Europe Has Different Attitude About Coal From Emerging Markets Like China

Companies, banks, and investment funds, primarily European, have been coming out in recent weeks with announcements they will halt investments in coal, a new front in efforts to reduce use of the highly polluting fuel that faces a battle against the hunger for power in emerging markets.  The latest move came Friday, when Norway's parliament voted to force its sovereign wealth fund — the world's biggest — to pull out of firms that are heavily involved with coal.  Earlier in the week, French energy-group Total announced it would withdraw from its coal activities, notably in South Africa where it is involved in the production and sale of the fuel that is important for electricity in numerous countries around the world.

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A Concentrated Bet on Emerging Markets

Fund managers who invest in emerging markets have thousands of stocks to choose from, in more than 20 countries across Europe, Asia, Africa and Central and South America. But some of the largest emerging-market funds hold 100 stocks or fewer.  Among them: the $14.5 billion Lazard Emerging Markets Equity fund, which recently held 78 stocks; the $11 billion Virtus Emerging Markets Opportunities fund, with 74 stocks; and the $10 billion Aberdeen Emerging Markets fund, with 64.

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Samsung’s Smartphones Could Have Potential In Emerging Markets

Samsung’s Tizen mobile platform is all too easy to write off as a failure. The product, which is a Samsung-owned rival to Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS operating systems, was delayed for more than a year. Even when the first Tizen-powered device finally emerged this January, it was a pretty underwhelming $92 smartphone for India and other emerging markets.  Added to that, Samsung had earlier extended the platform to cover smart TVs, a move that some took to mean that the platform wouldn’t have a major role in its mobile division.

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Cornell Professor Wants You To Get Over The 'BRICs'

Andrew Karolyi, a finance professor at Cornell University and an expert in investment management, wants to get over the idea of the BRICS.  He says that isolating countries into rich/poor categories with cute acronyms is unhealthy – not only for those countries, but also for investors who might overlook great opportunities based on a name.

http://tinyurl.com/l4qgotm

Best Emerging Market Countries To Invest In Now

Credit Suisse upgraded its outlook on emerging markets and recommended investors overweight India, South Korea and Taiwan in a mammoth 92-page “Global Equity Strategy” report released Wednesday. The largest exchange traded funds on the stock market providing exposure to the stock markets in these countries are iShares MSCI India (INDA), iShares MSCI South Korea Capped (EWY), iShares MSCI Taiwan (EWT).

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Emerging Markets Rally, for Now

At the start of the year, the accepted strategy for investing in emerging markets could be summed up in one word—don’t.  But developing-country stocks have surged nearly 13% in the past eight weeks, largely because the demon that was stalking them, the arrival of higher U.S. interest rates, has likely been pushed back. Currencies and bonds have also rallied, giving some countries and businesses a much-needed chance to clean up their books to prepare for higher rates.  The reprieve is temporary.

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Emerging Markets Are Hot

After a horrid collapse late last year, emerging market stocks have come roaring back in 2015.  Not without considerable basebuilding, however.  Several emerging market exchange-traded funds spent the last six months churning in head-and-shoulder bottom formations. The chart for the low-cost leader, the Schwab Emerging Markets Equity ETF (NYSE Arca: SCHE) is typical. 

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Emerging Market Central Banks: Doves Into Hawks

Investors see emerging market central bankers as doves. But they are likely to turn hawkish.

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Some Emerging Markets More Promising Than Others

Buy low, sell high. This is the only secret investors need to know. But the big problem right now is trying to get a handle on which assets are actually going cheap.  Major western indices have been hitting new records, with even the FTSE 100 coming to the party, despite its heavy weighting to the slumping energy and mining sectors. But worries about “secular stagnation” have clouded the outlook – and investors have been corralled by fear into similar asset classes. Finding investments that are cheap and under-owned is becoming increasingly difficult.

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Russia Leads Emerging Markets Higher

Stocks in developing economies were a pretty good place to be in the first quarter.  The MSCI Emerging Markets Index rose 1.9%–reflecting price returns converted to dollars–in the first quarter, while the Standard & Poor’s 500 index was up 0.4%.  The devil was in the details. Latin America, off 10%, was down for the count in the latest quarter. Eastern Europe was a surprise winner, with a gain of 11%, powered by Russian and Hungarian equities. Asia showed strength, too (up 5%), though for all the hype about India’s gross-domestic-product growth surpassing that of China, the latter’s stocks shone brighter in the latest quarter.

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