Ao minuto: EUA atacam Irão. MNE iraniano diz que país "reserva todas as opções" para se defender

[Figas]

Forbes Magazine
The World to Gain
Thursday July 3, 1:06 pm ET
By Christopher Helman



Time to get back into the market? You don't have to do it here. Foreign companies are cheaper and offer higher growth prospects.
George Greig thinks the U.S. is not the place in which to invest the bulk of your equity money. Sure, as manager of the William Blair International Growth fund, he's biased. But he makes a compelling case that prospects are shiniest overseas, especially in Asia. "Growth is stronger there than anywhere else," he says.

Performance of his $958 million (assets) Chicago-based fund underscores the point. Over the past five years, which picks up the end of the boom times and then three years of mostly bearish times, his fund rose an annual 8%, while the S&P lost 2%. His no-load fund, which charges 1.5% of assets in fees (less than the 1.8% foreign fund average) is one of the top performers among the Forbes Best Buys.

Betting against the U.S. seems counterintuitive. Our country has the world's top universities churning out innovative minds, the best labor mobility and the most transparent and efficient financial markets--a few criminals notwithstanding. But at a certain point these positives become priced into the market, and Greig says we have passed that point.

Some smart money is in tune with Greig's analysis. Bruce Johnstone, after 18 years as fund manager and 2 as chief investment officer at Fidelity International Ltd., has 70% of his retirement equity assets in international stocks. He thinks it absurd that U.S. investors have only 3% of their assets in international stocks. The case for going abroad:

Cheaper valuations. Johnstone points out that the S&P trades at a frothy 32 times trailing earnings and 3 times book value. Next to that, European stocks are a bargain at 21 times earnings and 2 times book value. And Asia (excluding Japan) goes for a dirt-cheap 13 times earnings and 1.3 times book.

Better growth prospects. Economic growth drives stock performance, and consumer demand drives economic growth. Unlike fat and happy middle-class America, the developing world has a lot of unmet needs and pent-up demands--not for faster Internet connections and SUVs (yet), but for simple stuff such as telephones and cosmetics.

Unlike aging America, the populations in many countries like China, India and Indonesia are younger and entering their prime working, consuming and investing years. And they're not mortgaging their futures to do it. Savings rates in the rest of the world are much higher than the U.S.' 3.5% of income. The Chinese save over 30% of their income, which gives them much more to reinvest in their country.

This year industrial production in emerging markets is up 6%, according to Greg Jensen at Bridgewater Associates. Long dependent on finicky foreign capital to stimulate growth, emerging markets have often collapsed when capital left. That growth is now sustainable, says Jensen, as emerging markets (like China) are net lenders to developed markets. China turns some of its $100 billion annual trade surplus with the U.S. into Treasurys and other dollar assets.

Stateside, the trade imbalance between the values of what America imports and exports is known as the current account deficit. This was $136 billion in the first quarter. In the past bridging that gap has been easy, as foreigners were more than willing to invest in the U.S. those dollars they earned from trade with the U.S. It used to be that other countries couldn't compete with the U.S. in stability and returns to capital. But that's no longer true. With sustainable growth rates much higher in China, the U.S. has recently fallen behind it in attracting foreign capital.


Source: Worldscope via FactSet Research Systems. Going Global With Greig
His six good stocks from the Earth's four corners.
COMPANY/TRADED P/E PRICE/BOOKVALUE MARKETVALUE($BIL)

Canon/NYSE 21 2.9 $40.8

Housing Development Finance/Bombay 16 2.8 2.1

Li & Fung/Hong Kong 26 7.5 3.6

Puma/o-t-c 18 5.5 1.6

Shoppers Drug Mart/Toronto 29 3.5 3.9

Wal-Mart de Mexico/o-t-c 29 3.7 13.6


Exchange rates. In the last nine months Asian banks have boosted their euro holdings from 5% of assets to 14%, helping to drive down the dollar. Last year 100 euros in your pocket was worth $97. Today it's $115. Currency fluctuations like that can be a huge factor in international stock returns. European stocks have advanced a mere 4% this year when counted in euros, but 16% in dollar terms.

Exchange rate factors have worked on the markets before. From 1984 to 1989, when the dollar weakened against many other currencies, international markets beat U.S. stocks by a cumulative 200 percentage points, according to Fidelity. Nearly half that gain was attributable to currency shifts.

We could be in the middle of another long swing away from the dollar. (Columnist A. Gary Shilling does not agree; see page 138.) Indeed, the dollar would have fallen even further by now, if not for Asian governments propping it up to make their exports cheaper to Americans. If the dollar is artificially high now, the price of Chinese or Japanese business assets is artificially low to an American investor.

Greig, 51, helped launch the William Blair fund 11 years ago and goes for growth. He seeks out the 100 fastest-growing companies with solid financials outside the U.S. (see table). His average holding is projected to increase earnings 19% a year and trades at 25 times trailing earnings, the same multiple as Morgan Stanley Capital International's Europe, Australasia, Far East (EAFE) Index, which covers the developed world outside the U.S.

Greig puts 35% of his portfolio in Asia and a high 18% in (mainly Asian) emerging markets, which include China. The U.K. gets 22% and Continental Europe gets an underweighted 28%, because so many Eurozone megacaps don't meet his growth criteria.

A favorite Hong Kong-based stock is Li & Fung, an export trading company that Greig considers "a linchpin in the global supply chain." It provides retail giant Kohl's, its biggest customer, everything from clothes to toys.

In Germany Greig likes Puma, now reviving its brand by having fashionistas like Jil Sander designing its high-price sneakers. As a result, says Greig, "My wife will wear Puma." The shoes don't end up in the discount bins where unprofitable models from Nike and Reebok go to die. Puma, Grieg says, is expanding earnings by 25% a year.

In India--with its 6,000 listed companies--Greig owns Housing Development Finance Corp., that country's Fannie Mae. The Indian mortgage market is in its infancy, long retarded by legal and land-titling issues. Housing Development has been growing 30% a year, and India has three times the U.S.' population.