Coutts Says Emerging-Market Crisis ’Talk’ as Wealthy Buy
Bloomberg: Coutts & Co., the wealth management unit of Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc (RBS), said it doesn’t see a crisis inemerging markets and the firm’s rich clients are taking advantage of recent declines to boost holdings.
“If you look at the balance of trade that our clients are doing, they’re buying,” Gary Dugan, the chief investment officer in Asia and the Middle East for Coutts, which counts Queen Elizabeth II among its clients, said in a interview yesterday in Dubai. “There’s been an appetite for Asia and for Russia after the sell-off. There’s no crisis, it’s just talk.”
Emerging-market assets have tumbled this year as China’s economy slowed, weak currencies from India to Turkey spurred central banks to raiseinterest rates and the U.S. Federal Reserve pushed ahead with plans to reduce monetary stimulus. Investors removed more than $12 billion from developing-nation equity funds in the two weeks to Feb. 5, the biggest outflow since January 2008, according to Morgan Stanley, citing data from EPFR Global.
The rout, which sent valuations on emerging-market stocks to the lowest level in more than five years versus advanced-nation shares, is dividing investors. Jim O’Neill, the former chairman of Goldman Sachs Asset Management who created the BRIC moniker for the largest emerging markets, said the losses are a buying opportunity. Mark Mobius, who oversees more than $50 billion as chairman of Templeton Emerging Markets Group, said last week his firm is holding off from buying as it expects the sell-off to continue.
Stocks Rally
The MSCI Emerging Markets Index dropped to 11 times reported earnings at the end of last week, a 40 percent discount versus the MSCI World Index, the widest gap since October 2008, data compiled by Bloomberg show.
The emerging-market measure has rallied for three straight days, climbing 2.5 percent from a five-month low on Feb. 5. It rose 0.2 percent at 3:42 p.m. in Hong Kong. A Bloomberg index tracking 20 emerging-market currencies advanced 0.7 percent last week and was little changed today.
“People have tried to say it’s a repeat of 1994 or 1998,” Dugan said, referring to previous emerging-market crises. “No, it’s not. This is not an emerging world that’s got huge debt with the rest of the world and in fact some of the currency adjustments have already improved the situation.”
India’s current-account deficit will narrow to below $50 billion in the year ending March 31 from a record $88 billion in the previous 12 months, Finance Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram said Jan. 30. Indonesia’s shortfall was probably below 2 percent of gross domestic product last quarter, from 3.8 percent in the previous period, central bank Governor Agus Martowardojo said last week.
Among the BRIC countries of Brazil, Russia, India and China, Dugan said the latter two are the most attractive. He also favors Taiwan, South Korea and Indonesia, while avoiding Latin America, South Africa and Turkey.
reporter on this story: Dale Crofts in Dubai