Seen better days (2024)

15/02/2022

Chile’s vaccination campaign against the coronavirus has been one of the world’s quickest and most extensive, but a recent surge in infections has sparked concern beyond its borders.
Almost 40% of the South American country’s total population have now received at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine, according to statistics compiled by Our World in Data, reflecting one of the highest vaccination rates in the world.
Only Israel and the U.K., respectively, have inoculated a larger share of their population with at least one dose.
Nonetheless, Chile has endured a sharp uptick in coronavirus infections in recent weeks, even with its world-renowned vaccine rollout and strict lockdowns in place for much of its 19 million inhabitants.
The Pan American Health Organization’s regional director has since emphasized that for most countries in the region, vaccines won’t be enough to prevent rising infection rates.
The number of daily cases in Chile rose to a record high on April 9, climbing above 9,000 for the first time since the pandemic began and significantly higher than the peak of almost 7,000 recorded last summer.

12/02/2022

Two almost simultaneous earthquakes were felt Saturday in the South Shetland Islands in the Antarctica and in central Chile, where buildings shook in the country’s capital. No casualties or damage were immediately reported.
The quake in the South Shetland Islands had a magnitude of 6.9 with a depth of 9.6 kilometers, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, while the earthquake in Chile had a magnitude of 5.8.
Chile’s Interior Ministry said on Twitter the South Shetland Islands quake was 216 kilometers northeast of the country’s O’Higgins scientific base, and called for coastal regions in the Antarctica to be evacuated because of a tsunami risk.

12/02/2022

We know that hedge funds generate strong, risk-adjusted returns over the long run, therefore imitating the picks that they are collectively bullish on can be a profitable strategy for retail investors. With billions of dollars in assets, smart money investors have to conduct complex analyses, spend many resources and use tools that are not always available for the general crowd. This doesn't mean that they don't have occasional colossal losses; they do (like Melvin Capital's recent GameStop losses). However, it is still a good idea to keep an eye on hedge fund activity. With this in mind, as the current round of 13F filings has just ended, let’s examine the smart money sentiment towards Banco de Chile (NYSE:B*H).
Is Banco de Chile (NYSE:B*H) a good investment today? Investors who are in the know were betting on the stock. The number of long hedge fund positions improved by 2 recently. Banco de Chile (NYSE:B*H) was in 5 hedge funds' portfolios at the end of March. The all time high for this statistic is 10. Our calculations also showed that B*H isn't among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q1 rankings). There were 3 hedge funds in our database with B*H positions at the end of the fourth quarter.
Hedge funds' reputation as shrewd investors has been tarnished in the last decade as their hedged returns couldn't keep up with the unhedged returns of the market indices. Hedge funds have more than $3.5 trillion in assets under management, so you can't expect their entire portfolios to beat the market by large margins. Our research was able to identify in advance a select group of hedge fund holdings that outperformed the S&P 500 ETFs by more than 115 percentage points since March 2017 (see the details here). So you can still find a lot of gems by following hedge funds' moves today.

11/02/2022

Beauty and health secret. Add Flax to Your Food. Sprinkling a little flaxseed into your favorite smoothie might just be the easiest way to fend off the ravages of time. This high-fiber addition to your diet can not only improve the health of your gut bacteria, thus reducing your Alzheimer's risk, the omega-3s found in flaxseed can prompt your body to create new collagen cells, making your skin smooth and line-free.

10/02/2022

Sunday marked a historic day in Chilean history. And that is no mere empty phrase. The word “historic” can rarely be applied with better justification than here: Almost 80% of the electorate voted in favor of rewriting the constitution, a document dating back to the dark days of the Pinochet dictatorship, which ended some 30 years ago.
During the mass demonstrations in Chile a year ago, one of the main calls was for a new constitution that put far more emphasis on social policies. President Sebastian Pinera eventually gave in and agreed to hold a referendum on constitutional reform. Now, Chileans have sent an important signal to other Latin American countries: namely, that widespread discontent about extreme inequality can lead to a peaceful, democratic process of change.

06/02/2022

The result, 78 percent in favor of a new constitution, is a damning indictment on the neoliberal system adopted under the right-wing junta in 1973 that was used as a launch pad for similar programs around the world.
On Sunday, almost exactly a year after protests over inequality erupted in the country, Chileans voted in a landslide to adopt a new constitution that will ditch the one enshrined in 1980 under the military dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet.
As Robert Packenham and William Ratliff wrote in a 2007 Hoover Institution paper, “The first country in the world to make that momentous break with the past – away from socialism and extreme state capitalism toward more market-oriented structures and policies – was not Deng Xiaoping’s China or Margaret Thatcher’s Britain in the late 1970s, Ronald Reagan’s United States in 1981, or any other country in Latin America or elsewhere. It was Pinochet’s Chile in 1975.”

05/02/2022

{ Wholesome Meals, Any Night of the Week

03/02/2022

Shares of copper mining company Antofagasta look set to deflate because of a political lurch to the left in Chile, raising the possibility of higher taxes on resource companies. Recent drops in the price of copper aren’t helping either.
As a result, investors might want to reduce their positions in the stock (ticker: ANTO: United Kingdom).
The major issue for U.K.-incorporated Antofagasta is Chile, where the company’s mines are based. In May, Chile’s lower house approved a bill that would impose a new royalty fee on producers operating in the top copper-producing nation.
“The left-wing is on the ascension in Chile, and that doesn’t bode well for where the taxes come out in the end,” says Tyler Broda, head of EU mining research at Canadian financial company RBC Capital Markets in London. “We think it is going to be hard for the shares to hold in where they are.”

31/01/2022

This week we will take a look at prices and volumes of kiwifruit in the U.S. market.
In a recent article, we discussed how Chilean kiwifruit production had decreased due to labor shortages as a result of the pandemic, and how Northern California, whose season has already ended, also saw a drop in production. Add this to the increase in consumption of fruits rich in vitamin C, and you get high kiwifruit prices in the market.
To the above, we must add the fact that kiwifruit stocks in the Northern Hemisphere (United States, Italy, Greece, France) are lower compared to previous years, and that there are also delays in Chilean production. Let us also remember that the majority of kiwifruit volumes from New Zealand go to the Asian market and to Europe.
As we mentioned, and as can be seen in the graph below, the reported average prices of kiwifruit in the North American market have been the highest in recent years. The average reported price in May was US$25.68 for containers of nine kilograms or 19.8 pounds, which represents a 15 percent increase year-on-year.

28/01/2022

In Colombia, the process announced by President Ivan Duque in February to grant temporary protected status to over a million Venezuelans has already started. Grandi met the President and other national and local authorities and thanked them and the people of Colombia for this generous move, that will pave the way to the full inclusion of refugees and migrants from Venezuela. He also met with Venezuelan refugees and migrants to hear from them about their needs and concerns.
Grandi then travelled to Ecuador, where President Guillermo Lasso announced a new regularization process for Venezuelans in the country. Ecuador plays host to an estimated 430,000 Venezuelan refugees and migrants and has a long tradition of asylum and has recognized over 70,000 refugees, the majority from Colombia. In the capital, Quito, Grandi met the Vice-President and other government officials, members of civil society, including refugee and migrant associations. He also joined the private sector in the launch of a new strategy to integrate those forcibly displaced in the labour market in order to support their socio-economic integration.
'Refugees and others displaced can become real agents of change and contribute to the communities hosting them if given a chance and the tools to thrive,' Grandi said. 'In this sense, the rest of the world can learn a great deal about the inclusion and integration of refugees in Latin America and the Caribbean.'

26/01/2022

Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi said China’s anti-COVID vaccine did not fully work and questioned whether Russia’s Sputnik jab would ever get approval from European regulators.
'The Chinese vaccine... has shown itself not to be adequate. You can see that from Chile’s experience of tackling the epidemic,' Draghi told reporters at the end of a European Union summit.
Chile has relied heavily on the COVID-19 shot developed by China’s Sinovac, but health authorities in the South American country have questioned how effective it is against more transmissible virus variants and are also looking into how long it remains effective once injected.
A study published in April said the Chinese vaccine proved minimally effective at preventing illness after one dose. With a second jab, it was 67% effective in preventing symptomatic infection, 85% effective in preventing hospitalizations and 80% in preventing deaths.
Draghi also questioned Russia’s Sputnik vaccine.
The European Medicines Agency (EMA) had been expected to conclude its review of the Russian jab and issue a decision in May or June. However, approval was delayed because the makers missed a June 10 deadline to submit data, sources told Reuters earlier this month.
“The Russian vaccine Sputnik has never been able to get approval from EMA and perhaps it never will,” Draghi said.

25/01/2022

A party thrown in Chile to celebrate a cat's birthday has resulted in a local coronavirus outbreak, with some 15 people contracting the disease, a health official has confirmed. The celebratory feline, however, was fine.
The bizarre incident was confirmed by Francisco Alvarez, an official with the Ministry of Health for Chile's Valparaiso region. Speaking to Radio Bio-Bio on Saturday, Alvarez said that a coronavirus outbreak in the small seaside town of Santo Domingo, reported by local media a while ago, was indeed sparked by a birthday party thrown for a cat.
'Even though it sounds unbelievable and almost fiction, these things happen in our country,' Alvarez stated.
Health officials have doubted the cat's birthday was the true motive behind the gathering, suspecting there was something more to it, but the revelers have insisted that was the genuine reason for the get-together.
'When I knew about this, I said… it's a joke. Probably they said that to conceal something else, but it was exactly that,' the official added.

24/01/2022

Chile’s air force said it lost radio contact with a transport plane carrying 38 people on a flight Monday evening to the country’s base in Antarctica.
It said the military had declared an alert and activated search and rescue teams.
The C-130 Hercules carried 17 crew members and 21 passengers, including three civilians. The personnel were to check on a floating fuel supply line and other equipment at the Chilean base.
President Sebastian Pinera said via Twitter that he was with his defense and interior ministers at the air force headquarters monitoring developments

21/01/2022

Mirroring events worldwide, anti-establishment sentiment has been taking hold, spurred by a sense of rising inequality and corruption in the country. The result has been a blemishing of the steady centrism that guided Chile for nearly four decades. Since 2012, Transparency International has listed Chile as one of the countries with one of the most significant declines in citizens’ perception of clean government. As we have seen elsewhere, this recipe is a combustible mix for political change.

Seen better days

15/02/2022

12/02/2022

12/02/2022

11/02/2022

10/02/2022

06/02/2022

05/02/2022

03/02/2022

31/01/2022

28/01/2022

26/01/2022

25/01/2022

24/01/2022

21/01/2022

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