Is Egypt at risk from trade protectionism, rising interest rates?
BloombergView’s A. Gary Shilling is the latest to write an obit for emerging markets, and he sees Egypt at risk. Countries without foreign currency reserves are less likely to weather the coming global storm of trade protectionism and higher interest rates, becoming losers in the pullback from EM equities, Shilling writes. “The losers are those emerging markets without that crucial buffer — Brazil, India, South Africa, Argentina, Egypt, Indonesia, Mexico and Turkey. They have current-account deficits, so are importing capital to fill the gaps and have to take stringent measures as foreign money flees. Their foreign-exchange reserves tend to be slim, about half the size of those of the first group in relation to gross domestic product.” The winners, he suggests: the Philippines, South Korea, Malaysia, Taiwan, China and Poland. (Read)
A ray of sunshine: EM stocks ended their second-worst month this year by paring their losses, BloombergMarkets reports. Saying that the worst of the sell-off is over, Charlemagne Capital’s Julian Mayo says, “Emerging markets should do reasonably well next year. The asset class is still under-owned as most people are positioned negatively or completely out of it. Valuations are looking reasonable and earnings growth is slowly beginning to recover.”