While not invested in Ukraine, I find the haggling over its natural gas bills from OAO Gazprom fascinating. Gazprom, OGZPY, is ostensibly a private for-profit company, but it isn't really. After the Maidan demonstrators toppled the Victor Yanukovich regime and Russia seized Crimea, Gazprom removed the discounts Ukraine had been granted earlier in return for letting Russian lease its port in Sebastopol, now snatched by Russia.

This boosted the price Ukraine was to pay for Russian gas by 80% to $485.50 per 100 cubic meters.

Gazprom added insult to injury, as it penalized Ukraine for Russia seizing part of the country. Having paid a $786 mn back bill for gas delivered last winter, Ukraine's gas company, Naftogaz, and Gazprom, (headed by friend-of-Putin Alexei Miller), are still haggling over how much Ukraine needs to pay for future deliveries at the hiked-up price or a reduced one. The European Union, which gets gas for Western Europe via a pipeline running through Ukraine, is offering its good offices (and its cash) to try to resolve matter and now hosting the talks in Brussels, Belgium.

The two gas company chiefs are assisted by the EU Commission's energy chief Guenther Oettinger in their talks. Deadlines have come and gone. But Commissioner Oettinger says progress has been made. That presumably means Russia has reduced its outrageous bill a bit.

Since the talks are clearly political in any case, why doesn't Kiev ask for a new rebate to cover the value of the part of the country seized by Russia? Yalta with its palaces and tourist facilities, the huge Black Sea Sebastopol harbor (causus belli for a 19^th century war between Britain and Germany), and other Ukrainian bits and pieces should be priced in to slash Gazprom charges. Talks resume tonight but now will include the Russian and Ukrainian energy ministers.

So for the EU has lent Ukraine euros 1.6 bn (about $2.2 bn) to pay its gas bills to keep the flow to Western Europe coming.

Ukraine is an example of a frontier market. Today ETF db.com published what it arrogantly calls “A Complete Guide to Frontier Markets.” These are countries which have not yet graduated to becoming emerging markets. Recent research suggests that risks are not as high as you might expect in these least developed stock markets. A main reason is that least developed stock markets until now have not all been in least developed countries.

While ETF.db tried hard, it missed every single one of the frontier market funds and entities my newsletter recommends, mainly because it only examined US listed exchange-traded funds with a broad frontier focus: iShares MSCI Frontier 100 (FM); Next Emerging & Frontier ETF (EMFM); and the frontier pioneer, Frontier Markets ETF (FRN). Not one word from Jared Cummans about non-ETF vehicles investing in frontier markets like open- and closed-end funds, REITs, holding companies, or country funds that are not US ETFs.

Complete?

We invest in frontier markets but not via US ETFs, being picky. As reported earlier, MSCI, the creator of regional indexes, has removed many least developed stock markets from the Gulf region from its frontier list, from the start of this month. So index-tracking funds have to shift their positions away from the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, and Qatar while boosting their holdings in other frontier markets like Ethiopia or Pakistan, Jordan or Mongolia. This wave of portfolio shifts means that generalized frontier funds must incur high trading costs. A characteristic of frontier markets is lack of market liquidity. And as all the frontier market-trackers shift their holdings in unison, stock prices will suffer. You don't want to own global indexed frontier market ETFs now.

Adding to the risk of ETFdb's report is that it also listed 4 single-country or regional ETFs. And Mr. Cummans included Market Vectors Gulf States Index ETF, MES, which invests in the very region now promoted to the developing country MSCI index from its frontier list where adjustments are hurting the market.

Now that Vietnam has taken to jailing bankers starting with Nguyen Duc Kien, I would hesitate to buy into his 'Nam pick, Market Vectors Vietnam ETF, VNM. That leaves Nigeria and Argentina ETFs.

While we cannot buy more after the close-end fund was open-ended and made institutional, my readers and I own Morgan Stanley Institutional Frontier Emerging Markets Fund, MFMIX, also omitted from the ETF.db list. My average acquisition price in 2013 was $8 for shares now trading at $21.27.

More follows about alternative frontier funds and other news from Portugal, Canada, Russia, Hong Kong, Britain, Cyprus, Israel, Ireland, The Netherlands, and Brazil.

*Bauer Performance Sports will offer its common shares in the US as well as Canada, to raise US$110 mn to be used to repay term loans and cut debt. It also will change its name to Performance Sports Group Ltd to reflect that its initial Bauer hockey equipment and uniform franchise now has been extended into new sports like lacrosse, and softball and baseball via the recent purchase of Easton. Moreover PSG will be listed not only in Toronto, but on the NYSE starting June 20. The offering is being run by Morgan Stanley,BofA-Merrill, and RBC Capital Markets. BRRPF trading has been suspended for stabilization of the price. There will be no pre-emptive rights. More housekeeping notes at the end of this screed.

*Woodside Pete (WPL) of Australia is still interested in building an offshore floating liquid natural gas plant in the eastern Mediterranean despite ending its project to buy 25% of Israel's Leviathan field. It wants to build a FLNG unit to handle gas from Cyprus' Aphrodite field which is north of the Israeli gasfield. The operator there is Noble Energy with 70% which two subs of Delek Group own 30%. DGRLY chief Yitzchak Tshuva was offended by how WPL withdrew from Leviathan leaving him hosting a party to celebrate the deal without a partner. Aphrodite is estimated to hold ~4.1 trillion cubic feet of gas, just over 20% of what is in Leviathan. Given how close the fields are, the FLNG plant may wind up offtaking Leviathan gas too if Jerusalem's tax claims can be met by WPL.

*For a change, Reckitt Benckiser hit a new 12-mo highs in London and the USA today. RBGLY is buying back shares to offset employee stock option sales. The UK household and healthcare stock was recommended by our reporter Martin Ferera. It is now developing a nasal delivery system for opioids to replace its sub-lingual variant, part of its pharma arm which may be divested.

*So did Schlumberger, SLB.

*Generics maker Hikma Pharmaceuticals, a direct a frontier market stock (incorporated in Jordan, but listed in Dubai and London) got a target price boost fromBarclays yesterday, to £18.90/sh from £17.50. The US price remained flat so far.

*Paddy Power plc said that Standard Life Investments Ltd cut its holding in PDYPF to 4.92% yesterday triggering a report to the Dublin Stock Exchange. SLIL is HQ'd in Edinburgh but operates investment funds in the USA. The brokerage used was a London sub of Citibank.

*Cameco may redeem its C$300 mn 2015 4.7% senior unsecured C bonds early. This boosted the share of the Canadian uranium miner. CCJ got downrated by S&P's rating service to negative from stable after it revealed its plan to call the bonds.

*S&P rated All3 Media Finance a B with positive implications. It is half owned by our Liberty Global Media which is using it as a vehicle to raise money jointly with Discovery Channel to buy the UK TV producer Discovery and some hedge funds. So far a £290 mn first lien, a euros 100 mn 2^nd lien, £ 112 mn of shareholder loans, and £68 mn of new equity have been raised. S&P says after the acquisition is completed the ratings will rise to B+ because they are “moderately strategic” for the new owners. While I have great confidence in the ability of cable mogul John Malone to raise money I have been less sanguine than S&P. We sold every batch of “C” shares we got from the proliferation of buys in Europe by LBTYA.

*Cosan S.A. Industria e Comercio, the Brazil-listed version of CZZ or Cosan, will not have a rating change after it spins off its Rumo logistics and Radar gas station subs, despite their holding a lot more cash than their parent, S&P wrote, pending the terms of the spinoff which may be set by regulators in Brazil and concern that the deal will not go through. Just when you rely on a rating agency, S&P backs out.

*Also raising money in Brazil, Vale will sell its entire stake in Florestar Fundo de Investimento em Participões to papermaker Suzano for $92 mn. VALE also is exiting itsIntegra iron mine in Australia, maker of metallurgical coal. Vale had sought to diversify away from iron ore mining and pellets, which account for about ¾ of revenues, but now with ore prices dropping that is a luxury it cannot afford. Analysts at Citigroup today said that iron ore prices will soon have reached a “floor” at $90/metric tonne and rise again to $100 by Q4 2014.

*Our frontier market funds not in the ETFdb “complete” listings besides MFMIX are all held in my US discount brokerage account with e-trade:

-A Pakistan fund listed in Luxembourg, Hong Kong, and Singapore, managed by Deutsche Bank called XDB MSCI Pakistan Investment Fund, HK:3106:

-A Mongolia REIT in the course of being created, Canada-listed Mongolia Growth Fund, MNGGF here and YAK in Toronto;

-A holding company to invest in Myanmar, Singapore-listed Yoma Strategic Investment, YMAIF;

-A London-listed Pan-Africa arbitraging fund, Africa Opportunity Fund, AROFF here, ARO-LSE.

More housekeeping notes follow:

*E-trade is checking out why my Raven Rus shares were partly cashed out after I was told they would not be. RUS:GB is a real estate investor in warehouse and logistics facilities in 3 Russian cities.

*There will be a conversion fee of a nickel a share to turn the post-split Tencent Holding shares we now own as TCTZD into ADRs. The fee applies to the 5 shares we now own for every one we used to own before. The brokerage never warned this customer of the reason for delayed conversion or charges until yesterday. Where are the customers' yachts?

*I got the paperwork to benefit from the 5% price cut for joining the Versesen DRIP. While I missed the June dividend I will get the cheaper shares of FCGYF, the uter operator of Canadian pipelines and export facilities, in Sept.