"My ETF pick for the week is in honor of John Templeton not just because of his meeting his final summons this week at age 95 but because it highlights one of the key tenets of his legendary investment career. Templeton's first maxim was to buy at the point of 'maximum pessimism'. IRL trades at a 15% discount to net asset value.

"Ireland has gone from darling to outcast in less than a year in the eyes of the global investment community. Rather than look for markets that were performing well, Sir John built a career looking for troubled or ignored markets that traded at attractive valuations.

"Due to vastly overvalued property markets and loose banking and fiscal policy, the market is done close to 70% since last fall. It's growth rate has averaged 7-8% during the past decade but growth prospects have been officially lowered to zero for 2009 and its economy actually shrank in the first quarter of this year.

"To make matters worse, property prices in the posh retail areas of Dublin have already dropped 50% and home prices have fallen 20%. Ireland's stock market is now the cheapest market in the world based on forward price earnings and price to book."

Each day, Steven Halpern's TheStockAdvisors.com offers the latest market commentary and favorite investment ideas from the nation's leading financial newsletter advisors.

New Ireland (IRL): A 'Templeton value' originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Mon, 28 Jul 2008 09:50:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

"Irish corporate tax rates are among the lowest in the world because the government tends to tax consumption rather than production," explains Dave Dyer, who poins ouot, "Irish corporations enjoy tax rates as low as 10%, and that has to be a competitive advantage in the global market."

In his The Dave Dyer Newsletter, he looks to one favorite Irish firm, Icon (NASDAQ: ICLR), a contract research organization (CROs) which conducts research required for clinical trials for pharmaceutical products.

Dyers notes, "The market for CROs is very strong right now because many extremely profitable drugs will be losing patent protection in the next few years and there is lots of pressure to find some replacements.

"ICON is one of the few CROs capable of providing services on a global basis. This gives them the advantage is of running clinical trials in multiple countries at once. Also, regulators actually prefer worldwide trials because they normally provide more ethnic diversity in the subject population."

Continue reading Luck of the Irish: An Icon (ICLR) in clinical testing

Luck of the Irish: An Icon (ICLR) in clinical testing originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 29 Jan 2008 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.