Global Bargain Hunting

Zusatztext Mark Mobius author of The Investor's Guide to Emerging Markets Global Bargain Hunting is an excellent guide for emerging market investors. The authors' extensive knowledge of financial history and their ability to explain it vividly give readers useful insights into the risks and opportunities arising from current developments. Informationen zum Autor A Random Walk Down Wall Street Klappentext Completely updated to include late-breaking information on changing global markets, this book introduces readers to the most exciting money-making opportunity of the 21st century. 36 illustrations. Leseprobe Introduction to the Paperback Edition: Recent Crises Present Historic Opportunities In the first edition of Global Bargain Hunting, we wrote not only of the large, long-run growth opportunities in the stock markets of emerging countries, but also of the enormous risks involved. We indicated how political and currency instability could sour many investment opportunities and how lawlessness and corruption made many emerging markets a particularly dangerous jungle. Unfortunately, investors in early 1998 experienced only the risks of emerging-market investing -- not the rewards. While the first edition was published after the initial currency devaluation in Asian markets, we did not foresee the magnitude of the meltdown and severe recession in the Asian markets during the first half of 1998 or the spread of the virulent Asian flu to emerging markets in Latin American and Eastern Europe. Today we better understand the crisis that has gripped the developing world. Moreover, we can reassess whether the fundamental growth case for emerging markets remains intact. Our conclusion is unambiguous. The growth opportunities in emerging markets are perhaps as great as they were when we wrote the first edition, and the bargains appear to us to be better than ever. We are convinced that all investors with long-term horizons who are able to tolerate the volatility and risks so characteristic of these markets should hold a portion of their portfolios in emerging-market securities. Few analysts foresaw the dramatic collapse that toppled emerging markets in Asia in 1997. Looking back, we can now see that the Asian Tigers and Tiger Cubs who had pegged their currencies to the dollar were becoming less competitive as the dollar appreciated. But inflation was low, and government budgets were more or less in balance. What is now very clear is that private borrowing by banks and corporations was excessive. Moreover, borrowing was often short- rather than long-term and was usually done in dollars rather than in domestic currencies. Overexpansion in industries such as computer chips and excessive real estate speculation could have been absorbed had they been financed more prudently. But they proved toxic as the initial currency depreciations made dollar-denominated debt even more burdensome and currencies even more suspect. The resulting panic led to an investor stampede. The abrupt reversal of foreign investment helped push these economies into a deep recession in 1998. Complicating a resolution of the crisis and a quick recovery of the Asian economies was the continuing slump in Japan and considerable criticism of the role of the International Monetary Fund in bringing Asia back from a full-fledged collapse. Many investors concluded that the emerging Asian economies are nothing but a house of cards and that long-term investment in these markets is extremely unwise. Our view is that the Asian crisis and its spread to Latin American and Eastern European emerging markets have created an unprecedented buying opportunity. No one can forecast whether the June 1998 lows in the emerging stock markets will prove to be the bottom. But the biggest long-term gains from equity investing are likely to come when the clouds appear darkest. While critics are now quick to dismiss the A...

Product details

• Authors: B Malkiel, Burton G. Malkiel, Burton Gordon Malkiel, Mei, J. P. Mei, J.P. Mei
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster USA
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 26.07.1999
• EAN: 9780684848082
• ISBN: 978-0-684-84808-2
• Dimensions: 155 mm x 235 mm x 14 mm
• Subject: Social sciences, law, business > Business > Miscellaneous