People laugh at me when I say that Russian stocks are dirt cheap and worthwhile to have some allocation to a portfolio. Sure, there is risk, corruption, Putin, etc But good news is the antitheses of great value, so the great value needs to be looked where news are clearly overhyped on decent companies. And Russia is not an Argentina or a Russia of 1999. Russia has a debt of 11% GDP and has around of $500 billion of foreign reserve currency (in contrast of $7billion and debt of 162% GDP in 1999).
I still remember when friends were telling me that I would be mad to have invested in Japanese companies 4 years ago. They claimed it would be dead money for generations. I acknowledge that they could be right (I am not a fortune teller or have a time machine), but they looked such a great value that I could not resist. So I bought some and in the end it turned ok. In the end the biggest risk would be to have listened to other people without looking myself at the figures.
What am I owning in Russia? Gazprom at P/E of around 3 (give or take) and knowing that Putin is enforcing the companies to pay more dividends. Putin's idea is to force companies to give away more profits to shareholders so that those companies start to be more efficient with the remainder and stop misallocating the current amount of surplus.
This is my 10 cents. The probability of being right is 50%, the same as a fund manager but without charging you a commission :)
Off course never invest the farm. There will be always events that cannot be predicted.
