EM Fund Stock Picks & Country Commentaries (December 5, 2023)
What Westerns get wrong about China, a table with the lead country and technology monopoly risk for various technologies, more EM-FM funds with good economic and/or portfolio commentaries, etc.
Some quick takes from this post:
A recent report containing an excellent and detailed table listing various key technologies, the leading country for that particular tech, and the tech’s monopoly risk.
Asian professional investors are increasingly shifting their fixed income asset allocation from investment-grade to “fallen angel” bonds.
Four Chinese stocks with progressive buyback policies.
An Asian maker of various household power cords and other types of connectors with a low P/E and good dividend yield.
A port operator stock in a frontier market that is also a growing industrial and automotive manufacturing hub.
More emerging market or frontier market funds with good economic and/or portfolio commentaries, etc.
In a recent podcast interview, a China expert was asked what Westerns get wrong about the country. It was noted how the country is actually characterized by political centralization with an extreme form of economic decentralization plus how local government officials in China are highly entrepreneurial and focused on doing what is best for their prefecture or province. In other words: Heaven is [still…] high and the emperor is [still…] far away…
In addition, it was noted how many Chinese business models are world class and are being copied when it used to be the other way around e.g. they used to be the copiers, but now they are the ones being copied.
Finally, links to some more emerging or frontier market funds noting the date of their most recent documentation (factsheets and separate economic and/or portfolio commentaries) have been added to this post’s template. Note that many EM funds do not have any economic-portfolio commentary with or separate from their factsheets (the ones in these posts are the ones that do - some are very detailed and its noted whether they have detailed economic and portfolio comments).
Again, links in these posts go to the fund’s website where you will likely get a pop-up to fill out noting your location and the type of investor you (are rather than directly to the PDF file for any documentation).
Since it takes time for funds to update and post their latest monthly or quarterly documentation or new research pieces, this might become a biweekly post with another post for the in-between weeks focused on interesting podcast interviews and tweets (especially ones containing stock picks like one included in this post) albeit there is still too much garbage showing up in my Twitter feed (whereas YouTube, podcasts, etc. are more manageable for finding stuff with good insights)…
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For a further disclaimer and an explanation of the reasoning behind these posts: DISCLAIMER: EM Fund Stock Picks & Country Commentaries Posts.
Note: Where possible, company links are to their respective investor relations or corporate pages. Region and country links are to our ADR or ETF pages where there are further country specific resources (e.g. links to local stock markets and media websites). Please report any bad links in the comments section.
🗄️ Fund documents / updates; ⚠️ Disclosures or restricted access e.g. based on your location, investor status, etc.; 🎥 Video; 🎙️ Podcast; 🎬 Webinar; 📰 Newspaper/magazine article; 🗃️ Archived article; 📯 Press release; 🔬 Research analysis (including articles/blog posts from fund managers, etc.)
You will need to fill out a form to access this report which is full of charts and graphics:
🔬 Is The Dollar's Status as a Reserve Currency at Risk? (Refinitiv and Fathom Consulting)
Section 1 explains what it means to have reserve currency status and outlines the benefits that the US derives from it. Section 2 examines how domestic factors could affect the dollar’s international status. It highlights the uncertainty created by the debt ceiling (demonstrated once again this year), the erosion of value brought about by the post-pandemic surge in inflation, and the use and threatened use of both the dollar and dollar-denominated assets for geopolitical purposes. Section 3 then discusses the progress of other currencies and asks whether they provide a credible threat to the dollar’s status in the medium term. Section 4 concludes.
This podcast discussion gives a good 2024 EM overview:
🎙️ Outerblue Talks – What Awaits Emerging Markets In 2024? (Amundi) 26:49 Minutes (November 2023)
Swaha Pattanaik speaks to Vincent Mortier, Amundi’s Group Chief Investment Officer and Yerlan Syzdykov, Global Head of Emerging Markets at Amundi to find out what’s in store and why 2024 is expected to be a year of two halves for emerging markets. They discuss what the forecasts might mean for EM equities, hard and local currency fixed income and FX. They take a closer look at the prospects for the Asian superpowers of China and India and consider which regions and countries might benefit or lose out amid increased global fragmentation and the critical issue of energy transition.
In addition:
🔬 Emerging Markets Outlook for 2024 (Amundi) November 2023
While EM may struggle in a challenging global environment, there are nonetheless advancing structural factors that can benefit some peripheral countries.