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Andrew Capon is editor-in-chief at State Street Global Markets, the research and trading business of State Street Corp. He was formerly senior editor at Institutional Investor and has won numerous awards for journalism on fund management and investment issues |
Best in show 2006
Sin Nian Hao. If you do not already know (and clearly an emergency diversity training refresher course is in order if you don’t) this is the Chinese Year of the Dog. What our four-legged friend augurs for markets in 2006 is anyone’s guess. But on the basis that every dog has his day, it is time to buy Malaysian equities. Remarkably, of the 98 equity indices – multi-country, single country, developed, emerging and small cap – published by MSCI, only its Malaysia Index registered a decline in 2005 (of 2%).
That is exceptional, although not in recent years. In 2004 China, Taiwan and Thailand were the only fallers, none by more than 5% and in 2003 not a single MSCI equity index registered a decline. Emerging market equities are up more than 200% from their 2002 lows and emerging market bonds have enjoyed an unprecedented five-year bull-run.