Global Investing

As credit default swaps (CDS) for many euro zone sovereigns have zoomed to ever new record highs this year, Chinese CDS too have been quietly creeping higher. Five-year CDS are around 135 bps today, meaning it costs $135,000 a year to insure exposure to $10 million of Chinese risk over a five-year period. According to this graphic from data provider Markit, they are up almost 45 basis points in the past six weeks.  In fact they are double the levels seen a year ago.

That looks modest given some of the numbers in Europe. But worries over China, while not in

the same league as for the euro zone, are clearly growing, as many fear that the real scale of indebtedness and bad loans in the economy could be higher than anyone knows.  Above all, investors have been fretting about a possible hard landing for the economy, with the government unable to control  a growth slowdown.

The CDS rises have coincided with worsening economic data – state-owned companies’ profits have fallen 8.6 percent in the January-April period from year-ago levels while industrial production weakened sharply in April. Fixed asset investment – a key driver of the economy – has hit its lowest level in nearly a decade.

CDS fell slightly today after Premier Wen Jiabao called for more efforts to support growth. His comments also provided a mild boost to China’s stock markets.  Gavan Nolan, Markit’s director for credit research, says Wen’s comments suggest growth is taking precedence over inflation in policymakers’ minds:

Russian equities have had their worst week since early-December, with losses of over 6 percent. But don’t look too far for the reason — world crude futures have fallen to three-month lows around $114 a barrel on worries that U.S. and world economic growth may not be picking up after all.  They too have fallen 6 percent so far this week. Check out the following graphics showing how Russian stocks and its currency move in lock-step with oil prices:

If anything, the falls on Russian assets are outpacing the weakness on global crude oil markets in recent months, possibly because the jitters that caused last December’s massive falls have not been entirely overcome. Anti-government demonstrators are no longer hitting the streets but  with President-elect Vladimir Putin to be sworn in next week, fears are the  Kremlin may prefer squeezing more cash from energy companies to implementing the reforms the economy desperately needs.  Latest plans flagged on Thursday  to raise oil and gas extraction taxes would seem to confirm these worries and are hitting energy sector shares — half the Moscow index.

All this has widened Russian stock valuations to almost record levels against the broader emerging equity set.  But that is unlikely to entice buyers if the oil price stays where it is — after all half of Russia’s revenues come from oil and it needs an oil price of around $120 a barrel  to balance its budget. Chris Weafer, chief strategist at Troika Dialog puts it succinctly:

After a ghastly 2011, Indian stock markets have’t done too badly this year despite the almost constant stream of bad news from India. They are up 12 percent, slightly outperforming other emerging markets, thanks to  fairly cheap valuations (by India’s normally expensive standards)  and hopes the central bank might cut rates. But foreign  inflows, running at $3 billion a month in the first quarter, have tapered off and the underlying mood is pessimistic. Above all, the worry is how much will India’s once turbo-charged economy slow? With the government seemingly in policy stupor, growth is likely to fall under 7 percent this year. News today added to the gloom — exports fell in March for the first time since the 2009 global crisis.

So how are fund managers to play India now? According to David Cornell, who runs an India portfolio at specialist investor Ocean Dial, they must simply get used to the “new normal” — subpar growth and high cost of capital. In this shift, Cornell points out, return on assets in India has fallen from a peak of almost 14 percent in 2007 to less than 10 percent now. While that is still higher than the broader emerging asset class, the advantage has dwindled to less than 1 percent as companies suffer from margin compression and falling turnover. Check out these two graphs from Ocean Dial:

Cornell is playing the new normal by focusing on three sectors — consumer goods, banks and pharmaceuticals. These companies, he says, have pricing power and structural barriers to entry (banks); provide access to still-buoyant demand for services such as mobile phones (consumer goods) and are well-run and profitable (pharmaceuticals). And the export-oriented pharma sector is also an effective hedge against the weakening rupee.