BY MICHAEL BRUSH

Is this the year we finally say hasta la vista to the five-decade-old Cuban trade embargo?

Tom Herzfeld, a Miami-area fund manager who studies Cuba-U.S. relations, thinks so. This is an unconventional view. But stranger things have happened in the past few years, like the Arab Spring. Besides, it’s often the unexpected that provides the best returns in investing.

And here, the investment implications could be big, for several companies.

Herzfeld thinks the policy change would boost companies as diverse as cruise line operator Carnival(CCL +0.70%, news), cargo shipper Seaboard  (SEB -0.12%, news), regional airline Copa (CPA -1.77%,news), soft-drink distributor Coca-Cola Femsa (KOF +0.39%, news) and even Watsco (WSO +0.85%, news), which likely would sell more air conditioners in Cuba.

These stocks are all big holdings in the Herzfeld Caribbean Basin (CUBA -0.12%, news) fund, which Herzfeld says he has positioned to benefit from embargo elimination.

“Now, more than ever, the pieces are falling into place where the embargo could be lifted this year,” maintains Herzfeld.

Why now?

Herzfeld cites President Barack Obama’s ... Read More

“The Castro generation is slowly handing power over to the next generation of party and military leaders who will determine the pace and scope of the reform process.”

—    “Cuba Expert” Ted Piccone of the Brookings Institution, giving one reason why the United States should unilaterally change U.S. policy towards Cuba.

The Cold War had its “Sovietologists;” today we have the “Cuba expert” — and anyone seeking to understand the true nature of the Castro regime and the reality of events in Cuba is worse off for it.

Sovietologists, those presumed subject matter experts who were relied upon by the media for insight to the opaque politics and motivations of the former Soviet Union, are now pretty much a discredited lot.  Not because they couldn’t predict the collapse of the USSR, but because for years they grossly underestimated the moral bankruptcy of tyranny and the power of individuals who simply wanted ... Read More