According to a report from Bloomberg,"Goldman Sachs Group Inc. recommends investors cut allocations in developing nations by a third, forecasting "significant underperformance" for stocks, bonds and currencies over the next 10 years. JPMorgan Chase & Co. expects local-currency bonds to post 10 percent of their average returns since 2004 in the coming year, while Morgan Stanley projects the Brazilian real, Turkish lira and Russian ruble will extend declines after tumbling as much as 17 percent in 2013".
While the economies of Brazil, Russia, India and China symbolized the increasing power of the developing world during the worst of the global financial crisis and delivered outsized returns, Morgan Stanley says some of the same nations may now prove to be laggards as the U.S. Federal Reserve scales back unprecedented stimulus and interest rates rise. The MSCI Emerging Markets Index is down 3 percent this year, compared with a 1.2 percent drop in the developed-market index, and hit a four-month low yesterday as data from China showed weakness in manufacturing and services.
While the economies of Brazil, Russia, India and China symbolized the increasing power of the developing world during the worst of the global financial crisis and delivered outsized returns, Morgan Stanley says some of the same nations may now prove to be laggards as the U.S. Federal Reserve scales back unprecedented stimulus and interest rates rise. The MSCI Emerging Markets Index is down 3 percent this year, compared with a 1.2 percent drop in the developed-market index, and hit a four-month low yesterday as data from China showed weakness in manufacturing and services.
“The world not long ago was so mesmerized by the emerging markets without distinguishing the good from the bad,” Stephen Jen, a partner at SLJ Macro Partners LLP who correctly predicted the selloff in developing nations last year, said in a phone interview from London on Dec. 18. “The cost of capital will start to normalize and that’s when we see the truth being revealed in these markets.”
Emerging-market local-currency bonds returned 205 percent in dollar terms in the decade through 2012, compared with a 58 percent gain for U.S. Treasuries, according to data compiled by JPMorgan and Bank of America Corp. The MSCI index of stocks advanced 261 percent, outpacing the 69 percent rally in the developed-market measure.
Last year, domestic bonds in developing nations lost 6.3 percent, the most since 2002 when JPMorgan started compiling the data. The MSCI emerging-market equity gauge fell 5 percent, compared with a 24 percent rally in MSCI’s World Index, the biggest underperformance in 15 years, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
“It’s a structural de-rating that’s taking place” in emerging markets, John-Paul Smith, a Deutsche Bank AG strategist in London, said in a phone interview Dec. 18. Developing-nation stocks will trail their peers in advanced economies by a further 10 percent in 2014, he said.
The recovery in developing economies, which contributed to 65 percent of the global expansion since 2010, is struggling to gather momentum as exports grow at the slowest pace in four years. China, which buys everything from Brazil’s iron ore and Chile’s copper, is facing the threat of bank failures as local government debt increased 20 percent annually since 2010.
While emerging markets are still expanding faster than developed countries, the margin will shrink this year to the smallest since 2002, according to Credit Suisse Group AG. The growth rate in advanced economies will almost double to 2.1 percent this year, while emerging markets expand 5.3 percent, compared with 4.7 percent in 2013.
Even a small capital outflow and increase in borrowing costs will have adverse impacts on governments and companies in developing countries as debt levels increased, according to Morgan Stanley.
Net debt amounted to 1.25 times earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization for companies in the MSCI’s emerging market gauge, up from 0.68 in June 2009, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Average borrowing costs for developing-country governments jumped to 6.96 percent on Jan. 2, the highest since Mach 2010, according to JPMorgan’s GBI-EM Diversified Index.
“We’re at the mature end of the credit cycle in emerging markets, which suggests we may see increased financial-sector and fiscal risks, which are not priced in by the markets,” Rashique Rahman, co-head of foreign-exchange and emerging market strategy at Morgan Stanley in New York, said by e-mail on Dec. 18.
Morgan Stanley recommended investors reduce holdings of emerging-market currencies and bonds on Dec. 3, saying the developing world “faces the challenge of regaining a decade of lost competitiveness.” The bank labeled Brazil, India, Indonesia, South Africa and Turkey as the “fragile five” in August, because of their reliance on foreign capital.
Goldman Sachs advised clients to cut their emerging-market allocation to 6 percent from 9 percent, citing the lack of economic reforms to improve growth, CNBC reported on Dec. 22. Leslie Shribman, a spokeswoman for Goldman Sachs in New York, confirmed the report without commenting further.
JPMorgan expects a return as low as 1 percent for local-currency bonds this year, compared with an average gain of 10 percent over the past decade, according to its 2014 outlook report.
“Emerging markets will probably find it difficult to sustain the steady improvement in sovereign creditworthiness that has helped to define the asset class since 2004,” David Lubin, the head of emerging-market economics at Citigroup, wrote in a note on Dec. 2.
Although these quotes speak of emerging markets in general, because of the stampede of foreign funds from bonds,stocks and emerging market currencies in 2013 and Investment Banks say it will continue in 2014,not all of them share the same economic problems or better macroeconomic fundamentals.So when the dust settles we will find cheap opportunities in some of these emerging markets.
Source: Bloomberg
