER for 2011 of 10 times earnings. He also says that Brazil is an emerging middleclass story and not just about commodities. This is certainly correct, and we also have the infrastructure story prior to the World Cup in Brazil in 2014, plus the Olympics in 2016.

Eoin rightly expressed some concern over Brazil's IOF tax to curb the flow of funds into the country, which the government fears could lead to a speculative bubble in Brazilian capital markets. I emailed William Landers and asked him about this. Here is his reply:

" Thanks - not very significant - it's 2% for local shares only - we have less than 30% of assets invested in local Brazil - we also take other steps to help minimize impact. Issue to follow is if they were to increase it to 6% in line with fixed income - doesn't look likely at this stage, but definitely a risk."

My guess is that without the Petrobras float which diluted foreign shareholders and without the IOF tax, Brazil's stock market would be considerably higher today. If all growth markets were trading at 10 times 2011 earnings, I would continue to overlook Brazil because of the IOF tax. However most growth markets are considerably more expensive today, as is Wall Street, so I feel that the IOF tax has been more than discounted.