Category Archives: frontier markets

how one China-related ETF has fared

July 29, 2015 By in Asian economic development, China, frontier markets, Hong Kong, securities markets, short selling, stock market Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Yesterday I mentioned a Factset article about the trading behavior of China-related ETFs during the current market gyrations in Shanghai and Shenzhen.  It focuses on the Deutsche X-trackers Harvest CSI 500 China-A Shares Small Cap ETF (ASHS).  Quite a mouthful.

ASHS opened for business last year and has about $41 million in assets.  Its goal is to track the performance of 500 Chinese small caps.  It holds all of the names in the appropriate proportions, to the extent that it can.  Where it can’t, it finds the best proxies available.

Year to date through yesterday, ASHS has risen by 37%+.

The fund melted up in mid-June, however.  Its price rose by 40% from June 8th through June 10th alone, at which time it had y-t-d performance of +113%.

The bottom fell out in the following month, when ASHS lost slightly more than half its value–before bouncing back up by +30% over the past few weeks.

Two points about ASHS:

1.  The fund uses fair value pricing, which is the industry norm in the US.  Fair value pricing, usually performed by a third party the fund hires, does two things:

—-it adjusts the prices of foreign securities in markets that are closed during New York trading for information that has come to light after their last trade, and

—-it gives an estimate for the value of securities that are not trading for one reason or another on a given day.

(Note: in my experience, both types of adjustment are surprisingly reliable.)

This second feature has doubtless come in handy over the past couple of months, since there have been days when as many as half of the Chinese small caps haven’t traded.

 

2.  A mutual fund transacts once a day, through the management company, after the market close and at Net Asset Value.

In contrast, an ETF like ASHS trades continuously during the day, through a number of broker dealers (Authorized Participants), and not necessarily at NAV.

The idea is that these middlemen will use the very cheap brokerage record systems for fund transactions, thus keeping administrative costs down–and that the brokers will use their market making and inventory capability as a way of minimizing the daily flows in and out of the ETF portfolio.

In June, this worked out in an interesting, and ultimately stabilizing way for ASHS.

As I mentioned above, the market price of ASHS rose by 40% over two days in mid-June.  We know that, according to Chinese trading rules, the stocks in the portfolio itself could rise in value by at most 10% daily, or 21% over two days.  I can’t imagine the ASHS fair value pricing service decided that the portfolio was actually worth 40% more than two days earlier when the market signal was twenty-ish.  If I’m correct, the broker dealers decided to meet (presumably large) demand for ASHS shares by letting the premium to NAV expand substantially  …by 20%?…thereby choking some of the demand off, rather than issue a ton of new ASHS shares at a lower price.

According to Factset, the brokers did create new shares.  But they apparently lent at least some of them to short sellers, who sold them in the market, further tamping down demand.

So the Authorized Participants performed their market-making function admirably–presumably making a boatload of money in the process.   But this situation illustrates that the worst fears of possible ETF illiquidity in crisis times may be overblown.

 

 

 

 

 

Chinese stocks—and related ETFs

July 28, 2015 By in China, frontier markets, Hong Kong, Margin, margin trading, Stock Connect, stock market Tags: , , , , , , Leave a comment

I got home late last night and flipped on the TV to watch baseball.  What came on first was Bloomberg TV, where reporters in London (?) and Hong Kong were exchanging near-hysterical comments about the declining Shanghai and Shenzhen stock markets.

The facts couldn’t have been much more at odds with their dire pronouncements.  Yes, the markets were down by 2% – 3%.  Yes, a small number of stocks were limit down.  But the markets were relatively stable and trading was orderly.  Given, however, that the main concern for global investors, as well as Chinese participants in the domestic stock markets, is to have China shrink the still-large amount of margin debt outstanding without a market collapse, overnight market action in Shanghai and Shenzhen  was a very positive development.  As it turns out, although the markets closed down slightly for the day, they were even up at one point.  Volumes were reasonable, too.  Let’s hope this continues.

(An aside:  the Bloomberg TV spectacle I witnessed is one more illustration, if anyone needed it, that the recent shakeup of the Bloomberg news organization is taking it further down the road toward infotainment and away from analysis.)

 

I came across a Factset article this morning discussing the performance of ETFs that specialize in small-cap Chinese stocks.  These have been the center of speculative activity in China over the past year.  But they have also been an area subject at times to protracted trading suspensions for some stocks and to days where some have been limit-up or limit-down with no trade.  The short story is that thanks to fair value pricing the ETFs themselves have experienced no problems.  More on this tomorrow.

Shaping a portfolio for 2015 (vi): the rest of the world

December 11, 2014 By in Asian economic development, bond market, China, emerging markets, EU financial crisis, frontier markets, Hong Kong, Japanese development, Portfolio management, Shaping a portfolio for 2015, stock market Tags: , , , , , , Leave a comment

world GDP

A recent World Bank study ranks the largest countries in the world by 2013 GDP.  The biggest are:

1.   USA         $16.8 trillion

2.  China         $9.2 trillion

3.  Japan          $4.9 trillion

4.  Germany          $3.6 trillion.

The EU countries taken together are about equal in size to the US.

stock markets

From a stock market investor’s point of view, we can divide the world outside the US into four parts:  Europe, greater China, Japan and emerging markets.

Japan

In the 1990s, Japan choked off incipient economic recovery twice by tightening economic policy too soon–once by raising interest rates, once by increasing its tax on consumer goods.  It appears to have done the same thing again this year when it upped consumption tax in April.

More important, Tokyo appears to me to have made no substantive progress on eliminating structural industrial and bureaucratic impediments to growth.  As a result, and unfortunately for citizens of Japan, the current decade can easily turn out to be the third consecutive ten-year period of economic stagnation.

In US$ terms, Japan’s 2014 GDP will have shrunk considerably, due to yen depreciation.

If Abenomics is somehow ultimately successful, a surge in Japanese growth might be a pleasant surprise next year.  Realistically, though, Japan is now so small a factor in world terms that, absent a catastrophe, it no longer affects world economic prospects very much.

China

In the post-WWII era, successful emerging economies have by and large followed the Japanese model of keeping labor cheap and encouraging export-oriented manufacturing.  Eventually, however, everyone reaches a point where this formula no longer works.  How so?    …some combination of running out of workers, unacceptable levels of environmental damage or pressure from trading partners.  The growth path then becomes shifting to higher value-added manufacturing and a reorientation toward the domestic economy.  This is where China is now.

Historically, this transition is extremely difficult.  Resistance from those who have made fortunes the old way is invariably extremely high.  I read the current “anti-corruption” campaign as Beijing acting to remove this opposition.

I find the Chinese political situation very opaque.  Nevertheless, a few things stand out.  To my mind, China is not likely to go back to being the mammoth consumer of natural resources it was through most of the last decade.  My guess is that GDP growth in 2015 will come in at about the same +7%or so China will achieve this year.  In other words, China won’t provide either positive or negative surprises.

For most foreigners, the main way of getting exposure to the Chinese economy is through Hong Kong.  Personally, I own China Merchants and several of the Macau casinos.  The latter group looks very cheap to me but will likely only begin to perform when the Hong Kong market is convinced the anti-corruption campaign is nearing an end.

EU

In many ways, the EU resembles the Japan of, say, 20 years ago.  It, too, has an aging population, low growth and significant structural rigidity.  The major Continental countries also have, like Japan, strong cultural resistance to change.  These are long-term issues well-known to most investors.

For 2015, the EU stands to benefit economically from a 10% depreciation of the euro vs. the US$.  As well, it is a major beneficiary of the decline in crude oil prices.  My guess is that growth will be surprisingly good for the EU next year.  I think the main focus for equity investors should be EU multinationals with large exposure to the US.

emerging markets

I’m content to invest in China through Hong Kong.  I worry about other emerging Asian markets, as well as Latin America (ex Mexico) and Africa.  Foreigners from the developed world provide most of the liquidity in this “other” class.  If an improving economy in the US and higher yields on US fixed income cause a shift in investor preferences, foreigners will likely try to extract funds from many emerging market in order to reposition them.  That will probably prove surprisingly difficult.  Prices will have a very hard time not falling in such a situation.

 

frontier markets: safer than emerging markets?–I don’t think so

June 4, 2014 By in ETFs Vs. Mutual Funds, frontier markets Tags: , , , , Leave a comment

On Sunday the Wall Street Journal published an article whose apparent conclusion is that frontier stock markets have not only better performance than emerging or developed markets, but they’re safer as well.

I don’t think this is right.

developed, emerging, frontier

The dividing lines between developed, emerging or frontier markets are a little vague, but basically they are as follows:

–Developed markets are in politically stable, high GDP mature countries that have large liquid stock markets and where there’s a long history of trading in different economic climates.  Think:  US, UK, Japan…

—Emerging markets are the next step down.  They’re in relatively politically stable countries whose stock markets offer a variety of sectors and names.  Under normal conditions, liquidity of large-cap names is good, although there may be restrictions on taking profits out of the country.   Think:  Taiwan, China, Brazil…

—Frontier markets are the countries with stock markets that don’t make the emerging markets cut.  They may be too small, not liquid enough, politically unstable…or just new.  Think:  Nigeria, Bulgaria…

performance

Over the past ten years,

the MSCI developed markets index has returned 5.16% annually.

the MSCI emerging markets index has returned 9.44% annually.

the MSCI frontier markets index has returned 5.35% annually.

Yes, frontier markets have had a fine past 18 months, but a lot of that is catch-up with other markets.

riskiness

Here’s where I really question the WSJ article.

It refers to a study distributed by LR Global, a tiny frontier markets specialist($200 million under management), to its clients.  The report measures weekly stock market volatility–the ups and downs of stock prices.  Such volatility is the standard academic measure of risk.  Its main virtues are that it’s simple, clearly defined and easy to calculate.  In my view, however, weekly price volatility has virtually nothing to do with what investors mean when they talk about the risks they are taking in investing…but that’s another issue.

LR points out that over the past ten years frontier markets have routinely been less volatile than emerging markets.  In addition, they have been less volatile than developed markets over the past three years.  LR’s conclusion:  frontier markets are safer than popular opinion would make them.

my take

I have two observations about this, both of which relate to liquidity:

–smaller markets, in my experience, have the appearance of stability because it can be difficult to trade in them.  In bad times in particular, bids for a stock may completely disappear–or come in for only a small number of shares and at a 20% discount to the previous trade.  Holders a choice between taking taking this price to sell , say, 10% of the holding (thereby devaluing the entire holding), or do nothing.  The easier choice is the latter.  So no trade happens, and the official stock quote remains unchanged.

–liquidity in small markets is very often mostly provided by foreigners trading with one another.  If they leave–and they may be gone for several years, liquidity dries up.  Volatility may be low, but that’s a bad thing, not a good one.

For individual investors in frontier market mutual funds that are part of a large, well-capitalized mutual fund complex, the liquidity issue is probably not crucial.  For anyone else, it deserves a lot of thought.

Personally, I have no burning desire to invest in frontier markets.  I don’t see what advantage I would have there.  But I don;t think that safety is one of the virtues of these markets.