Emerging victorious
Stocks in markets such as Brazil and China have outperformed the U.S. during the recent market surge. Is that a cause for celebration or a warning sign?
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| An exchange-traded fund focusing on stocks in Brazil, Russia, India and China has outperformed the S&P 500 this year. |
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- 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.
But as gaudy as that gain may be, it pales in comparison to how well stocks outside the U.S., particularly in emerging markets, have been doing as of late.
According to mutual fund tracker Morningstar, funds specializing in Latin American stocks are up more than 35% in the past month while diversified emerging markets funds have gained nearly 30%. Pacific/Asia funds, excluding Japanese stocks, have gained about 25%. That latter category includes a slew of funds focusing on China.
Now part of the reason that stocks in emerging markets such as Brazil, Russia, China and India, the so-called BRIC nations, have skyrocketed is because of some increasing signs that the U.S. economy may be stabilizing. It goes without saying that the U.S. is an important market for all of these countries.
And the market's euphoric reaction to last week's G-20 meetings appears to reflect renewed hope that the world's largest economies will act in concert to try and end this economic downturn.
But the recent spike in commodity prices may be what's really fueling the emerging markets surge.
Brazil and Russia, for example, are big exporters of oil. And with crude prices gushing about 50% in the past month and a half, it stands to reason that much of the optimism surrounding those two countries is due to hopes that their "petrodollars" are now worth a heck of a lot more.
"A lot of the rally is tied to the stabilization in commodities," said Wasif Latif, an assistant vice president of equity investments with USAA Investment Management in San Antonio who specializes in emerging markets. "Commodity-driven counties like Brazil, Russia and Chile have been doing well."
How long can that last though? Another emerging markets expert said that he thinks some of the recent runup in oil prices can be attributed to hopes that the global economy may soon recover. But he also fears that short-term traders may be playing a role as well.
"It does seem as though some of the speculative interest in oil and other commodities, as well as real demand, has emerged once again," said Karthik Sankaran, portfolio manager and principal at Covepoint Capital Advisors, an emerging markets trading firm focused on currencies.
Sankaran said he's a little concerned that the signs of a pickup in the global economy may turn out to be short-lived. He points to a recent decline in something called the Baltic Dry Index, which tracks daily shipping rates for various bulk goods, as an ominous sign.
The Baltic Dry Index started moving higher late last year as both the United States and China started to discuss the possibility of economic stimulus plans. The index moved even higher through the start of 2009, which some attributed to an increase in the purchase of iron ore by China.
But somewhat curiously, the index has fallen about 35% in the past month -- precisely as stocks in the U.S. and around the world have taken off along with the prices of commodities.
"Just at the same time as there is more excitement about commodities, we may have seen a peak in short-term demand," said Sankaran.
Andrew Busch, global FX market strategist with BMO Capital Markets in Chicago, agreed that this could be a concern.
"China's stimulus has been very helpful, but it's hard to separate how much of that has already been factored in. The could be quite a bit of growth in the second quarter and then maybe it will peter out. So that might be a bit of a head fake," he said.
Latif is a little more optimistic that the recent rally has legs. He points out that emerging markets seemed to stabilize before U.S. stocks started to move higher in mid-March.
He added the fact that emerging markets have outperformed the United States during the recent rally could be a sign that investors around the world are betting on a global economic bounceback -- and are willing to take on more risk because of that.
"We had a global crisis and emerging markets were not at the center of it for once," Latif said. "Emerging markets seem to be a proxy for a global recovery."
With that in mind, much of the USAA Emerging Markets fund, which Latif helps oversee, is positioned in global commodity companies. According to most recent figures for the fund. Top holdings include Russian oil firms Gazprom (OGZPY) and Lukoil (LUKOF), mining firm Vale (RIO) and oil company Petrobras (PBR) of Brazil, and China's Petrochina.
And even though Busch said a near-term pullback is likely as the markets may begin to suffer this week from what he calls a G-20 hangover, he said there is enough evidence from markets around the globe to suggest that investors have more reason to be optimistic than they were just a few weeks ago.
"A bottoming process is not a singular event, and I don't think the healing has reached a critical stage in the U.S. just yet," he said. "But the biggest thing that has happened is that we had a near-death experience and the global financial system has remained robust and is not going to collapse."
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