This map should provide a quick outline showing the countries we plan to visit, and what I mean by "Less Traded" relative to "Most Traded", "Least Traded", and "Not Traded". (Posted as a "page" on my other blog - but worth repeating here in a post)
Blue are the "Most Traded" countries, basically the G10, plus the rest of the Eurozone, and major financial centers in the rest of Asia Pacific like Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Australia. These are covered by financial measures such as the S&P 500, EuroStoxx, Nikkei, EUR/USD and USD/JPY exchange rates, and quite simply the most liquid interest rate, credit, equity, currency, etc. financial markets in the world, not to mention an uninterupted list of at least the top 5 cities in the world where someone with an advanced degree in finance (as I have) is likely to work.
Green refers to the countries we plan to visit on the Road "Less Traded", which we hope will cover a large percentage of the "emerging market" countries I worked with and could roughly sub-categorize as: 1.) 3/4 of the "BRIC" countries - an easy majority of the truly emerging market volume I have seen over the past 5 years, as well as the three who had economies centrally controlled around "Five Year Plans" in the 20th Century; 2.) The three most traded Eastern European countries, covered by the CECE Traded Index and three of the most liquid currency pairs with the Euro; 3.) The former Soviet states of Ukraine and the Baltics, plus the former Soviet ally of Mongolia, which I only looked at indirectly; 4.) Finland and Slovakia, both of which are now part of the Eurozone and Finland is definitely "First World" (hence the slightly darker color), but both made sense to pass through to avoid difficult visa situations (Belarus), bus rides (Estonia), or flights; 5.) Turkey, which was probably the strongest US ally during the Cold War and mostly a front according to James Bond in From Russia with Love, but is definitely still an "emerging market" as far as trading and investing go; and 6.) Southeast Asia, of which: a.) Singapore is really a "First world" country, b.) Thailand and Malaysia are the most traded of the emerging ones, c.) Vietnam had a booming stock market 2-3 years ago and is uniquely interesting as a communist state that was a hot spot of the Cold War and a fascinating historical relationship with the economies of the French and Chinese empires, and d.) Laos and Cambodia, which would both still qualify as "Not traded" countries (hence the slightly more yellow color) but are convenient to pass through and should provide a good comparison for how these two other heirs of French Indochina developed differently from Vietnam.
Yellow countries are the most traded emerging markets, each of which I had encountered on the trading desk at least as much as most of the green countries. These are basically "Less Traded" countries that are simply not on the Road Less Traded, mostly because there is no direct rail or short boat connection to make a continuous route with the green countries, but also because these are the major emerging markets that were not as intimately related to the theme of the "Second World", "Cold War", or "Former Soviet Sphere".
Red is my attempt to capture the remaining countries I could recall encountering at work at one time or another, and hope to visit in the near future, but the actual ability to trade them was so limited and the interest so rare that I classify them as "Least Traded".
It may be worth emphasising that the choice of (or lack of) color of any one country is in no way a judgement of how developed or aligned any given country is, but rather a purely subjective account from my own memory of about how often I encountered these countries when trading equity, currency, interest rate, or credit derivatives over the past five years.
Many thanks to this SVG map template for helping make the creation of this map as easy as adding a few two-letter country codes to a text file (plus of course the difficulty of deciding how to categorize the countries).
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