Emerging market stocks have been overlooked by investors for most of 2022 & this year, but it’s time to take notice as this undervalued asset class could make a come back in the second half of 2023.
Emerging markets (EM) have experienced a more turbulent ride than the already volatile U.S. stock and bond markets over the past 2 years. Currently, EM stocks are enduring one of their longest bear markets, with the MSCI Emerging Markets Index down approximately 40% from its peak in February 2021.
Indian banks are likely to not face the same ALM (Asset Liability Mismatch) crisis that has gripped a few US banks and Credit Suisse. If you haven’t read our previous article on the main issue plaguing the western banking system (https://arunasset.com/svb-bank-collapse-whats-asset-liability-mismatch/), then we suggest you do so before going ahead with this.
Silicon Valley Bank’s failure is the second largest bank failure in U.S. history, Washington Mutual Fund being the largest in 2008.
The catastrophe was not driven by credit problems but mismatch of assets and liabilities.
On 25th January, short-seller Hindenburg Research published a report beginning a series of well planned and co-ordinated attacks on the Adani Group.
Soon enough, George Soros the 92 year old speculator billionaire joined the issue of attacking the quality of India’s democratically elected polity. Best known for his attack on the British pound in 1992 he has since used his billions to fund political and public causes in more than 120 countries around the world. In 1997, he made huge bets against the Thai and Malaysian currencies and precipitated the Asian financial crisis that brought down economies of Indonesia, Thailand, South Korea and Malaysia. This also brought about regime changes in some of those countries. Soros is hoping that the Ukraine war will bring down Putin and Russia. With national elections round the corner, Soros is also hoping that such coordinated attacks will bring in a regime change in India.
Yesterday, the Federal reserve announced another 0.75% point increase for the federal funds rate. This is the rate at which commercial banks borrow and lend their excess reserves to each other overnight. The increase in this rate is meant to help tame rising inflation; this increase however also has implications for the US federal governments borrowing costs and hence the nations fiscal picture.