DISCLAIMER: EM Fund Stock Picks & Country Commentaries Posts
This post provides an explanation for our "EM Fund Stock Picks & Country Commentaries" posts and also serves as a further disclaimer.
This post (subject to being updated from time to time) is intended to act as a further disclaimer for and outline the purposes of certain posts or the information they may contain.
EM Fund Stock Picks & Country Commentaries
In addition to links to emerging or frontier market funds, these posts include interesting research analysis, fund manager interviews, and tweets denoted by the following emojis:
🗄️ Fund documents / updates
⚠️ Disclosures or restricted access e.g. based on your location, investor status, etc.
🎥 Video segment or interview
🎙️ Podcast
🎬 Webinar
📰 Newspaper/magazine article
🗃️ Archived article
📯 Press release
🔬 Research analysis
These posts have since evolved the start of the year with this post showing the latest format:
Regarding Fund Documentation
It has come to my attention from reading the fine print on some fund (usually institutional funds from certain large fund managers) documentation or fund letters that absolutely NOTHING can be directly quoted from this documentation. Note that funds and fund managers do tend to cover or talk about the same stocks over and over…
As of mid-October 2023: All posts will briefly mention emerging market or frontier market funds that provide good commentary (economic and/or portfolio) in this format:
🗄️⚠️ Fund Name Linked to the Fund Page (Linked Ticker if Available)
FOR EXAMPLE: “The latest monthly commentary (economic and portfolio) is from the end of September and the latest factsheet is from the end of August.”
IF a disclosure pop-up appears when you visit the fund website, you will need to determine whether or not you are qualified to access the website based on the type of investor you are and your location. Unlike with company IR pages, it’s usually easy to find fund commentary or factsheets on fund websites.
Monthly fund factsheets are typically updated within a couple of weeks of the end of the previous month. The better factsheets offer at least a few paragraphs of commentary about the month e.g. what stock picks were the best or worst performers (and why), a macro overview of the economy (of the country, region, etc.), and key events (economic, political, monetary, etc.), etc.
Funds typically do much longer half-year and annual reports (depending on their financial year ends) containing more extensive stock, sector, and country commentary (that is often buried deep in the reports). Even though there is a time lag (as much as several weeks for an annual report to be completed and publicly available), they still contain interesting stock picks and valuable commentary about them and the countries they are based or operate in.
Note that some funds completely remove old factsheets or commentaries from their websites and appear to have no archive section for these (as they just keep replacing the document under the link with a new document for the new period).
Please note the focus of these posts will NOT be on the funds themselves (e.g. their performance, fees, NAVs, etc). Again, anyone interested in learning more about any fund mentioned MUST go to the fund's website (or to the stock exchange website for where the fund is listed) where you will might be asked to select the type of investor you are, what jurisdiction you are in, etc.
The benefit of reading any publicly available fund commentary (including fund manager interviews) that mention specific stock picks that might be held by a fund (active or passive) include:
Fund managers have (hopefully…) talked to and visited (on-site) with company management.
The stock picks should be the better managed and more liquid emerging market stocks open to foreign investors e.g. via the OTC market (for American investors), foreign stock exchanges (e.g. London), accounts with major brokerage firms, etc.
The stock picks will likely have a corporate website with an investor relations section or a separate IR site containing detailed financials and other relevant financial or stock information. For all posts, I will try to link the stock pick names to their IR or corporate websites or pages.
Earnings call recordings or transcripts with investor Q&As may be available on sites such as Seeking Alpha. They might even be posted on the stock’s IR site.
Financials (hopefully…) audited by internationally accredited accounting firms. Given recent accounting scandals (e.g. Lojas Americanas), this may or may not make a difference...
Frequency
These posts are a weekly post (emailed Tuesdays around 9AM EST USA time on Substack - the non-paywalled introduction portion may appear earlier on our website under the Newsletter category) for paid subscribers.
Overall Goals
To offer readers something better than a limited number of in-depth "stock picking" idea articles about specific stocks from sectors or countries that may or may not interest all readers.
To help readers (and myself included) identify and learn about other emerging market stock picks and countries that don’t get the same level of coverage or attention in western business media as, for example, Alibaba and China might get.
I am NOT be a fan of investing in tech, unproven new technologies (e.g. EVs - as I remember what happened to 3D printer stocks, dot.com stocks, etc.) or so-called “new economy” or “energy transition” and (especially…) ESG types of opportunities. I tend to prefer “old economy” stocks and countries with “hard” (rather than financialized or debt financed service-based) economies (see Emerging Market Country Selection in a Multipolar World: Twelve Things to Consider). HOWEVER, if EM funds or fund managers are talking about or investing in such stock picks, these posts will still cover them.
Any specific stock mentioned in our posts are linked back to the company IR page (NOT always easy to find…), ticker, and key data plus include a description, forward P/E + forward dividend yield, and a technical chart - all pet peeves of mine when not included by writers who are more concerned about Google and SEO than their readers…
It is hoped that ALL of our posts will save readers time (e.g. as its tedious to search for fund filings and/or find investor IR pages - especially for foreign stocks) and serve as a good starting point for a more in-depth investment analysis by readers and myself included.
Over time, these posts and this entire Substack will become a valuable library of emerging market stock picks for subscribers to refer back to - especially IF you are looking for potential stock picks in a particular emerging market country.
Searching a Substack
Substack offers two ways to search posts for e.g. specific stock mentions (albeit their search features still leave much to be desired):
Any comments or suggestions would be appreciated.
Disclaimer. The information and views contained on this website and newsletter is provided for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice and/or a recommendation. Your use of any content is entirely at your own risk and it is your sole responsibility to evaluate the accuracy, completeness and usefulness of the content. Seek a duly licensed professional for any investment advice. I may have positions in the investments covered. This is not a recommendation to buy or sell any investment mentioned.
DISCLAIMER: EM Fund Stock Picks & Country Commentaries Posts was also published on our website.