La Vita è Bella Life is Beautiful. La Vita es Bonita. 美麗人生　

242愛的鼓勵 7訂閱站台

全世界經濟成長的動力幾乎倚賴美國－一個富有的資本主義社會又有廣大人口的單一市場，又是最多新科技、創意、商業模式、生產力提升的發源地。一方面這是不容爭辯的事實，一方面也令我們這種亞洲開發中國家的人民頗不服氣。

美國經濟的成長有很大的部份是來自消費，而消費幾乎都是來自信用擴張。大部分美國人有車有房，但是幾乎全倚賴貸款，很低的頭款或幾乎不需要頭款就可以買汽車，買房子，這也正是這美國二房危機的經濟背景。這也是為什麼失業的問題在美國對整個社會的影響似乎比在台灣還要嚴重，因為一但失業，就表示房貸和車貸都繳不出來了。因為美國經濟的成長倚賴消費，所以美國成為一個過度消費的國家，整個社會以亞洲人的眼光來看，是真的太浪費了！

中國、日本和台灣都有大量的對美貿易順差，同時擁有大量的美國宮政府公債。美國項亞洲國家借錢來消費或置產，亞洲國家供應物美價廉的產品，美國付錢購買後，又立刻把付給亞洲國家的錢借走。當美國需要償債時，很可能還透過操弄匯率，要亞洲國家付他利息呢！

而人口眾多的新興國家如中國、印度與巴西，還有許多的人口無法享有西方世界認為基本現代化生活所需的物質需求。光是滿足這種需求，就足以維持高經濟成長。所以未來世界的經濟成長將不在是腳踏車理論可以說明的了(美國的消費是腳踏車的前輪，中國的製造是後輪，而歐、美、日的技術、設備、關鍵零組件的供應是踏板與齒盤)。中國、印度與巴西的需求也是世界經濟成長的動能。

許多基金去年都在中國賺了大錢，獲利動輒70%以上，所以不僅僅是基金經理人看準興新市場，許多手邊有點錢的人也急切得要投資新興市場。


How to Gauge the Rush to Emerging Markets 
     
By TIM GRAY       
Published: January 9, 2010       

IN 2009, emerging markets flew higher than a frigate bird, with the MSCI Emerging Markets Index returning 74.5 percent. Latin America, the top performer among MSCI’s developing-market indexes, returned nearly 98 percent.  

       
As investors scurried to cash in, emerging-market mutual funds swelled, attracting more than $80 billion in new money, according to EPFR Global, a tracker of market data in Cambridge, Mass. That was the highest annual inflow since EPFR began keeping track, beating the previous record by more than $25 billion.       

       
Those kinds of numbers, at a time when economies in the United States, Europe and Japan are ailing, have raised the possibility that emerging markets are surging toward an investment bubble.       
       
“A lot of the emerging markets have bounced back strongly from last fall and now look a little on the expensive side,” said John R. Chisholm, co-manager of the Acadian Emerging Markets fund. Mr. Chisholm’s fund, which invests throughout the developing world, had a total return of 77 percent last year.       
       


Emerging-market stocks have long been among the most volatile investments, zigzagging more, on average, than developed-market shares. In 2008, when the Standard & Poor’s 500 index dropped 38.5 percent, the MSCI Emerging Markets Index fell 54 percent.       
       
Returns in developing markets have regularly been sapped by crises, like the Mexican peso devaluation in 1994 and the Asian financial flu in 1997. The announcement in November that Dubai would delay repayment of some of its debts raised the possibility of yet another round of woe.       
       
Because of the possibility of future blow-ups like these, advisers have long said that average investors should put only a small portion of their assets, if any, into emerging markets. Yet some investment professionals have begun to question whether today’s developing world is really as risky as its reputation — and to suggest that less sophisticated investors might consider putting more of their money there.       
        Jim O’Neill, head of global economic research at Goldman Sachs, is among the best-known proponents of that view. In 2001, Mr. O’Neill coined the acronym “BRIC” as shorthand for the four largest economies in the developing world: Brazil, Russia, India and China. He argues that these countries, with hefty populations and solid economic fundamentals, should outpace the developed world over the next several decades.       

       
“Because of the financial crisis, some people started to believe the BRIC thing was finished,” Mr. O’Neill said. “I’d argue that three of the four — especially China, but also Brazil and India — have demonstrated that they can live without U.S. growth leadership.”       
       
Those three have resumed strong growth, despite the struggles in the developed world. Russia has lagged because of dependence on oil and gas, whose prices fell sharply with the recession. “It’s easy to dismiss Russia after oil prices lost 75 percent of their value in six months,” Mr. O’Neill said. “Let’s see later this year how they’re doing.”       
       
The overall recent performance of emerging markets has led Jeremy J. Siegel, a finance professor at the Wharton School of University of Pennsylvania, to conclude that they may be a better deal today than just a few years ago. “They’ve weathered a severe shock very well,” he said. Thus, investors aren’t foolish to buy the shares, even after the recent rapid price rise, he said.       
       
The average price-to-earnings multiple for Chinese listings, for example, was in the low 20s in late 2009 and was projected to be 18 or 19 this year, he said. “That’s not cheap, but it’s not crazy for a rapidly growing country,” he said. “It’s not the 50 of 2007, when I was saying don’t go in there.”       
       
Edmund J. Harriss, investment director at Guinness Atkinson in London, pointed to car sales as a harbinger of prospects for China and other big emerging markets. He said China would probably report 12 million sales for 2009, beating the United States by two million. “The size of the emerging economies is reaching a stage where they can sustain big growth in personal consumption,” he said. “If you get that, you should be looking to invest. That’s what drove America from the 1950s onward.”       
       
Mr. Harriss oversees three Guinness Atkinson funds. The largest, the China & Hong Kong fund, had a total return of 92 percent last year. Among its biggest holdings at midyear were China Mobile, a telecom, and the China National Offshore Oil Corporation.       
       
Even proponents caution that emerging markets, despite their promise, remain risky. If a big crisis arises — perhaps widespread political unrest in China — it could sow broader panic, with investors fleeing as fast as they piled in. “Be aware that you can easily lose half of your investment in a few months,” said Mr. Chisholm of Acadian.       
       
Risk is the reason that Towers Perrin, the employee-benefits consultant, often steers retirement plan managers away from including emerging-markets funds in 401(k) plans, said Darrell S. Zechman, a consultant in its Chicago office.       
       
Many Americans don’t understand that investments in markets outside the United States entail currency and political risk along with the usual stock-market zigzags, he said. Such investors may also time investments poorly. “Traditionally, this is an asset class where people chase returns — they read in the news about a huge run-up and dump a lot of money in just before the market turns,” he said. “They get in at the peak and ride down to the trough.”       

       
Towers Perrin typically suggests that retirement plans offer broad-based international funds, which can invest in any market outside the United States but keep most of their money in developed ones, Mr. Zechman said.       
       
INVESTORS considering emerging markets might also want to ponder bird dung. Both bird droppings — specifically, guano deposited on Peruvian islands — and financial assets have produced speculative frenzies, said Kenneth S. Rogoff, an economics professor at Harvard and an author of a recent book on financial crises.       
       
In the 1800s, foreigners became enchanted with guano’s promise as a fertilizer and scooped up Peruvian bonds, Professor Rogoff said. Soon enough, the boom went bust, and Peru defaulted on its debt, wiping out the investors.       
       
“It’s comical from a 21st-century perspective,” he said. “But guano was a huge technological advance for farming at the time.”       

A version of this article appeared in print on January 10, 2010, on page BU14 of the New York edition.   

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/10/business/mutfund/10global.html?ref=world

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The story was taken from The New York Times.  The author of the story and The New York Times are not involved with, nor endorse the production of this blog.