【英语财经】透过矩阵看懂新兴市场 Redefining EM: Matrix offers new perspective on definition

The challenge facing today’s emerging market investors is to discern order — or at least pattern — among a great diversity of different countries, assets, risks and opportunities. Some attempts have been made to group countries that seem to share attributes, such as the Brics (Brazil, Russia, India and China). But any static grouping inevitably loses relevance over time. A more dynamic system is called for, but one that continues to find order even as EM growth trends ebb and flow.

This is the thinking behind shifting “from Brics to Blocs”, a matrix for EM investing.

The system is organised around the two defining distinctions of emerging market economies: whether they run structural current account deficits or surpluses and whether they are primarily exporters of commodities or manufactured goods.

This classification generates a 2x2 matrix that divides EM countries into four quadrants — or “blocs” (see table). Each bloc groups countries with similar characteristics with the result that a country’s location in the matrix is a good predictor of what its economic fate will be under specific phases of the global economic cycle.

Two big forces — tides causing the fortunes of EM countries to ebb and flow — drive the EM economic cycle: global liquidity and commodity demand. And each of these two tides is almost entirely dependent on the waxing and waning of one of two dominant moons orbiting the world of emerging markets. The US moon is the main gravitational force behind the liquidity tide, the Chinese moon is that behind the commodity tide.

One glance at the quadrant reveals that the south east bloc is the cornerstone of the EM asset class: over half of the MSCI EM index is located there. Built around a China core, it also includes most of east and southeast Asia (though not commodity-rich Indonesia). In addition to the tech-rich Israel, it also includes Slovenia, Slovakia and Hungary, which are becoming integral to the German supply chain in the same way that east Asia feeds the Chinese supply chain.

The countries in this quadrant are increasingly high added-value and even high tech in their export profile; a combination of robust external accounts and high foreign exchange reserves leaves them essentially self-financing and so not keenly exposed to the global liquidity cycle. For investors, these attributes make the south east bloc the lowest both in terms of capital preservation risk and volatility.

By contrast, the most risky and volatile quadrant for investors is the north west bloc, host to deficit-running countries that export primarily minerals and agricultural products. Most countries in this bloc partied hard when commodity prices were robust and liquidity was plentiful but neglected the deeper damage to their economies done by the dreaded Dutch Disease. South Africa is a typical example of this bloc: carry-seeking bond inflows strengthened the rand, helped puncture inflation, permitted interest rates to fall and so facilitated a “consumption-cart-before-production-horse” mode of economic growth. The unintended yet devastating consequence has been widespread deindustrialisation.

The north east bloc is also commodity exporting, indeed it is essentially oil-exporting. And while it is a hostage to the commodity cycle, that the likes of Greater Arabia and Russia tend to run current account surpluses means that this bloc is less exposed to the ebb and flow of liquidity.

Finally the south west bloc is composed of the deficit-running, manufacturing exporters — the ‘maquiladoras’ of Mexico supplying the US and eastern Europe and Turkey supplying western Europe. In addition, service-rich India is located in this bloc. As recent events have shown, they — as importers of commodities — have benefited from the end of the commodity supercycle but — as deficit runners — have been negatively impacted by the retreating liquidity tide.

Michael Power is strategist at Investec Asset Management.

当今新兴市场投资者面临的挑战是，在众多不同国家、资产、风险和机遇当中找出规律，或者至少是格局。此前已经有人将似乎具有共同特征的国家归为一类，比如将巴西、俄罗斯、印度和中国称为“金砖国家”(Bric)。但任何静态分组都不可避免地会随着时间推移而丧失相关性。需要有一种更为动态的体系，即便在新兴市场增长趋势起起伏伏之际也能继续找到规律。

这是“从金砖转向集团（Blocs，一种新兴市场投资矩阵）”背后的思路。

该体系是围绕新兴市场经济体的两项决定性区分因素设计的：它们运行结构性经常账户赤字还是结构性经常账户盈余，它们主要是大宗商品出口国还是制成品出口国。

按照这种分类，可以把新兴市场国家分为4个象限（即“集团”，见下面的表格）的2x2矩阵。每个集团内的国家都有类似特征，结果是，通过某个国家在矩阵内的位置，就可比较准确地预测其在全球经济周期特定阶段的经济命运。

全球流动性和大宗商品需求是推动新兴市场经济体周期的两大力量，他们是主导新兴市场国家命运盛衰的潮汐。如今环绕新兴市场世界的轨道上有两个支配性的“月亮”，而上述两个潮汐都几乎完全依赖其中一个“月亮”的盈亏。美国月亮是流动性潮汐的主要引力，中国月亮是大宗商品潮汐的主要引力。

看下这个矩阵就会发现，东南集团（右下象限——译者注）是新兴市场资产类别的基石：逾一半的MSCI新兴市场指数(MSCI EM)成分股公司在此落户。该集团以中国为核心，包括东亚和东南亚的大部分国家（尽管不包括盛产大宗商品的印尼）。除了科技发达的以色列，该集团还包括斯洛文尼亚、斯洛伐克和匈牙利——这些国家正在融入德国的供应链，就像东亚成为中国供应链的一部分那样。