Question: I'm considering investing in emerging markets mutual funds. But do you think that's a good idea, or are they just going to be the next investment bubble? -- Mario, Atlanta, Georgia
As U.S. President Barack Obama shakes hands with Chinese President Hu Jintao and the highest-ranking members of the Chinese Politburo, one has to wonder if he is sizing up the competition.
You wouldn't think the men who run the oil-rich country of Nigeria would have much spring in their step these days. The nation is plagued by a never-ending guerrilla war, one that has trimmed the country's oil production to two-thirds of its potential capacity.
The numbers are in, confirming what many already suspected: Emerging markets are the flavor of the month (or at least the quarter).
Leaders of both industrialized powers and emerging economies have agreed to work together on setting a goal to limit global warming to levels recommended by scientists, U.S. President Barack Obama said at the G-8 summit.
As the U.S. stock market tosses and turns, sustainable growth -- both in corporate profits and economic output -- seems far off. In China, on the other hand, recovery already seems to be a reality: Real estate, auto, and industrial sales have all bounced back this year, driving stocks on the Shanghai exchange up 50% since February. The velocity of the Chinese rebound surprised the World Bank, which recently increased its estimate for the country's GDP growth this year from 6.5% to 7.2%. Jing Ulrich, J.P. Morgan's Chinese equities strategist, thinks that figure is still too low. "China can still achieve 8% growth," she says. "Everything is happening very fast there."
At phone operator Movistar's sales offices in Buenos Aires, customers line up to buy high-speed wireless services to access the web on their mobile phones. Most Argentines don't realize, though, that the company providing the gear for their broadband connections isn't a longtime supplier to Latin America like Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson, or Motorola, but a relative newcomer called Huawei.
For the first time, Brazil, Russia, India, and China -- dubbed the BRIC nations -- held a summit this week to discuss the global economy and their role in it.
It's only fitting that General Motors, once the embodiment of U.S. economic might, decided to sell its Hummer brand to a Chinese manufacturer after GM filed for bankruptcy.
It feels nothing like 2007 these days, except in one respect: Chinese stocks are outperforming again. The MSCI China Index, which tracks stocks traded in Hong Kong, has climbed 67% since late October (the S&P 500 has risen 2% in that time).
Question: I'm considering investing in emerging markets mutual funds. But do you think that's a good idea, or are they just going to be the next investment bubble? -- Mario, Atlanta, Georgia
As U.S. President Barack Obama shakes hands with Chinese President Hu Jintao and the highest-ranking members of the Chinese Politburo, one has to wonder if he is sizing up the competition.
You wouldn't think the men who run the oil-rich country of Nigeria would have much spring in their step these days. The nation is plagued by a never-ending guerrilla war, one that has trimmed the country's oil production to two-thirds of its potential capacity.
The numbers are in, confirming what many already suspected: Emerging markets are the flavor of the month (or at least the quarter).
Leaders of both industrialized powers and emerging economies have agreed to work together on setting a goal to limit global warming to levels recommended by scientists, U.S. President Barack Obama said at the G-8 summit.
As the U.S. stock market tosses and turns, sustainable growth -- both in corporate profits and economic output -- seems far off. In China, on the other hand, recovery already seems to be a reality: Real estate, auto, and industrial sales have all bounced back this year, driving stocks on the Shanghai exchange up 50% since February. The velocity of the Chinese rebound surprised the World Bank, which recently increased its estimate for the country's GDP growth this year from 6.5% to 7.2%. Jing Ulrich, J.P. Morgan's Chinese equities strategist, thinks that figure is still too low. "China can still achieve 8% growth," she says. "Everything is happening very fast there."
At phone operator Movistar's sales offices in Buenos Aires, customers line up to buy high-speed wireless services to access the web on their mobile phones. Most Argentines don't realize, though, that the company providing the gear for their broadband connections isn't a longtime supplier to Latin America like Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson, or Motorola, but a relative newcomer called Huawei.
For the first time, Brazil, Russia, India, and China -- dubbed the BRIC nations -- held a summit this week to discuss the global economy and their role in it.
It's only fitting that General Motors, once the embodiment of U.S. economic might, decided to sell its Hummer brand to a Chinese manufacturer after GM filed for bankruptcy.
It feels nothing like 2007 these days, except in one respect: Chinese stocks are outperforming again. The MSCI China Index, which tracks stocks traded in Hong Kong, has climbed 67% since late October (the S&P 500 has risen 2% in that time).
Stocks have surged recently on hopes that the U.S. economy may be close to hitting a bottom. The S&P 500 is up an impressive 21% in the past month.
Investors have largely panned the stimulus package that President Obama signed into law last month. But stimulus in China? Now that's a different story.
With overall global economic growth slowing to a near standstill this year, 2009 will be the most challenging year for economies across the globe since World War II, according to an International Monetary Fund report released Wednesday.
As bad as the year has been for U.S. equities, the scene around the world has been even more harrowing. Morgan Stanley Capital International's index of 21 non-U.S. markets is down 49% through Dec. 1, 2008, compared with a 43% slide in the S&P 500. But the real devastation has occurred in once-hot emerging markets. China's CSI index of 300 publicly traded stocks has fallen 63% for the year. The MICEX index of 30 of Russia's most liquid stocks is down a staggering 73%.
Business students and budding young entrepreneurs took part in our competition to tell us just why India means business.
The last time we wrote about investing in emerging markets, we took a broad look at major indexes around the globe. Readers wanted to know more, namely possible ways to enhance returns by drilling down into particular companies, regions, or industries.
The Olympics giveth, melamine-tainted milk taketh away.
For U.S. investors, 1974 was a very scary year. The country was reeling from the Watergate scandal and the OPEC oil embargo, and Wall Street was in the worst bear market since World War II. By October, the S&P 500 was down 48% from its high two years earlier. It finished December with a value of 68.56, some 19% lower than it had a decade earlier.
Are emerging markets a bargain right now? The instinct is right, as developing-country indexes have taken a serious thumping this year. Year-to-date, Argentina's main index is down 51%. China's is down 63%. Russia is down 68%. Overall, the MSvCI Emerging Markets index is down 52% year-to-date, versus *just* a 34% drop for the S&P 500.
Global stock markets are in free fall Monday as European banks are starting to look like they may need their own bailout.
Even in this century's darkest days of recession and war, U.S. households kept on spending. But one of the smartest investors on the planet says the American consumer is finally out of steam.
Dell Inc. unveiled four low-cost computer models for China, India and other emerging economies Wednesday in a new bid to tap the potential of high-growth markets outside the United States
Dongguan City is the the shoe capital of the world: more footwear is made there than anywhere else on the globe. From 2001 to 2007, the value of footwear exports from its province of Guangdong doubled from $4.3 billion to $9.2 billion, according to China's state-run news agency. But in the past year, hundreds of factories have left town, driven out by the rapidly rising cost of doing business in China.
Where in the world can you get good returns these days? The gains from foreign equity funds are mighty tempting, especially those of emerging market portfolios, which, despite a recent slump, are up an annualized 25% over three years.
The number of people around the world with at least $1 million in assets passed 10 million for the first time last year, according to a new report.
China's economy is booming and Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum's visit there this week highlights the U.A.E.'s ambitions to join in on this growth. CNN's John Defterios (JD) sits down with Shaukat Aziz (SA), former Prime Minister to Pakistan to talk about the emerging relationship.
This week the who's who of the United Arab Emirates rubbed shoulders at a Gala dinner. Business people talked deals, swapped business cards and rubbed shoulders with government elite -- in China.
Question: My wife and I have about $50,000 to invest, some of which will go toward a new home we plan to buy within two years and the rest toward retirement. Given all the recession buzz, we're wondering which investments have the best outlook over the next couple of years. Should we get into emerging markets funds to capitalize on a weak dollar? Buy a large-cap stock fund that can ride out problems with the economy? How about bond funds or CDs? --Matthew Beck
Whenever a popular investing argument starts to sound like a no-brainer, I know that lots of people will soon be losing lots of money.
Just how red-hot is the current worldwide expansion? "This is far and away the strongest global economy I've seen in my business lifetime," U.S. Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson declared on a recent visit to Fortune's offices.
For years investors have piled into economies like China and India in search of outsize returns.
On a crowded Sunday morning inside the Forbidden City, one of China's best-known TV anchors is warily eyeing a squat, slope-roofed building that for five centuries housed the office of the emperor'...
Big-cap stocks are on the move. Headlines declare the resurgence. Money managers queue up to buy. Most market indicators suggest the big beast's hour has returned at last: In the final three quarte...
Stomaching the ups and downs of emerging markets can be difficult for most investors, but this asset class has a place in practically every portfolio.
By the time it was all said and done, an astonishing $22 billion had been vacuumed up in a matter of hours. So frenzied was the desire for this initial public offering - the largest in history - th...
Investing in the world's largest emerging economy is risky business. Sure, China's GDP has more than doubled since 2000, and VCs report eye-popping ROI from Chinese investments. But with the ever-p...
With the market struggling to eke out even meager gains this year, you may be tempted to look beyond traditional investments for something, anything, to fatten up your retirement account.
China Construction Bank, the nation's third-largest bank, went public on the Hong Kong exchange last October - a move that raised $9.2 billion and earned it the No. 6 spot on this year's list of th...
With the market struggling to eke out even meager gains this year, you may be tempted to look beyond traditional investments for something, anything, to fatten up your retirement account.
Ben Bernanke isn't just scaring U.S. investors anymore. He's scaring investors around the world.
PAUL PLASTERER WORKS FOR A HIGH-END sporting goods company in Chicago, and if you ask him about his job, you'll quickly realize that he's a pretty business-savvy guy. He doesn't, however, have any ...
Paul Plasterer works for a high-end sporting goods company in Chicago, and if you ask him about his job, you'll quickly realize that he's a pretty business-savvy guy. He doesn't, however, have any illusions that he's a market whiz.
A U.S. business achieved a long-anticipated intellectual-property milestone last month: It became, as far as most legal experts can tell, the first company sued for patent infringement by a mainlan...
China's best-known Internet guru is Jack Ma, the founder of Alibaba.com, an e-commerce auction site that pitches made-in-China goods to a global market.
China already has a presence on the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq with plenty of investor interest. Does that mean the recent yuan revaluation will boost or bust these stocks?
PAULO ZEGNA KNOWS ALL ABOUT product counterfeiting in China, but he was still surprised to see his own name being stolen. He's co-chief of Ermenegildo Zegna Group, the Milan men's fashion house tha...
Airdate: June 18th, 2005
Following is the full text of the keynote speech delivered by China's President Hu Jintao to the Fortune Global Forum in Beijing on Monday May 16. Mr Hu was welcomed by the Chairman and CEO of Time Warner, Richard Parsons. CNN is part of the Time Warner group.
Like frequent fliers, veteran emerging-market investors are accustomed to stomach-churning turbulence. Over the past couple of years, those who weathered the spikes and dives of stocks and mutual f...
Global growth momentum has peaked but buoyant economic and financial conditions in most developing countries should continue, the World Bank said on Wednesday.
THAT CHINA IS THE WORLD'S MOST explosive and intriguing economic growth story has been blindingly obvious for some time. And the stories in this issue provide ample evidence that the dynamic expans...
Ecuador has defaulted on its debt more than any other nation. So why would you want to buy its bonds? Or, for that matter, those of Russia, where oligarchs and an ex-KGB agent wrestle one another f...
If you're wondering which emotion is guiding investors these days, greed or fear, consider the current fascination with investing in China.
How's this for a can't-miss investment opportunity: Enormous but struggling nation with a potent workforce turns capitalist and embraces its destiny as a future economic powerhouse. Foreign capital...
I want to get exposure to Chinese equities. I feel the country is going to have a boom five to 10 years down the road and I feel if I invest now, I will be getting in early. What are the small and mid-sized equity companies in China of which stock can be purchased?
Chinese officials recently said the Chinese economy grew at 8.5 percent in 2003 and most observers say the real pace of growth was much higher than that. But that is last year's story.
Investing in China ought to be a no-brainer. With an economy that has barreled forward at an average rate of 7% for five years running and that will probably advance 9% in 2003 despite SARS, China ...
The high is always sweeter after the low. It's as true for investing as it is for life. So those battered veteran investors in emerging markets are no doubt savoring the phenomenal performance they...
Investing in emerging markets in the 1990s required great fortitude--and a crate or two of Rolaids didn't hurt either. Betting that the small, emerging economies around the world would produce outs...
The promise: The summer heat in Henan province in central China is so oppressive that it feels like a great blazing hand pressing down on your head all day until, finally and mercifully, the sun di...
There's no denying it: China is on a roll. Its economy is still growing by 8% a year while all those around it swoon, and analysts are already figuring out how much of a bounce the spending generat...
These have indeed been soul-destroying times for investors in emerging markets. Last year alone, the average diversified fund in the sector lost 31%. It's hard to believe, but these funds were actu...
Just two years ago, emerging economies were in heaps of trouble. The light at the end of the financial-crisis tunnel appeared to be a train barreling the other way. Doomsayers like Charles Wolf, an...
In our March issue, we suggested that you stop chasing overvalued growth stocks and go where the herd wasn't grazing ("Invest Against the Grain"). This led us to unpopular spots like commodity stoc...
CISCO ON THEIR MINDS
In retrospect, Steve Kantz knows that perhaps he should have been a bit more conventional when he opened an Individual Retirement Account in mid-1997. He'd considered a plain-vanilla U.S. stock fun...
Every weekday morning back in 1993, the most delirious year of the giddy 1990s Asia investing boom, stockbrokers from all over Southeast Asia called up mutual fund manager Robert Howe in Hong Kong ...
On a trip to Thailand in January 1997, Mark Madden, manager of the $156 million Pioneer Emerging Markets Fund, visited some two dozen companies asking: How much of the foreign currency debt on your...
YES, EVEN IN THOSE VOLATILE EMERGING MARKETS
The recent wild swings in stock markets in the U.S. and overseas have many fund investors wondering what to do next. For answers, MONEY reporter Pat Regnier talked to fund expert Ken Gregory, 40, p...
Okay. So you've just read that the next 25 years look darn good for savvy investors. But what if you don't feel like waiting around for another couple of decades for your just deserts? What if you'...
After 18 years of marriage, Connie and Kel Saito still have their differences, even when they try to relax by playing mixed doubles on a tennis court near their San Jose home. "We'll have arguments...
Everyone loves Lyford Cay, Morgan Stanley's annual get-together for long-ball hitters. The workday is seriously civilized--eight to noon, then an hour and a half at night--leaving loads of time for...
Are you ready for the latest wrinkle in the sizzling world of emerging-market mutual funds? It's the new--and rapid-- proliferation of open-end single-country mutual funds. These new vehicles offer...
THIS MONTH: --What savvy managers are buying now --A fund that focuses on the bluest chips
IT NEVER CEASES TO AMAZE ME HOW OTHERWISE SKEPtical and intelligent people invest in mutual funds without ever questioning the myriad factlets, sayings and pseudostatistics that, over time, have ac...
With U.S. stocks racking up returns of 20% to 35% so far this year, you might figure only a lunatic would bother to seek superior gains abroad. But think again. "It's a virtual slam dunk that many ...
SPOOKED BY THE TURMOIL IN INTERNATIONAL stock markets, Americans are increasingly reluctant to invest abroad. In the first two months of 1995, only $829 million of fresh cash flowed into funds that...
How about a round of doubles? no, we don't mean tennis. we're talking about investments that could double in value over the next five years. Of course, if you're just beginning to learn the ways of...
If you've had money in one of the 42 so-called emerging markets funds (including 10 closed-end selections) over the past year, you have our condolences. All of them lost money, with the average ent...
Nearly lost in all the dire headlines--Mexican peso collapses! economic aftershocks of japan quake! u.s.-china trade war looms!--is 1995's Big Event: the beginnings of a global expansion of breatht...
His name has become synonymous with new global markets. Mark Mobius, head of the emerging-markets team at Templeton Investment Management, holds one of the best -- and longest -- performance record...
Emerging markets? Submerging would be more like it. Investors in many parts of the developing world are finding themselves underwater as markets from Malaysia to Mexico sink under the weight of the...
NO COUNTRY today is more synonymous with growth, capital gains, and vast opportunities to make money than China. Small investors are crowding into mutual funds that promise to grab some of China's ...
Until recently, the case for emerging-market funds sounded so persuasive that it was almost rude to ask whether there was a catch. After all, developing economies such as Argentina, China, Indonesi...
Wall Street old-timers used to chuckle about ''Peruvian bonds'': broker slang for worthless securities. Nowadays owners of the Andean country's debt are the ones who are smiling. Loans that sold fo...
China has fascinated Westerners since Marco Polo gushed over the stately splendors of Emperor Kublai Khan. Seven centuries later, visions of similar treasures beckon again, this time by way of the ...
A POLITICAL STORM is sweeping Hong Kong, shaking confidence within Asia's most vibrant business center and sending dark clouds as far as the U.S. and Europe. China's promise to allow the capitalist...
Adventuresome investors are intrigued by the almost boundless profit opportunities in China. But finding a low-cost way into the market is about as tough as finding a great Chinese eatery in Iowa. ...
Yearn for a job with plenty of foreign travel? Meet Mark Mobius, a man who makes travel agents drool. As head of the Templeton Emerging Markets Fund, Mobius spends eight months of the year on the r...
TALK ABOUT lousy timing. The day after Chinese soldiers turned their guns on unarmed students near Tiananmen Square last June, an ad appeared in Time magazine for a new American-backed hotel, offic...
WHEN ARE YOU coming back?'' implore the telexes, faxes, and phone calls from China to foreign partners. In raising the question -- and in their hurried, nervous efforts to reassure Western investor...
THEY ARE the latest business buccaneers to mix it up in freewheeling Hong Kong. Tailored and sophisticated, with French cuffs just right, they command seemingly unlimited cash to snap up prime real...
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