UK investors are being cheated compared to US ones by being charged 58% more to buy open-end mutual funds, according to a report by the True and Fair campaign (TAFC) published by The Investors' Chronicle. The report also argues that hidden charges can erode over half of total fund returns after inflation. UK investors receive just 6% of the economies of scale from big funds vs 33% in the USA.

TAFC's report shows that charges rose by 28% since supposedly "clean" funds, free of commission to advisers, were introduced at the start of 2013.

TAFC is calling for an Office of Fair Trading investigation of the retail investment industry. Telling investors about the Annual Management Charge (AMC) instead of all fees charged is "completely misleading", because the AMC typically accounts for less than half the total costs of investing. These are not falling but rising.

The AMC on an average fund used to be 1.5%, half to the fund and the other half commission to the advisor or platform which landed the customer. Now buyers are paying an average 1.92%, 0.75% to the fund as before but another 1.13% to the advisor or platform. Moreover administration charges, initial fees, and hidden transaction costs, add another 0.82% in annual costs, so the total cost per year is 2.74%.

Regulatory obstacles keep Britons from investing in US mutual funds, and keep us out of theirs. That is one of the reasons I don't cover open-end funds (or UK or Canadian investment trusts.) The other reason is that there are too many of them.

The Australian dollar is tipped to strengthen beyond its fresh highs but will be held in check by a resurgent US dollar, currency experts told the Sydney Morning Herald.

The Australian dollar hit 4-mo highs mid-week, after a surge when Reserve Bank of Australia governor Glenn Stevens made upbeat forecasts for Down Under in a speech in Hong Kong. RBA is their central bank.. Now speculators are reducing their net short positions on the Australian dollar, according to data from the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission, meaning they are less negative about its outlook.

Year-to-date, the A$ is up 3% against the greenback. Longer term the US economic recovery may boost the US dollar against the Aussie one. More follows on how we play currencies and other news from Spain, Brazil, Colombia, Norway, Canada, The UK, Israel, India, Ireland, Indonesia, Finland, Australia, Mongolia, and the Netherlands. By sectors we have articles about oil, alternative energy, telecoms, consumer spending, pipelines, natural gas, pharma, medical devices, fish-farms, REITs or yield spinoffs, and waterworks.

*The simple way to play currency trends is to buy closed-end and exchange-traded fund protection. We have two positions in the fund portfolio to protect against dollar strength, UUP, an ETF tracking all foreign currencies based on trade flows; and a specific one for our overweight in Canada, DLR-Toronto, a Canada listed one. We also own a bond fund heavily exposed to Australian government bonds, Aberdeen Asia Pacific Yield, FAX, to cover our currency risk Down Under (because it is not currency hedged and because it is a huge relatively low-cost CEF). For now do not trade these because currency trends are hard to forecast.

*Another Oz note: Last night Israeli time, a party at the Jerusalem King David Hotel had to be canceled. It was booked to celebrate the sale of $2.71 bn of a 25% stake in the Leviathan Israeli offshore gasfield that the Oz petroleum firm Woodside planned to close. The recipients of the loot, our Delek Group and other US and Israeli sellers with stock in Leviathan were ready to do the deal. But Israeli Finance Minister Yair Lapid refused to allow Woodside the ~17-19% return on capital it sought for building a gas liquefaction plant for Pacific Rim exports before hitting it with royalty fees. Thursday is the last day before the Israeli weekend; the reaction will hit when Tel Aviv re-opens Sunday. You can put a lowball offer in for DGRLY if you have spare cash and it may be executed.

*Not to be outdone by the Israelis, India now plans a special audit of Nokia's sub there, seeking hidden earnings, undervalued assets, and underpaid tax. This will further delay the takeover of NOK's Indian handset production facilities by Microsoft and also encourage both companies to replace them outside India. Unlike the Israeli gasfields, there are lots of places where cellphones can be made cheaply even if they eventually will be sold in India.

*Brazil's securities watchdog yesterday suspended the offer of shares in telco Oi for up to 30 days, delaying the planned merger with Portugal Telecom. Their SEC acted after Oi's CEO who also sits on the PT board, Zeinal Bava, violated the quiet period covering the public offer for Oi by speaking to the press. Just because you speak Portuguese doesn't mean you know when to shut up in Brazil. Oi stated later that it would attempt to quickly clarify matters with the SEC so the merger can continue. Oi shareholders earlier yesterday voted a capital increase covering non-PT shares totalling $6.1 bn with no major minority shareholder opposition. Then the watchdog telecom agency Anatel gave the deal a green light.

Then Senhor Bava blahed to the press. Alguém aqui fala? O Boss.

*Marine Harvest is spinning off its Scottish offshore fish-farms not for fear of separatism, but under European Union orders to encourage competition. MHG is Norwegian and the farms are near the Shetlands and Orkney Islands closer to Oslo than to London. BuyerCooke Aquaculture will pay ₤122.5 mn, which MHG says may boost our dividend for Q1 (the currency quarter.) That's not smoked salmon!

*The lithium-ion battery business is growing rapidly and heavy investments continue. Li-ion use is widening from laptops and mobile phones to batteries for electric cars which will account for over half the market by 2020.

Everything about Li-ion is changing, including electrode and electrolytic chemistry. The primary game changer will be improving Li-ion batteries' energy density, cost per Watt stored, and battery life.

To play these trends we recommend innovative battery-maker Electrovaya and lithium miner Orocobre, EFLVF and OROCF, of Canada and Australia respectively, both speculative penny stocks.

*GlaxoSmithKline is buying the 30% it doesn't own in its Indonesian consumer health business from Sarasvati Venture capital for ₤24.mn. Moreover it is selling for ₤7 mn its eye-drops business to PT Pharma Healthcare. GSK is boosting its pharma lines while getting out of OTC products globally.

*Citigroup added Teva to its top-ranked focus list because of "increased confidence in the resilience the Copaxone franchise," the Israeli firm's multiple sclerosis treatment. Yeah, we sold too soon.

*Covidien ablation technology effectively treats Barrett's esophagus (a precancerous condition of the esophagus), according to a clinical study published in The Journal of the American Medical Association Mar. 25. The JAMA reported on Surveillance vs. Radio Frequency ablation, or SURF, a multi-center, random clinical trial that compared COV's Barrx (TM) RF Ablation System with endoscopic surveillance in 136 patients in 9 centers. They had Barrett's esophagus and a confirmed diagnosis of low-grade dysplasia. Barrett's esophagus develops as a result of chronic injury from gastroesophageal reflux disease. The normal esophageal lining is replaced with abnormal cells (called Barrett's tissue), putting patients at risk of developing esophagal cancer typically through a series of steps, starting with early Barrett's, then low-grade dysplasia, high-grade dysplasia, and then cancer.

The SURF Trial was supported by a grant from Covidien GI Solutions and another from the Maag Lever Darm Stichting (Dutch Digestive Diseases Foundation.)

*With US spending on consumer durables up, the sell-off in Caesarstone Sdot Yam appears to be overdone. I first published on Monday information not reported elsewhere on the degree to which CSTE sells its granite kitchen counters to Russian oligarchs, using Russian-language websites, local suppliers, and lots of aspirational advertising aimed at their trophy wives. Dayenu (enough) already. The USA, including our reporter Frida Ghitis who lives only a few miles away in Georgia from where her post kitchen counters were made, is the principal market for CSTE. Read on.

*Ecopetrol announced a dividend increase with the usual gobbledygook engaged in by state-controlled Latin American companies. According to my broker thanks to the increase and the strong Colombian peso, the EC yield is now over 6%. Gracias. Read on.

*New CEO Paul Byrne wrote in a the latest Mongolia Growth Group letter: "There is work to do upgrading the portfolio and disposing of non-core assets. The process was underway before I arrived and I have focused on accelerating" disposals.

He expects MNGGF "will become a nimble Asset Management and Development Company offering fee based services, engaging in high margin development and value-added re-development, owning residual interests in the resulting property assets. We are contemplating developing an in-house REIT [which would become] the ultimate repository of MGG’s stabilized property assets, including: the existing stabilized portfolio, the property assets resulting from [our] ability to source and improve returns on distressed assets [plus] those [in our]development pipeline. This REIT would have periodic liquidity events and be open to external investors looking for direct exposure to the Mongolian property market."

This would provide an exit from "the asset intensive side of the business, from the much higher return on capital side of the business that utilizes our intellectual capital. Furthermore, this will reduce need for organizational capital at the holding company level [and] on the issuance of shares to grow the business."

*Canadian Solar is up ~6% today based on an article in Marketwatch (a Dow-Jones website) by Claudia Assis. She forecasts that CSIQ may spin off a yield play which will operate and pay out dividends on its solar power stations, currently being sold to other yield seeking funds.

*Cameco closed the previously announced sale of a 31.6% interest in Bruce Power US$450 mn. CCJ.

*I got a new insert in my New York Times today, Russia Beyond the Headlines, yet another Putin-backing Russian media venture, which the NYT only distributes and doesn't write or edit. This paper reports that Yandex is challenging Google (goody) with a software package called Yandex.kit for mobile phone makers, similar to Android. The difference, this paper says, is that all the services Google offers including search, maps, and (aha!) e-mail, will come in Yandex copycat versions. It reports that Huwei in China is developing a Yandex.kit phone to come to market this year. (They mean Huawei but the NYT doesn't copy edit this paper.)

*We sold Saneamento Basico de São Paulo (SByesterday after Brazilian shares traded her popped up after polls there showed Dilma Rousseff is ahead. I got $8.85/sh. Today a notification arrived that SBS will pay a 2013 dividend by May 27 of reais 0.78433094301/sh to shareholders of record April 7 (que chatice!) . They now delay divvies only 5 months vs a year earlier. With the Brazil price Rs 20.6, a 2.6% yield is all you get, moreover subject to exchange rate changes and Brazilian tax withholding.

*I also sold Telefonica at $15.40. TEF.

*With the money I bought Abengoa tipped by Frida at $22.58 yesterday. ABGB is up nearly 4% today.

*I got too involved with Jeffrey the e-mail specialist to follow closely my order for Veresen and only bought the share recommended by Martin Ferera this morning, FCGYF for US folks, at $15.22. VSN-TSE.