[video] Tigers of the wild frontier
The global hunt for yield drove investors on Thursday to offer Rwanda almost half its GDP as its bond offer was wildly oversubscribed. James Mackintosh, investment editor, analyses the demand for Africa’s tigers despite three defaults this year in frontier markets.
Last November, GlaxoSmithKline topped the Access to Medicine Index for the third year running, commended for its equitable pricing policy in emerging markets and a pro-access approach to licensing and patents.
You can be forgiven for feeling puzzled – the ranking marks a big turnaround for a company which little more than a decade ago was public enemy number one in Africa and elsewhere. How did that happen? Continue reading »
Bric stocks: their time will come (soon)
The underperformance of Bric equities is becoming an embarrassment for investors who are long – and for analysts who have been promoting the stocks. Not only have Bric shares lagged behind the developed world, they have been outpaced by small emerging markets, from Peru to the Philippines.
But one Bric bull who is sticking to his guns is Jonathan Anderson of Emerging Advisors Group. He says that it’s only a matter of time before Bric equities recover – and some of the headline-making small EMs come under pressure. Continue reading »
EM private debt funds draw interest
To the growing list of ways for investors to play the emerging market growth story, add this: private debt funds.
Cordiant Capital, a Canada-based fund manager, is the latest to add to this small but growing sector with the launch of a $250m fund on Monday. Continue reading »
Chart of the week: time for EM equities to bounce back?
The underperformance of emerging market equities in 2013 so far is something of a puzzle – with all that hot QE money around, shouldn’t EM stocks get a boost? Not so far this year. For EMs, it’s all been about debt.
But is that about to change? Chart of the week takes a look. Continue reading »
[video] EMs hit the yen jackpot
Japan’s extraordinary quantitative easing programme has led investors to bet that the newly-minted yen will head for the developing world. Local currency bond yields are at a new record low as a result. James Mackintosh, investment editor, considers the effect of these bets on emerging market currencies and equities.
[video] EM: It’s the consumer, stupid
Emerging markets indices have underperformed the developed world since the credit crisis. Marten Hoekstra, chief executive of Emerging Global Advisors, explains to Long View columnist John Authers how the indices miss the strength of the consumer sector, and of the smaller emerging markets.
Standard Chartered is planning a further regional expansion as the bank seeks to build on growing trade between emerging markets, writes Simeon Kerr.
On the back of its 10th straight year of profits, the lender plans to boost its operations in the Middle East and Africa from its regional base in Dubai, which is rising as a financing hub for cross-border trade and investment. Continue reading »
The new emerging market… Greece
It’s easy to see why Russell Indices, the US index and fund management company, is relegating Greece from its developed economies’ league. About time too. But why is Russell moving Greece into its emerging markets’ list. Emerging? Submerging, more like.
Emerging markets are the fast-growing economies of the world. So much so that many economists have stopped talking about EMs and refer instead to fast-growth economies. Jim O’Neill, the Goldman Sachs executive who invented the Brics, calls these countries “The Growth Map”. Continue reading »
BB interviews…Noam Chomsky
By Matt Kennard
Ask your average political nerd to guess Noam Chomsky’s favourite newspaper and few would tender the Financial Times. But the emeritus professor of linguistics and philosophy at MIT, revered the world over by left-wing intellectuals and social activists, believes the pink ‘un is the only global newspaper “that tells the truth”. Continue reading »
Chart of the week: the growth pains of EM private equity
By Andrew Bowman and Rob Minto
Private equity is back in the headlines with huge buyout bids planned for EE and Dell. But there’s also plenty of buzz in emerging markets, where the share of global private equity fundraising has quadrupled from 5 per cent in 2003 to 20 per cent last year.
Chart of the week looks at the highs and lows of private equity across the Brics and sub-Saharan Africa over the past decade, courtesy of data compiled by the Emerging Markets Private Equity Association. Continue reading »
Fiscal cliff deal drives EM rally
News of a last minute-agreement in the US fiscal cliff negotiations to avoid $600bn of government spending cuts and tax increases on Tuesday was greeted by a stock market rally. While markets in the US and Europe jumped, the news was equally well received key emerging markets – with stock exchange charts heading up rather down a cliff as relief filtered through. Continue reading »
Winners and losers of 2012: the beyondbrics emerging markets awards
If 2012 for emerging markets could be summed up in a few words, they would probably be “the search for yield”.
That was a change from 2011, when the keynote was “the flight to safety”: market panic drove investors away from risky EM assets and into the safest possible developed market ones. But in 2012, as growth in developed economies continued to stagnate and real yields on some AAA sovereign debt turned negative, investors started looking further afield. With healthier public balance sheets and fast growing economies behind them, EM government bonds saw a surge of inflows.
Roussolph the red-nosed reindeer
This year, the Christmas tale from beyondbrics takes us to the up-and-coming area of Brics-ton, where Roussolph the Brazilian reindeer has been unceremoniously dumped from Santa Capital’s portfolio.
Read on… Continue reading »
Chart of the week: stock exchange winners and losers of 2012
If you had $100 at the start of 2012, and took a punt on a few emerging market exchanges, which ones would have made you a fast buck, and which would have reduced you to tears?
Chart of the week takes a look at the 10 top and bottom performers in 2012. Continue reading »
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