Continue reading Talking Turkey: An Emerging Markets ETF

Talking Turkey: An Emerging Markets ETF originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Fri, 26 Mar 2010 13:50:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

"Our latest pick combines two highly profitable asset classes, small caps and emerging markets," says Nicholas Vardy. In The Global Bull Market Alert, he an emerging markets ETF.

"The SPDR S&P Emerging Markets Small Cap ETF (NYSE: EWX) offers you access to small caps in emerging markets that otherwise would be off limits.

"While some of the larger emerging market stocks trade in the United States, these smaller players never will.

"In addition, it's well known that U.S. small caps tend to outperform large caps over the long run. Their small size makes them nimble and quicker to react to changing market conditions.

Continue reading Vardy's view: Bet on emerging markets small caps

Vardy's view: Bet on emerging markets small caps originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Mon, 24 Aug 2009 14:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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.

International investing expert Nicholas Vardy looks to the iShares MSCI Emerging Markets Index (AMEX: EEM) as his favorite investment idea for 2009.

In his Global Stock Investor, he explains, "The exchange-traded fund is a bet that the initiatives of policy makers across the globe will be sufficient to trigger a sustained bounce in emerging markets stocks between now and the end of 2009.

"The policy responses to the global economic crisis have been both massive and coordinated. The European Central Bank has entered into foreign currency swaps with Iceland and Switzerland, even though they are outside the eurozone.

"The European Union joined forces with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank to provide loan facilities totaling $25 billion to Hungary.

"Recently, the U.S. Federal Reserve opened swap lines of $30 billion each to Brazil, Mexico, South Korea, and Singapore. All of these efforts combined will ease the shortage of dollars that has ravaged emerging markets.

Continue reading Top Stock Picks '09: iShares Emerging Markets (EEM)

Top Stock Picks '09: iShares Emerging Markets (EEM) originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Sun, 04 Jan 2009 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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.

Continue reading Top Stock Picks '09: WisdomTree Emerging Market Small Cap (DGS)

Top Stock Picks '09: WisdomTree Emerging Market Small Cap (DGS) originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Sat, 03 Jan 2009 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

For 25 years, Steven Halpern, editor of TheStockAdvisors.com, has surveyed the leading financial newsletter advisors asking for their favorite stocks for the coming year. This article is one of 100+ ideas in the Best Stocks for 2008 report.

"My favorite conservative idea for 2008 is Templeton Emerging Markets Fund (NYSE: EMF), a closed-end fund that holds the vast majority of its stocks in emerging market economies," says Carla Pasternak, editor of High Yield Investing.

"About a third of its stock holdings are in Brazil and China, two of the countries popularly known as the 'BRIC' economies (the other two are Russia and India). Led by one of the legends of emerging market investing,
Mark Mobius, EMF also goes off the beaten track to find stocks in Turkey, South Korea and Thailand.

"About a third of the portfolio stocks are in the energy sector, with another 20% in the industrials materials group such as iron ore. With energy prices and industrial commodities soaring this past year, EMF has been in the right
place at the right time.

"The same can be said of the entire emerging market sector. And since the world stock market bottom in mid-August, emerging market funds have been hot, hot, hot. These funds attracted $23 billion in capital in all of 2006, but since the last week of August have drawn more than $24 billion.

"Short term, the sage advice of Peter Lynch may ring in your ears -- Beware the hottest stock in the hottest sector.
Still, EMF shares haven't kept up with the asset growth of the fund's portfolio holdings, and the fund is trading today at an attractive discount of 10% to its net worth.

"In other words, you can scoop up a dollar's worth of stock for just 90 cents. Long-term investors willing to withstand a possible short-term pullback in the fund may want to invest at this time."

Best Stocks for 2008: Income expert votes for Templeton Emerging (EMF) originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Sat, 22 Dec 2007 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.