Investors in emerging market economies have done badly in recent years, according to Russell Taylor.
In this month’s Investment Spotlight, Mr Taylor says the world has become more equal and richer and ordinary people can now envisage a life for themselves far from the misery of bare subsidence.
Reasons for this include investment enthusiasm for the new is always “overdone” and there Is no correlation between gross domestic product (GDP) growth and stock market performance. He says investors need to concentrate on basic markets rather than on economies as a whole, and not on hard commodities that are necessary to industrialisation like metals, but on soft ones such as food grains or water.
Mr Taylor says the real opportunity is not in the over-developed food market of the developed world, but the food sales in the developing countries. “Only 40m of Indonesia’s 240m people can afford a Topbar, a tiny chocolate confection selling for the equivalent of US$0.05. Yet the local manufacturer is convinced its market will more than double in size in the next few years.”
For more on investing in the developing world, including a look at one particular fund, read the full article here.
