So what’s happening everywhere else in the world?

Eyeballs are glued to the euro/Spanish/French/Greek debt crisis. Investors are shifting every data dump from the Federal Reserve, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and corporate earnings in the hope of figuring out if the U.S. economy is slowing—and how quickly. China’s momentum mavens are busy calculating how close the Chinese economy might be to a bottom and the odds that each piece of bad news might be the one to lead to the next round of stimulus from the People’s Bank of China.

But what about the rest of the world? What stock markets and what stocks should investors be watching—and maybe putting some money into–that aren’t Europe, or the United States, or China?

Investing somewhere besides the markets in the headlines assumes that you believe that none of the current crop of potential bad news rises to the level of catastrophe. If one of the world’s big economies and financial markets goes down hard, the likelihood is that it will take down everything. If China really hits a hard landing—with 5% growth and increased social unrest, for instance—it’s unlikely that you’ll be able to find safety—let alone profits—in one of the world’s other financial markets. One lesson from the post-Lehman crisis is that if it’s a big enough crisis, everything heads down at once.

If on the other hand, these potential crises don’t either turn into great big crises or really into a crisis at all, then the “everywhere else” markets could be either 1) profitable ways to leverage a positive result from any of the world’s headline grabbers, or 2) profitable ways to diversify a portfolio. Let me give the names of six stocks that exemplify those two groups. Read more

Update LAN Airlines (LFL)

The proposed acquisition of Brazil’s TAM (TAM) by Chile’s LAN Airlines (LFL) jumped another hurdle on March 3. Brazil’s Finance Ministry has said that the deal satisfied Brazil’s foreign ownership rules. In my opinion those rules were the only real obstacle to the deal and a restrictive application Brazil’s limits on foreign investment in Brazilian airlines could have killed the combination. The companies have come up with a complex structure that will let TAM’s controlling shareholders retain 80% of TAM’s voting stock while giving LAN shareholders about 70% of the combined airline to be called LATAM Airlines.

The deal, which still has to pass judgment at Brazil’s civil aviation and antitrust regulators and at Chile’s competition agency, would create the largest airline in Latin America and the third largest airline in the world. (From early indications LAN might have to reduce its market dominance on routes between Santiago, and Asuncion, Sao Paulo, and Rio de Janeiro in order to get anti-trust approval.)

LAN’s strategy over the last decade has been to expand outside of its home market in Chile—where it has an 82% share of the domestic market–to become the dominant airline in South America. Read more

Update Lan Airlines (LFL)

This deal is a huge expansion for Lan Airlines (LFL) that will turn Chile’s national airline into a truly South American airline.

Lan will buy Brazil’s Tam (TAM) for $3.7 billion. Shareholders of Lan will own 70% of the combined company. (Tam will be delisted and the new shares for LATAM Airlines will trade in New York, Santiago, and Sao Paulo.)

The acquisition will make Lan, with strong routes and market share in Chile, Peru, Argentina, and Ecuador, a dominant player in the Brazilian market. (Tam had about 42% of the Brazilian domestic market as of the end of the second quarter of 2010.) Tam’s revenue last year of$4.9 billion was greater than Len’s revenue of $.37 billion.

I’ve got three reasons to like the deal. Read more

Update LAN Airlines (LFL)

Business isn’t good at LAN Airlines (LFL) but it is getting better.

On January 26, 2010 the Chilean airline, which accounts for nearly 75% of Chile’s domestic air passenger traffic, reported fourth quarter net income of $109.8 million. That was an increase of 17.6% from the very depressed fourth quarter of 2008. In the third quarter of 2009 net income fell by 37% from the third quarter of 2008.

System passenger traffic for December increased 10.6% . Capacity climbed by 7.8%. That took the load factor up 1.9 percentage points to 76.7%.

For the full year LAN’s net income fell by 31%.

Total revenue in the fourth quarter declined to $1.07 billion from $1.11 billion in the fourth quarter of 2008 on a 1.6% decline in passenger revenue and a 10.7% drop in cargo revenue. Passenger revenue makes up 71% of total revenue. For the full 2009 year revenue declined by 14.7% from 2008.

Look out for some for some volatility in the stock as winning presidential candidate Sebastian Pinera carries out his promised sale of his 26% stake in LAN Airlines before he takes office on March 11. Read more

Update LAN Airlines (LFL)

Bad news. I mean really, really bad news. On July 28 Chile’s LAN Airlines (LFL) reported that second quarter profit dropped a huge 93%, although the company did manage to stay profitable (to the tune of $4.2 million) during the quarter.

But maybe a turning point. On August 13 Chile’s central bank kept its benchmark interest rate unchanged at 0.5%. That signaled the bank’s intention to keep stimulating the economy but also indicated—in that the bank didn’t cut rates further—that the economy may be nearing a bottom after seven interest rate cuts.

LAN Airlines has come through the global economic slowdown in much better shape than most of the world’s airlines. Read more