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India is Catching Up With China

When I first visited Calcutta in 1976, more than 800,000 people were sleeping on the sidewalks.

I was hauled everywhere by a very lean, barefoot rickshaw driver, and drinking the water out of a tap was tantamount to committing suicide.

Aggressive population control measures where underway, and strict quotas were in force. Everyone was taking their grandmother in to get sterilized.

Some 38 years later, and the subcontinent is poised to overtake China's white hot growth rate.
My friends at the International Monetary Fund just put out a report predicting that India will grow by 8.5% this year. While the country's total GDP is only a quarter of China's $6 trillion, its growth could exceed that in the Middle Kingdom as early as 2018.

Many hedge funds believe that India will be the top growing major emerging market for the next 25 years, and are positioning themselves accordingly.
India certainly has a lot of catching up to do. According to the World Bank, its per capita income is $3,275, compared to $6,800 in China and $46,400 in the US. This is with the two populations close in size, at 1.3 billion for China and 1.2 billion for India.
But India has a number of advantages that China lacks. To paraphrase hockey great, Wayne Gretzky, you want to aim not where the puck is, but where it's going to be.

The massive infrastructure projects that have powered much of Chinese growth for the past three decades, such as the Three Gorges Dam, are missing in India. But financing and construction for huge transportation, power generation, water, and pollution control projects are underway.
A large network of private schools is boosting education levels, enabling the country to capitalize on its English language advantage.

When planning the expansion of my own business, I was presented with the choice of hiring a website designer here for $60,000 a year, or in India for $5,000.

That's why booking a ticket on United Airlines or calling technical support at Dell Computer gets you someone in Bangalore.
India is also a huge winner on the demographic front, with one of the lowest ratios of social service demanding retirees in the world.

Even though it has recently been terminated, China's 30-year-old ???one child??? policy is going to drive it into a wall in ten years, when the number of retirees starts to outnumber their children.
There is one more issue out there that few are talking about. The reform of the Chinese electoral process at the People's Congress in 2013 could lead to posturing and political instability, which the markets could find unsettling.

India is the world's largest democracy, and much of its current prosperity can be traced to wide ranging deregulation and modernization than took place 20 years ago.
I have been a big fan of India for a long time, and not just because they constantly help me fix my computers, make my travel reservations, and tell me how to work my new altimeter watch.

In August, I recommended Tata Motors (TTM), and it has gone up in a straight line since, instantly making it one of my top picks of the year. On the next decent dip take a look at the Indian ETF's (INP), (PIN), and (EPI).

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Better to Own This Pyramid

Than This Pyramid

The Cost of an Aging World

Diary, Newsletter, Research

Regular readers of this letter are well aware of my fascination with demographics as a market driver.

They go a long way towards explaining if asset prices are facing a long-term structural headwind or tailwind.

The great thing about the data is that you can get precise, high quality numbers 20, or even 50 years in advance. No matter how hard governments may try, you can?t change the number of people born 20 years ago.

Ignore them at your peril. Those who failed to anticipate the coming retirement of the baby boomer generation in 2006 all found themselves horribly long and wrong in the market crash that followed shortly.

The Moody?s rating agency (MCO) has published a report predicting that the number of ?super aged? countries, those with more than 7% of their population over the age of 65, will increase from three to 13 by 2020, and 34 in 2030.

Currently, only Japan (26.4%) (EWJ), Italy (21.7%) (EWI), and Germany (EWG) are so burdened with that number of old age pensioners. France (EWQ) (18.7%), Switzerland (EWL) (18.2%), and the UK (EWU) (18.1%) are about to join the club.

The implication is that the global demographic dividend the world has enjoyed over the last 40 years is about to turn into a tax, a big one. The consequence will be lower long-term growth, possibly by 0.5%-1.0% less than we are seeing today.

This is what the bond market may already be telling us with its unimaginably subterranean rates for its long term bonds (Japan at -0.13%! Germany at 0.14%! The US at 1.75%!).

Traveling around Europe last summer, I was struck by the number of retirees I ran into. It certainly has taken the bloom off those topless beaches (I once saw one great grandmother with a walker on the beach in Barcelona).

For the list of new entrants to the super aged club, see the table below.

This is all a big deal for long-term investors.

Countries with inverted population pyramids have lots of seniors saving money, spending very little, and drawing hugely on social services.

For example, in China, the number of working age adults per senior plunges from 6 in 2020, to 4.2 in 2030, to only 2.6 by 2050!

Financial assets do very poorly in such a hostile environment. Your money doesn?t want to be anywhere near a country where diaper sales to seniors exceed those to newborns.

You want to bet your money on countries with positive demographic pyramids. They have lots of young people who are eager to work and to spend on growing families, drawing on social services little, if at all.

Fewer seniors to support keeps tax and savings rates low. This is all great for business, and therefore, risk assets.

Be careful not to rely solely on demographics when making your investment decisions. If you did that, you would have sold all your American stocks in 2006, had two great years, but then missed the tripling in markets that followed.

According to my friend, noted demographer Harry S. Dent, Jr., the US will not see a demographic tailwind until 2022.

When building a secure retirement home for yourself, you need to use all the tools in your toolbox, and not rely just on one.

A demographic headwind does not permanently doom a country to investment perdition.

The US is a prime example, where a large number of women joining the labor force, high levels of immigration, later retirement ages, and lower social service payouts all help mitigate a demographic drag.

A hyper accelerating rate of technological innovation also provides a huge cushion.

You Want to Invest in This Pyramid?

...Not This One

The Game Changer in India

Diary, Newsletter

So far in 2015 the Indian stock market has handily beaten that of the US, by 10.6% compared to 5.3%.

?The India election result is the biggest development to affect emerging markets over the last 30 years.? That is what retired chairman of Goldman Sachs Asset Management and originator of the ?BRIC? term, Jim O?Neal, told me last week.

Indeed, the stunning news has sent long term country specialists scampering. In my long term strategy lectures I have been titillating listeners for years with predictions that India was about to become the next China.

With half the per capita income of the Middle Kingdom, India was lacking the infrastructure needed to compete in the global marketplace. All that was needed was the trigger.

This is the trigger.

With a new party taking control of the government for the first time in 50 years, the way is now clear to carry out desperately needed sweeping political and economic reforms. At the top of the list is a clean sweep of corruption, long endemic to the subcontinent. I once spent four months traveling around India on the Indian railway system, and the demand for ?bakshish? was ever present.

A reviving and reborn India has massive implications for the global economy, which could see growth accelerate as much at 0.50% a year for the next 30 years. This will be great news for stocks everywhere. It will help offset flagging demand for commodities from China, like coal (KOL), iron ore (BHP), and the base metals (CU).

Demand for oil (USO) grows, as energy starved India is one of the world?s largest importers.

A strengthening Rupee, higher standards of living, and relaxed import duties should give a much needed boost for gold (GLD). India has always been the world?s largest buyer.

The world?s largest democracy certainly delivers the most unusual of elections, a blend of practices from today?.and a thousand years ago. It was carried out over five weeks, and a stunning 541 million voted, out of an eligible 815 million, a turnout of 66.4%. That is far higher than elections seen here in the United States.

Of the 552 members in the Lok Sabha, the lower house (or their House of Representatives), a specific number of seats are reserved for scheduled castes, scheduled tribes, and women. Gee, I wonder which one of these I would fit in?

Important issues during the campaign included rising prices, the economy, security, and infrastructure such as roads, electricity and water. About 14% of voters cited corruption as the main issue.

Some 12 political parties ran candidates. The winner was Hindu Nationalist Narendra Modi of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), who led a diverse collection of lesser parties to take an overwhelming majority. For more details on this fascinating election, please click here at http://www.ndtv.com/elections.

It is still early days for the Bombay stock market, which has already rocketed by a stunning 20% since the election results became obvious last week.

This could be the beginning of a ten-bagger move over coming decades. Managers are hurriedly pawing through stacks of research on the subcontinent they have been ignoring for the past four years, the last time emerging markets peaked.

In the meantime, the action has spilled over into other emerging markets (EEM), their currencies (CEW), and their bonds (ELD), which have all punched through to new highs for the year.

I?ll be knocking out research o specific names when I find them. Until then, use any dip to pick up the Indian ETF?s (INP), (PIN), and (EPI).

India is Catching Up With China

Diary, Newsletter

When I first visited Calcutta in 1976, more than 800,000 people were sleeping on the sidewalks, I was hauled everywhere by a very lean, barefoot rickshaw driver, and drinking the water out of a tap was tantamount to committing suicide.

Some 36 years later, and the subcontinent is poised to overtake China's white hot growth rate.

My friends at the International Monetary Fund just put out a report predicting that India will grow by 8.5% this year. While the country's total GDP is only a quarter of China's $5 trillion, its growth could exceed that in the Middle Kingdom as early as 2013. Many hedge funds believe that India will be the top growing major emerging market for the next 25 years, and are positioning themselves accordingly.

India certainly has a lot of catching up to do. According to the World Bank, its per capita income is $3,275, compared to $6,800 in China and $46,400 in the US. This is with the two populations close in size, at 1.3 billion for China and 1.2 billion for India.

But India has a number of advantages that China lacks. To paraphrase hockey great, Wayne Gretzky, you want to aim not where the puck is, but where it's going to be. The massive infrastructure projects that have powered much of Chinese growth for the past three decades, such as the Three Gorges Dam, are missing in India. But financing and construction for huge transportation, power generation, water, and pollution control projects are underway.

A large network of private schools is boosting education levels, enabling the country to capitalize on its English language advantage. When planning the expansion of my own business, I was presented with the choice of hiring a website designer here for $60,000 a year, or in India for $5,000. That's why booking a ticket on United Airlines or calling technical support at Dell Computer gets you someone in Bangalore.

India is also a huge winner on the demographic front, with one of the lowest ratios of social service demanding retirees in the world. China's 30-year-old 'one child' policy is going to drive it into a wall in ten years, when the number of retirees starts to outnumber their children.

There is one more issue out there that few are talking about. The reform of the Chinese electoral process at the People's Congress in 2013 could lead to posturing and political instability, which the markets could find unsettling. India is the world's largest democracy, and much of its current prosperity can be traced to wide ranging deregulation and modernization that took place 20 years ago.

I have been a big fan of India for a long time, and not just because they constantly help me fix my computers, make my travel reservations, and tell me how to work my new altimeter watch. In August, I recommended Tata Motors (TTM), and it has gone up in a straight line since, instantly making it one of my top picks of the year. On the next decent dip take a look at the Indian ETF's (INP), (PIN), and (EPI).

Better to Own This Pyramid

Than This Pyramid

Taxi! Taxi!

The Emerging ?BUY? on Emerging Markets

Newsletter

No asset class has been beaten more severely this year than emerging markets. Since the March, 2011 high, the iShares MSCI Emerging Market ETF (EEM) has plunged from $48 to $35.80, a loss of 25%. Individual markets have fared far worse. The Market Vectors Indonesia ETF (IDX) has taken a 39% haircut, while the Powershares India Portfolio ETF (PIN) has cratered by 46%.

It wasn?t supposed to be like this. These countries boast GDP growth rates of two to four times those found in the developed world. Many, like Chile (ECH) and Indonesia (IDX) are endowed with abundant natural resources. India (PIN) offers one of the world?s most attractive demographic pyramids, a precursor to stable long term growth.

The Philippines (EPHE) boasts a great, low waged, educated labor force. It is no accident that to subscribe to the San Francisco Chronicle your call gets directed to an obscure location 200 miles south of Manila, where call center workers live well on $2,000 a year.

You can blame China for starting the malaise. The Middle Kingdom is the largest customer for many of these countries, and successful efforts to throttle back the economy to control runaway home price inflation have spilled far beyond its borders. Since 2007, China?s economy has slowed from a near 14% annual growth rate to a probable 7%. This is a rate not to be sneezed at, but it is still quite a hit. Weak emerging economies then slow China further, creating a vicious negative feedback loop.

China isn?t the only problem. Most emerging nations are highly dependent on imported energy, and are in effect shorts on oil. So when Middle Eastern turmoil drives Texas tea up 28% over the past five months, as it has, balance of payments bleed. This has pummeled their currencies, boosting the local cost of fuel even further. In some countries gasoline costs have soared by more than 50% since the spring. This is terrible for their economies.

The big surprise is how much Ben Bernanke?s ?taper? thoughts are pounding the emerging markets. Much of the excess cash that the Federal Reserve has created over the past five years has poured into the emerging space, boosting share prices and ETF?s to heady heights. Cut off that supply, even by a piddling $5 billion a month, and everyone tries to leave the party at the same time. The price action has been reminiscent of the proverbial flash fire in the movie theater.

Excess liquidity has in fact turned the emerging markets into ?reach for yield? assets, much like master limited partnerships, sovereign debt, junk bonds, municipal bonds, and REIT?s. All of these asset classes have held hands jumping over the cliff since April, when the ?taper? talk began. When investors take inordinate risks for small, incremental improvements in returns, it always ends in tears.

Once emerging markets started going down, all the dirty laundry came out. Tales of corruption have always been endemic to the region. China has started arresting foreign drug company executives for bribery, a classic case of the pot calling the kettle black. The human rights records of several are less than sterling. Having spent time in jail in some of these places because of what I wrote, I more than sympathize.

What?s worse, some of the emerging fundamentals have deteriorated. Once, you bought these countries because they had little debt, a legacy of dismal credit ratings in the seventies and eighties. What did the Fed?s easy money policies accomplish here? Rising debt levels, both at the national and corporate level. Worst of all, some countries have been borrowing from abroad to subsidize fuel prices to lessen the recent price spike. That weakens national finances at an exponential rate.

It all adds up to a perfect storm for emerging markets. Think of them as a short oil/short dollar/long junk play. Ouch! With the way they have been trading, you?d think their largest export was venereal disease!

Which is all why I am starting to get interested. For many years, emerging market companies sold at large premiums to American ones. They now sell at a 35% discount. The long-term bull case is still valid. Watch the bond market. If it rallies hard in the wake of the Fed?s taper decision, as I expect, then it will be off to the races for emerging markets once again.

But it won?t be your father?s emerging bull market. Forget about the BRIC?s (Brazil, Russia, India, China), which are last year?s story. Just mindlessly buying the (EEM) won?t work anymore either. This is no longer an index play.

In the next cycle single country picks will be the name of the game. What?s on my short list? Mexico (EWW), South Africa (EZA), Indonesia (IDX), Thailand (THD), Malaysia (EWM), the Philippines (EPHE), Columbia (GXG), and Chile (ECH). Industry selection will also be important, with a move away from export industries towards domestic consumption called for.

Maybe it?s time to add Thailand to my short list of potential vacation destinations?

Time to Look at Emerging Markets?

How US Job Losses Will End

Newsletter

I was researching comparative Asian wage data the other day and was astounded with what I found. Textile workers earn $2.99 an hour in India (PIN), $1.84 in China (FXI), and $0.49 in Vietnam (VNM). This is an 18 fold increase in labor costs from ten cents an hour since Chinese industrialization launched in 1978.

This compares to the $8 an hour our much abused illegals get at sweat shops in Los Angeles, and $10 in some of the nicer places. What?s more, the Indian wage is up 17% in a year, meaning that inflation is casting a lengthening shadow over the sub continent?s economic miracle. A series of strikes and a wave of suicides have brought wage settlements with increases as high as 20% in China.

This is how the employment drain in the US is going to end. When foreign labor costs reach half of those at home, manufacturers quit exporting jobs because the cost advantages gained are not worth the headaches and risk involved in managing a foreign language work force, the shipping expense, political risk, import duties, and supply disruptions, just to get lower quality goods. Chinese wage growth at this rate takes them up to half our minimum wage in only five years.

This has already happened in South Korea (EWY), where wage costs are 60% of American ones. As a result, Korea?s GDP growth is half that seen in China. These numbers are also a powerful argument for investing in Vietnam, where wages are only 27% of those found in the Middle Kingdom, and where Chinese companies are increasingly doing their own offshoring. This is why I have pushed the Vietnam ETF (VNM) on many occasions. I know every time I do this I get torrents of emails bitterly complaining how difficult it is to do business there, and how the hardwood trees are still full of shrapnel left over from the war, and why I shouldn?t buy a 50 acre industrial park there.? But, the numbers don?t lie.

The Future of Consumer Spending?

Diary, Newsletter

As part of my never ending campaign to get you to move more money into emerging markets, please take a look at the chart below from Goldman Sachs. It shows that the global middle class will rise from 1.8 billion today to 4 billion by 2040, with the overwhelming portion of the increase occurring in emerging markets.

The chart defines middle class as those earning between $6,000 and $30,000 a year. Adding 2.2 billion new consumers in these countries is creating immense new demand for all things and the commodities needed to produce them. This explains why these countries will account for 90% of GDP growth for at least the next ten years. It's all a great argument for using this dip to boost your presence in ETF's for emerging markets (EEM), China (FXI), Brazil (EWZ), and India (PIN).

Of course, you don't want to rush out and buy these things today. Emerging markets have been one of the worst performing asset classes of the year. But the selloff off is creating a once in a generation opportunity to get into the highest growing sector of the global economy on the cheap. I'll let you know when it is time to pull the trigger.

In the meantime, store this chart in your data base so when people ask why your portfolio is packed with Mandarin, Portuguese, and Hindi names, you can just whip it out.

How U.S. Job Losses Will End

Newsletter

I was researching comparative Asian wage data the other day and was astounded with what I found. Textile workers earn $2.99 an hour in India (PIN), $1.84 in China (FXI), and $0.49 in Vietnam (VNM). This is an 18-fold increase in labor costs from $0.10 an-hour since Chinese industrialization launched in 1978.

This compares to the $8 an hour our much abused illegals get at sweat shops in Los Angeles, and $10 in some of the nicer places. What?s more, the Indian wage is up 17% in a year, meaning that inflation is casting a lengthening shadow over the sub-continent?s economic miracle. A series of strikes and a wave of suicides have brought wage settlements with increases as high as 20% in China.

This is how the employment drain in the US is going to end. When foreign labor costs reach half of those at home, manufacturers quit exporting jobs because the cost advantages gained are not worth the headaches and risk involved in managing a foreign language work force, the shipping expense, political risk, import duties, and supply disruptions, just to get lower quality goods. Chinese wage growth at this rate takes them up to half our minimum wage in only five years.

This has already happened in South Korea (EWY), where wage costs are 60% of American ones. As a result, Korea?s GDP growth is half that seen in China. These numbers are also a powerful argument for investing in Vietnam, where wages are only 27% of those found in the Middle Kingdom, and where Chinese companies are increasingly doing their own offshoring.

This is why I have pushed the Vietnam ETF (VNM) on many occasions. I know every time I do this I get torrents of emails from that country bitterly complaining how difficult it is to do business there, and how the hardwood trees are still full of shrapnel left over from the war, and why I shouldn?t buy a 50 acre industrial park there.? But, the numbers don?t lie.

The Long View on Emerging Markets

Newsletter

I managed to catch a few comments in the distinct northern accent of Jim O'Neil, the fabled analyst who invented the 'BRIC' term, and who has been kicked upstairs to the chairman's seat at Goldman Sachs International (GS) in London.

Jim thinks that it is still the early days for the space, and that these countries have another ten years of high growth ahead of them. As I have been pushing emerging markets since the inception of this letter in 2008, this is music to my ears. By 2018 the combined GDP of the BRIC's; Brazil (EWZ), Russia (RSX), India (PIN), and China (FXI), will match that of the US. China alone will reach two thirds of the American figure for gross domestic product. All that requires is for China to maintain a virile 8% annual growth rate for eight more years, while the US plods along at an arthritic 2% rate. China's most recent quarterly growth rate came in at a blistering 8%.

?BRIC? almost became the 'RIC' when O'Neil was formulating his strategy a decade ago. Conservative Brazilian businessmen were convinced that the new elected Luiz Ignacio Lula da Silva would wreck the country with his socialist ways. He ignored them and Brazil became the top performing market of the G-20 since 2000. An independent central bank that adopted a strategy of inflation targeting was transformative.

This is not to say that you should rush out and load up on emerging markets tomorrow. The entire asset class is still digesting its grim performance in 2011, which saw the average BRIC stock market fall 20%, and there may be some work to do here. American big cap stocks are the flavor of the day, and as long as this is the case, emerging markets will continue to blend in with the wall paper. Still, with growth rates triple or quadruple our own, they will not stay ?resting? for long.