No, this is not a joke. Add another asset to the list of speculative investments I wouldn’t touch with a 10 foot pole.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/jpmorgan-to-add-ukraine-bonds-t…
**JPMorgan to Add Ukraine Bonds to Debt Index Despite War Threat**
**Move could mean an inflow of nearly $270 million into Ukrainian bond market from passive investors**
**by Anna Hirtenstein, The Wall Street Journal, 2/15/2022**
**Hundreds of millions of dollars from foreign investors are likely to flow into Ukrainian bonds next month despite the threat of war with Russia.**
**JPMorgan Chase & Co. is planning to add Ukraine’s local-currency debt to a popular emerging-market bond index known as the GBI-EM. ... Funds managing $222 billion used this index as a benchmark as of January. If they all decide to add the Ukrainian bonds, that would mean an inflow of $266.4 million into the market....**
**Funds that follow indexes made up 37% of the investment universe at the end of last year with net assets of $19 trillion...** [end quote]
The amount of Ukraine bonds in the index will be tiny, 0.12%. The effect of passive investing in an index is that you end up owning all kinds of stuff that you wouldn’t choose as a separate investment. The managers of the fund have to buy the Ukraine bonds in order to meet the percentage whether they think this is a good time or not.
The European Union is moving forward with a proposal to provide Ukraine with €1.2 billion, equivalent to around $1.4 billion.
Wendy