Emerginvest Blog

I’ve seen plenty of questions floating around on Yahoo! Answers and elsewhere from average investors or other individuals asking for clarification of why the recent meltdown is occurring. Questions range from: “Why are the world markets going down?” to “Why is this happening?” I’ll do my best to provide a relatively non-technical/financial explanation of what’s going on, both domestically in the US and abroad to bring individuals up to speed.

Basically, banks became greedy a few years ago and started selling blocks of mortgages together as assets which others could invest in. (So if you owned a mortgage, it might be sold as an investment to a number of different people/institutions). The problem was twofold in this regard. First, these packages that were being sold were extremely complex so most people buying them couldn’t see what they actually were. A single mortgage could be sliced into many different portions, repackaged, and then have that package sold again and repackaged, etc. The common analogy is that the “bad debt” was like rotten meat thrown into a grinder, so that the banks only knew if they had it after they were already sick.

Secondly, the banks were greedy in that they were giving out mortgages to people who shouldn’t have normally been able to afford them. So, the “sub-prime” was basically giving away teaser rates to individuals who wouldn’t be able to afford the “normal” mortgage payments. For instance, if an individual had $2,000 they could allocate to their mortgage, a bank would issue a mortgage to them at a teaser $1,800 payment, knowing that the real payment would be around $2,500 after a few months. So in essence, the banks knew that the individual would not be able to afford it, but they would get a few months worth of payments, then reposes the house, and sell it again to make a profit. That practice was supported because all the housing prices were so high (so the banks never really lost money).

However, when the housing prices fell, all of a sudden the banks couldn’t resell the houses for what they paid for. There was literally trillions of dollars of “bad debt” in these packages - holdings which were worth nothing that the banks had to write off. Because the packages were so complex though, it was hard to tell which banks were holding which bad assets (think of a horrific game of bank Russian roulette – no pun intended with the status of the Russian markets). So, as they discover them, and have to write off hundreds of millions (or billions) at a time, the banks are being forced to go out of business – hence all the collapses recently. This creates an environment where no one trusts each other. The banks typically loan a significant amount of money to each other in their normal day to day operations, but now that they feel each other might go out of business overnight (which is very possible), they aren’t loaning anymore out of fear, which locks the credit lines up. That in turn makes it harder for average individuals to get loans for mortgages, cars, etc. Of course, this creates a panic and the rapid swings/sell off which we have been seeing in the last 7 days.

As for a macro-world view. Not only was the “bad debt” packaged and sold here in the US, much of it was sold abroad. So, you might have Taiwanese, German, or Brazilian banks/companies which are having the same problems. This, plus a generic fear of the markets, and the fact that many markets are pegged fairly largely to the US economy, has created the global financial meltdown we have seen. The entire country of Iceland has had to shut down their banking system and suspend trading on their stock exchange. The Russian stock market lost 19% of its value two days ago, most major markets are having extremely severe declines as well. One great place to see how the world economies are doing is a startup called Emerginvest. It has intuitive heat-maps of the world so even if you’re not familiar with markets, you can see how specific regions, sectors, or the world as a whole is responding.

Many people have been questing whether or not the US was to blame for the current economic meltdown. One opinion is: absolutely not. The subprime practice became a world-wide trend with many banks selling mortgage securities to one another for profit. The other is: yes is definitely is – The US started the practice and sold the vast majority of securities to foreign investors.

That being said, I personally think the US is to blame on account that it was the US who first started the practice because of the extremely high domestic housing prices which supported it. I recognize that the trend caught on, but the US did initiate it. I certainly feel that many international individuals will see the US as having caused the crisis, and especially as the US sold the bad debt abroad. Is the US entirely to blame? Absolutely not. Do I personally feel like the US was much more largely responsible than any other party? Yes.

I hope this goes a long way to clearing up any gaps of understanding

Best,
Jonathan

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Thursday October 9th, 2008 – The day after the worst sell-off in Russia’s history (down 19.1%), the markets were suspended at 2:05pm (Moscow time) because of a massive rebound. The Russian markets rallied approximately 17% at the time of close.

According to a Bloomberg article: “Russian Stocks soar 17%, Leading Rally for Emerging Markets,” Russian President Dmitry Medvedev announced two days ago that the Russian government will funnel an additional $36 billion worth of capital into ailing Russian banks. In addition, the government would add to the sizeable loans ($150 billion) the government has already issued all within the next few days.

That, in addition to an oil surge, which helped OAO Rosneft (ROSN:RX) soar 25%, bolstered the MICEX and RTS exchanges gain back a significant portion of yesterday’s losses.

That being said, the exchange is still down a brutal 64% for the year. The Russian reserves have fallen moderately (approx. $50B from $600B reserves in August) to help lend stability to the markets - although there has been little evidence in their behavior.

As I wrote in a previous article: “Russia: From Growth to Mere Survival” – it will take an exceedingly long time for stability and confidence to be restored in the markets after such a horrific freefall. While it is promising to see a positive rally after the worst day in the markets history, it’s almost as disconcerting to see the gargantuan pendulum-like swings the market has been taking. A 17% rebound where market trading has to be suspended due to overheating doesn’t restore my, or possibly any other investor’s, confidence in the markets’ stability.

After looking dismally at the Emerginvest heat map and seeing a shocking 64.4% loss in the last year for Russia, its startling to realize that these out-of-control swings might do even more serious damage to an already devastated economy. Russia must attempt to keep the swings under control, which is exceptionally difficult given an unprecedented time in global market turmoil – especially as the market seems to be riding on U.S. reaction to domestic troubles.

We’ll see what tomorrow brings. I just hope it is not another 15%+ day in either direction.

… I can’t believe I just said “another.”

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Hello all,

This morning, the wall street journal released an article entitled: “Russian Investors Want Bailout of Bailout.” This of course, follows yesterday’s horrific day of trading when the Russian RTS stock index fell 19.1%– the largest drop in a single day in its history.

Merely a few months ago, the Russian exchange (RSX) was being heralded as one of the prospective high-growth gems of the emerging economies. Today, there are extremely serious concerns about the government’s ability to keep it from collapsing.

Moscow took steps to ease the financial crisis with their $120B bailout – a sizeable move which temporarily eased the markets. However persistent fears of credit kept most of the money walled up inside the banks. The article states that very little of it has been lent even between them, let alone dispersed among the market: “’There’s all this money promised, but so far it’s not on the market,’ said James Fenkner, head of Red Star Asset Management in Moscow. ‘Banks are still not lending money to each other. It’s disheartening, because the government was supposed to do something.’”

To me, it’s a classic case of economic Game Theory – each player is distrusting others, and subsequently hoarding capital. The banks are afraid their loans won’t be paid back, which creates a credit lockup. The $120B bailout helped, but clearly Moscow to date has not done been as forceful as it should have to keep the money flowing throughout the system.

The second hit to Moscow is the falling oil prices. According to the WSJ, Russia has “amassed nearly $600B in currency reserves from high oil prices over the past several years…” and with the falling oil prices (now below $90/bbl), it presents a heavy double-punch to Russian economic integrity. The reserves were meant to be spent on much needed infrastructure for the country. That infrastructure would inevitably fuel growth and improve the quality of life for its population, yet as oil continues to spiral downwards, that spending is most likely going to have to be used to put the economy on life support. Even if the crisis isn’t as protracted or as deep as expected (I’m not sure how it could be any more sever, but still), it will inevitably have an impact on the psychological disposition on those in Moscow – withholding more of their budget than they would have otherwise as a safety blanket in case of additional credit shock waves.

The Russian market has imploded: according to Emerginvest, down 60.4% in the last quarter (again, 19.1% of which occurred yesterday alone). The troubling truth is that the question no longer remains “How much will Russia grow in the next few years?” Instead, the question is “How damaged will she be when she gets out of this mess?”

Best,
Jonathan

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Hello again,

This is the first time I’ve posted twice in one day, but I hope to continue to provide additional information here in light of the financial crisis.

Barron’s released an article on September 29th entitled “It’s Time to Revisit Emerging Markets.” I’ll get more into their rationale, but the gist is that EM stocks (especially in China and Asia), have fallen so much while maintaining positive debt ratios, that they are looking like good buys since they are quite cheap.

The article cites that “Brazil is off 23%, Mexico 13%, Russia 43%, China 16%, and Korea 12%… since July.” While in reality, after the turbulence today, Emerginvest’s heat map cites that it is even more egregious: in the last quarter, Brazil is down 25%, Mexico 18.9%, Russia 51%, China 22%, etc. compared to the recent downturn where the U.S. is down by 16.4% for the quarter.

Ironically however, that only strengthens the article’s argument. It describes how Mohammed El-Erian, the co-CIO of PIMCO (who also happens to be an emerging markets expert), is still quite optimistic about emerging markets returns. He states: “Technically, you’ll see an even sharper rally in emerging markets than U.S. equities. I’d at this point be looking to buy the [MSCI Emerging Markets] index.” (EEM) The article fully admits that emerging markets will be affected, however it states that Morgan Stanley believes it will slow to somewhere around 7% growth in the first part of ’09.

It cited how the MSCI index was trading at a 10.9-x multiple of trailing earnings, the lowest valuation of the last 7 years. In addition, it discusses how projections of the continued growth of emerging markets (contrasted with developed markets attempting to dig themselves out of the credit crisis for the foreseeable future) compliments the cheap prices: “David Fisher, chairman of Capital Group, recently said he expects 70% of the world’s growth over the next two decades to come from the emerging markets. At the moment, they account for just 11% of the world’s stock-market value, even though JPMorgan Chase reckons they’ll account for 28% of the global economy next year.”

It advises that many (if not all) of the emerging market opportunities look interesting, yet points to Asia (ADRA)and China (FXI) specifically. One method it used to select attractive indexes/countries was to consider their loan-to-deposit ratio. They say if it’s “over 100%, there’s a very high probability the whole country will need to delever.” Using this metric it picks out Hong Kong (57.4%), China (65%), Indonesia (72%), the Philippines (73%), Malaysia (74%), and Taiwan (78%), yet specifically points to China (FXI)(how it dropped due to inflation fears, but those have diminished and might expect a rebound). It singles out China Mobile (CHL) as an example of a company which has dropped significantly (43%) of its share price, but has continued to grow revenue and margins.

Underlying this argument is that since many of the debt ratios of Asian countries in particular (in addition to some strong growth prospects), they won’t have the same credit problems internally as many developed markets will. In addition, with today’s heavy downswing, they might look like attractive options.

Well, hope you enjoy and look forward to writing more later.

Best,
Jonathan

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Hello all,

Last week, the Wall Street Journal produced an article entitled: “Brave New Stocks,” with the header: “Fund Firms broaden their horizons as India, Brazil, and China become yesterday’s news. The quest: markets that zig when the U.S. zags.”

The article describes, partly as a result of the highly correlated behavior of the emerging markets to the U.S in the recent financial turbulence, that investors who seek diversification need to be looking at frontier markets.

The argument is that if investors want to be truly diversified, frontier markets such as Peru, Oman, Qatar, and Vietnam, offer the most uncorrelated equities. In addition, the article describes that infrastructure spending will fuel extremely positive growth (despite recent turbulence) in the long term horizon (5, 10, 15 years).

I couldn’t agree more. I don’t think that investors need to have an extremely significant portion of their assets in frontier markets due to some of the risks positioned there. However, after looking at the Emerginvest heat map all week, I think the recent shock waves to the global markets sends a clear message that merely holding Chinese or Indian equities does not constitute a diversified portfolio.

The article puts particular emphasis on the Middle-Eastern and African Markets. It cites Nigeria and Qatar as some of the most promising prospects: “Mr. Upton [senior portfolio specialist for Morgan Stanley’s Frontier Emerging Markets Funds] says …Nigeria, for instance, has a population of 150 million, but just 10 million have bank accounts. ‘It’s like investing in Brazil or Poland 10 to 15 years ago.’” It brings up an astute point in that the main commodity staples of a region, aren’t necessarily what you hope to buy with a frontier fund:

“Ironically, investing along the frontier often bypasses the products for which these countries are known. For example, the best opportunities in the Persian Gulf aren’t in oil, Mr. Upton says. Oil is a commodity and the companies in that industry are mostly based outside of the Middle East; oil and energy-materials companies only account for 10% of Gulf states’ markets.

But oil money fills the Gulf states’ coffers. “Infrastructure spending is set for years to come,” Mr. Upton says. In addition to construction, other promising sectors in the region include telecommunications and financials.”

For these two regions, it highlights respective funds: Market Vectors Africa ETF (AFK) from Van Eck Associates, which has holds stakes in Egyptian telecom, Nigerian banks/breweries, and South African gold-mining, and Rowe Price Africa & Middle East Fund (TRAMX), which holds positions in Commercial Bank of Qatar, and the Dubai Financial Market.

It does note the illiquidity of some of these markets, and inherent political risks with most of the frontier, however it states that most investors need to be looking ahead to the 5, 10, and 15 year timeline, where most of the growth will come from.

Other vehicles to enter emerging markets outlined in the article are:

T Claymore/BNY Mellon Frontier Markets (frontier markets ETF introduced in June) (XFRNX)

and

PowerShares MENA Frontier Countries (invests mainly in Kuwait, and UAE) (PMNA)

Best,
Jonathan

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September 30, 2008 – MSCI Barra, the leading provider of worldwide market and financial indexes, announced they were creating a new “Frontier Emerging Markets” index. According to the statements released by the company, the decision was made in order to more effectively monitor the markets with relatively little correlation to developed markets. The countries selected are especially heavy with eastern European and African countries.

The countries included in the index are as follows:

Argentina
Morocco
Bahrain
Nigeria
Bulgaria
Oman
Colombia
Pakistan
Croatia
Peru
Egypt
Philippines
Estonia
Qatar
Jordan
Romania
Kazakhstan
Slovenia
Kenya
Tunisia
Kuwait
United Arab Emirates
Lebanon

The fact that the index was announced the day after one of the most turbulent global financial sessions in history with the veto of the US bailout bill (where many frontier markets remained relatively safe from the massive swings in developed markets) is only coincidence. However from Emerginvest’s perspective, it represents a shift in the growing demand of good, accurate information on frontier markets. The index, which has a heavy concentration of Eastern European and African countries, is finally giving those regions solid representation in respected indices. Many US investors are typically terrified of investing in places they aren’t familiar with, however as the last few days have shown, the relatively uncorrelated frontier markets have typically fared better than their developed counterparts.

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Hello all,

Few words can describe the global economic turmoil of Monday, September 29th. Even for those who have lived through a number of economic crises, the rejection of the US bailout and the international plummet of dozens of world exchanges can easily compete as one of the worst in recent history. An article entitled: “Global Markets Suffer worst day in 38 years” by Financialpost.com leads with a picture of two BOVESPA traders looking ashen as they watch the ticker boards, and cites how the market fell by 9.4% on Monday (it also cites Hong Kong’s Hang Seng dropping 4.3% and London’s FTSE falling 5.3%). Another grimly titled article: “Overview: Fear Grips Global Markets” at FT.com, cites the same widespread turmoil, only briefly mentioning the fact that the BOVESPA trading was suspended, a fact that would normally have made global headlines alone. In fact, looking at Emerginvest’s global heat map at the end of Monday, you were hard pressed to find any developed country in the green (Saudi Arabia was up approximately 6% which was the only one above 2.0%). Only a handful of emerging and frontier economies were positive, including Egypt and Uganda - up less than 1.0%, but up nonetheless.

Of course, with the Senate scheduling a vote on Wednesday for a revised version of the House-defeated bailout package, world markets soared once again on Tuesday. An article from Reuters: “Brazil stocks, currency rebound from historic rout” describes how the BOVESPA soared 7.63% with the news.

This kind of gargantuan pendulum swinging of world markets must get under control however. Aside from the worldwide impact on investors’ blood pressure, it is demonstrating how risky even major market economies like the US, Germany, and Japan are. I would also like to point out that while many investors hold the belief that the less developed an economy is, the more risky it is (frontier markets come to mind), many of the frontier markets had relatively small losses. According to Emerginvest, Argentina was only down 0.9%, Nigeria was down 0.5%, to name only two. If anything, this stresses to me the importance of diversification, as well as a horrific reminder that developed markets can be just as risky as emerging or frontier.

In summation, it seems like Brazil’s BOVESPA, and virtually all of the other major world economies hang in the balance with the US Senate vote tomorrow on the revised bailout plan. I won’t inject my own personal leanings on the matter, however it is clear that no matter what side of the argument you are on – it is certainly one of the most important financial decisions the world has seen in recent history.

See you on the other side,

Jonathan

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Hello all,

There was an exceedingly pertinent and interesting article in the Wall Street Journal which came out 13 days ago that I wanted to give Emerginvest’s take on: “Going Global: How Do You Get There from Here?” It was the headline/leading article of the personal investing section of the Wall Street Journal and is completely centered around foreign stock exposure and what role (and how much) international investments should play in a portfolio composition. I don’t think it’s possible for an article can be any more in line with Emerginvest’s focus…

It begins with a seemingly innocuous statement: (there is also a video)

“This month, Citigroup Inc. recommended investors put 55% of their stock portfolio in foreign stocks, in a series of new asset-allocation plans. That’s a big boost from 30% in its current plans. With this move, Citigroup joins a growing camp of experts who believe that investors’ portfolios should match the world’s stock-market weightings to get the best risk-adjusted returns over the long run.”

Even for someone who is as interested in international investing as I am, I was shocked that Citi recommends 55% of one’s portfolio to be overseas! Just last month, Mohammed El-Erian, co-CEO of PIMCO suggested in a Newsweek article entitled: “El-Erian: Buy More Foreign Stocks” that the typical US investor should consider “holding a third of your equities… in emerging markets.” At the time, that was a forceful statement to most retail investors, and Citi follows up by recommending over half. Jeffrey Applegate, Citi’s chief investment officer, defends the 55% foreign-stock portfolio allocation by citing that the fact that “The primary engines of growth have shifted away from the United States.”

I couldn’t agree more. It seems like such a simple concept: developing countries are racing to catch up with the developed world, inexorably producing more growth as a whole than the largely saturated markets in developed countries. One of my last posts dealt with a report from Morgan Stanley’s head researchers, concerning how many developing countries are going to be pouring billions of dollars over the next decade to improve their basic infrastructure (transportation, sanitation, etc.) and how that expenditure will fuel their continued growth over the next ten years. For me, it seems like a logical choice to put a sizable portion of one’s portfolio overseas and it looks like the Wall Street Journal agrees. The WSJ cites “Emerging-markets shares total 8.4% of the global index, roughly four times where they stood just four years ago,” and states “American stocks represented 66% of the world’s market value in 1970 and have been declining bumpily since then, primarily as a result of the growth in emerging markets…”

That being said, even I acknowledge the concerns about short-term turbulence in emerging markets. We have seen most emerging markets fall drastically in the last few months. Despite a large surge today, many major world indices are down sharply this quarter alone: Shanghai index in China is down 26.7%, Japan’s NIKKEI is down 16.5%, while others like India are only down 3.6%, according to Emerginvest.com. These sharp declines have helped give ammunition to opponents of the argument that emerging markets are mostly uncorrelated to the US and other developed markets. The article gives some fairly convincing evidence that emerging markets are no more volatile than developed, saying:

“As for the idea that a foreign portfolio is riskier than a domestic one, “the numbers don’t back that up over the long term,” says Christopher Davis, a fund analyst at Morningstar Inc. The standard deviation — in the mutual-fund world, a measure of how much a fund’s returns have bounced around its average return over time — of the total U.S. stock market was 15.4 for the past 10 years, compared with 15.5 for foreign stocks, including those of emerging markets.”

I’m sure that mutual funds heavily weighted their stock holdings with large-cap - and that small cap can still be volatile (as in any economy or market). However that is a far cry from the long held-belief by some US investors that emerging markets are heavily volatile, aren’t trustworthy, and that things like legal issues can rip apart investments. The evidence suggested by Christopher Davis from Morningstar above completely dissuades me that there is any more risk when investing in major foreign companies than when investing in major domestic companies (this past week with the U.S. investment bank crisis is proof enough of that). To hedge against the “small cap” issue I mentioned, the article cites an analyst who recommends: “’ Don’t try to figure out if the next big thing is Indian oil or cars or shoes,” he says. “Just buy the whole stock market of India.’” Sounds like reasonable advice to me, although I’m sure I’ll still put a small allocation into a few of my “undiscovered” international stock picks.

In short, I’m happy to see the Wall Street Journal acknowledging that value in international investments and hope to see many more of these articles in the future.

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Hello All,

I just wanted to write a quick follow up to the last post and reiterate how excited we are to have officially launched our website. It was an honor to meet so many startup gurus, and the amount of interest we have received has been incredible.

A few of the notable mentions of the press we have received has been:

•Henry Blodget (CEO, co-founder, and editor in Chief of Silicon Alley Insider) took the time to review our company in Silicon Alley Insider, and had very good things to say about us:

“excellent web-based research/information tool and very much needed.”

http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/9/live-techcrunch50-conference

•An Article from Xconomy mentioning both Emerginvest and the Updown, suggesting: “Is Boston a New Hub for Finance Investing Sites?”

http://www.xconomy.com/boston/2008/09/10/emerginvest-emerges-updown-raises-more-dough-geezeo-grows-is-boston-a-new-hub-for-finance-and-investing-sites/

•A review from Don Dodge (who was also on our panel) – Head of Microsoft’s Emerging Enterprise Division, and veteran of AltaVista, Forte Software, Napster, Bowstreet, and Groove Networks.

http://dondodge.typepad.com/the_next_big_thing/2008/09/investor-tools-and-services-companies-at-tc50.html

•A Highlight on Techcrunch (I love the last comment about Andrew – I’m not sure who wrote it, but I couldn’t agree more)

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/09/09/tc50-emerginvest-focuses-your-attention-overseas/

•One of our first interviews!

http://www.atelier-us.com/events-and-conferences/article/techcrunch-profiles-popego-personalria-and-emerginvest

•Front page of Mass High Tech:
http://www.masshightech.com/stories/2008/09/15/weekly4-Websites-offer-hangout-track-stocks.html

•A Major mention in Thrillist:
http://www.thrillist.com/archives/2008/09/emergeinvest_nyc_new_york_services.html

•A great post on StartupMeme
http://startupmeme.com/emerginvest-wants-to-be-a-financial-news-hub-about-the-emerging-markets/

All of this will be posted under the newly modified “Buzz” section – continually updating the coverage we are getting, as well as all the usual emerging markets and international market coverage we can find. It has truly been the most exciting week for our company and we look forward to posting more progress in the months to come.

Best,
Jonathan

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Hello,

We are incredibly excited and proud to officially launch Emerginvest at the Techcrunch 50 conference in San Francisco, California. Emerginvest was selected as one of the top 50 web startups in the world from a field of over 1,000 competing companies, hailing from 49 different countries. So far, we are even more proud to say that we seem to be one of only two companies from the Boston area.

Techcrunch is one of the premier web startup events of the year, bringing together hundreds of startups, venture capitalists, and 300+ members of the international press. The event is attended by some of the most influential VC’s and entrepreneurs the world has to offer, many of whom Emerginvest has had the pleasure to meet. The notable attendees include: Marc Andreessen, founder of Ning, Marc Benioff, chair and CEO of Salesforce.com, Mark Cuban, founder of Broadcast.com and owner of the Dallas Mavericks,  Chris DeWolf, co-founder and CEO of MySpace, and Chad Hurley, founder of YouTube. In addition, Ashton Kutcher launched his startup, Blah Girls, early this morning as one of the first presenters. He and his wife, Demi Moore were in attendance at a celebratory dinner the first evening of the event. These are only a few of the long list of notable attendees - rest of the complete list of attendees can be found here.

We are officially launching Emerginvest on-stage when we present tomorrow at the conference (10:30 am PST, 1:30 pm EST). The launch will be broad casted live, right here on our blog (or the TechCrunch website) then. We look forward to having you watch then!

Best.

The Emerginvest Team

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