Bryan Parker wrote:
> An Austrian friend of mine is leaving Japan to
> travel around the world for a year or two and
> she's thinking about leaving her 2,000,000 yen
> savings account just sitting here in her Japanese
> bank account because the yen->kangarubles exchange
> rate is so bad right now.
> 
> What should she invest her money in here?

I wouldn't leave it in yen.
I presume your friend is looking for a "fire and forget" type of
investment which won't require her to be always on the line with
her Inmarsat or Iridium phone with a fund manager, adjusting her
portfolio as global market conditions warrant.

Buying into into an mutual fund of defensive EUR-denominated bonds,
issued e.g. by beverage/tobacco/pharma/household products companies
would be a pretty reasonable choice in that case.
The European economy isn't getting much traction right now, and if
anything there might even be deflationary risks on the horizon,
resulting in downwards pressure on Eurozone interest rates and
corresponding inventory appreciation for bond funds.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer will announce on June 9 HM Treasury's
assessment of the economic tests regarding potential UK entry into
the EMU.  I expect the announcement to have a negative effect on the
EUR in the forex markets.  It thus makes sense buying the EUR dip
*after* June 9.  I also expect the EUR to recover a bit after the
Swedish referendum on the EMU in September.

IMHO there's too much downside risk left on the USD, despite Japan's
flagging economy and the BoJ's intervention efforts.  If your friend
intends to come back to Japan and her reference currency is the JPY,
I don't think the overperformance expected of US equity markets
relative e.g. to the European or Japanese ones sufficiently compensates
for the currency risk.

Of course, people who ascribe any value at all to investment ideas
collected from random Internet forums, proffered by irresponsible
nobodies, deserve to be hung by their balls to a yacht's mast and
have their eyes picked by seagulls.