This post is part of a special annual report -- Top Stock Picks '09 -- in which TheStockAdvisors.com asked 75 leading newsletter advisors to select their favorite investment for the new year.
"If emerging markets at 6-8 times earnings are not cheap I don't know what is," says Carl Delfeld of Chartwell Advisors, who eyes WisdomTree Emerging Market Small Cap (NYSE: DGS) as a top pick for 2009.
"Using the best historic measures, normalized earnings, book value, and free cash flow, stocks around the world are very cheap (although not as cheap in absolute terms or versus interest rates as they were in the 1930s or at the 1974 bottom).
"Nevertheless, the 4% dividend return on the S&P 500 exceeds the yield on the ten and thirty year Treasury bonds for the first time in fifty years. If emerging market equities, where the growth is, at six to eight times earnings are not cheap I don't know what is.
"Our reasons for this selection:
1) Relative to emerging-markets large caps, this fund has far less exposure to commodities producers or telecoms while concentrating instead in local consumer and business services, which should hold up relatively well as growth in emerging economies slows.
2) DGS also has far smaller exposure to the potentially weak and top-heavy Chinese, Mexican, Russian, and India markets than its rival large-cap funds.
3) The companies in the WisdomTree Emerging Small Cap basket are collectively also trading at a P/E ratio of only 7 and a surprising low price/cash flow ratio of 4.7.
"As a catalyst, we note that investors are realizing that smaller emerging market companies are more attractively priced and somewhat more insulated from the turmoil in global markets than the large cap emerging market companies."
Steven Halpern's TheStockAdvisors.com offers a daily look at the latest market commentary and favorite stock picks and investment ideas from the nation's leading financial newsletter advisors.
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