Facebook Taps Emerging Markets With Stripped Down App

Facebook has quietly launched a stripped-down version of its mobile app, aimed at emerging market users with low-end mobile devices.  The social media giant confirmed to CNBC on Monday that "Facebook Lite" was an official app. It is available in eight countries: Bangladesh, Vietnam, Nigeria, Nepal, South Africa, Sudan, Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe.

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Emerging Market Stocks Rise as Energy Producers, Banks Lead Gain

Emerging-market stocks headed for the biggest four-day gain in 15 months, led by energy and financial companies, as investors bet oil prices are stabilizing and China will step up measures to support economic growth. Russia’s ruble rose for a second day.  VTB Bank jumped to the highest price since July 2012 in Moscow after saying it’s financing a $283 million copper-mill project in Armenia. Shares in Dubai and Nigeria rose for a third day. Cnooc Ltd. and PetroChina Co. climbed more than 4 percent, while Bank of China Ltd. led mainland shares traded in Hong Kong to the largest gain in two weeks. The ruble gained 6.9 percent versus the dollar.

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Mark Mobius Says Buy Russia and Nigeria

Mark Mobius is a superbull. In fact, he’s confident that the global markets are facing a five-year bull environment, as massive liquidity injections from central banks will start to do the trick.  And then things will start to happen: Emerging markets will outperform. Nigeria will attract lots of attention. Even Zimbabwe is looking like an interesting investing opportunity.  “The U.S. outperformed emerging markets last year, [and] now emerging markets are coming back and outperforming,” Mobius, executive chairman of Templeton Emerging Markets Group, said in an interview with MarketWatch on the sidelines of this year’s FundForum International in Monaco.

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Investors Rewarded for Trek Into Little Known Markets

Investors who ventured into frontier markets—the smaller, lesser-known cousins of emerging markets—have been rewarded with impressive equity returns over the past 18 months.  While the MSCI Emerging Markets Index has been essentially flat since the start of 2013, the MSCI Frontier Markets Index has shot up by more than 50%. Developed markets grew strongly too, but the 32% surge in the MSCI World Index was still dwarfed by frontier markets’ growth.  Individual countries have posted some significant returns, too. Since the start of 2013, Bulgaria’s market has soared 91%, Pakistan’s has jumped 88%, and Nigeria’s has risen 47%. 

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-Igor P Purlantov

Emerging, But No Longer A Mother Lode

When it comes to investing in emerging markets, few companies have been as gung-ho as Diageo, the British maker of the Guinness, Johnnie Walker and Smirnoff brands. But now that troubles are cropping up in many such countries around the world, Diageo has turned from cheerleader to excuse-monger.Government crackdowns on high-end drinking in China. Inflation and currency worries in Argentina and Venezuela. Political turmoil in Thailand; saturated beer markets in Nigeria; a religious backlash in Turkey. These and other adversities were cited by company officials this year when Diageo announced disappointing profits.

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Emerging Market Storm Boon for Euro Zone

A reversal in fortunes between southern Europe and once-booming developing economies has triggered a substantial allocation shift by global funds out of emerging assets and into the euro markets they fled two years ago.  Escalating violence in Ukraine and the suspension of Nigeria's central bank governor hit emerging market assets on Thursday, even as Spain, once seen as the focus of the euro zone debt crisis, saw its long-term borrowing costs tumble to their lowest since 2008.

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Selling More Instant Noodles In Emerging Markets

A boy runs inside an exhibit made to look like a giant up-turned cup noodle pot at the opening of a cup noodle museum in Yokohama, suburban Tokyo, on Sept.17, 2011. After Japan’s traditional cuisine, “washoku,” was recognized by Unesco as an “intangible cultural heritage” earlier this month, some of the nation’s food makers announced plans to fill the bellies of the developing world with something perhaps more tangible.  Earlier this week, Toyo Suisan Kaisha Ltd. and Ajinomoto Co. said they would set up joint ventures in India and Nigeria, the world’s 5th and 12th biggest markets for instant noodles, respectively. 

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