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Which was published in final format in the Winter, 2010 Edition of:
Clifford Quisenberry Jr., CFA Chief Investment Officer in Tacoma, Washington Benjamin Griffith, CFA Analyst in New York, New York Caravan Capital Management LLC
www.caravancap.com Email: cliffq@caravancap.com Tel: (253) 230 - 9011
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Over the last several years, the continued integration of world economies and capital markets has caused a convergence in the behavior of equities around the world. This process has led many of the larger emerging markets to behave increasingly like developed markets in terms of valuations and their correlations to other markets. Global investors looking to further enhance diversification and capture the potential of rapidly developing economies with compelling valuations have begun to look for the next generation of emerging markets. A loosely defined class of countries has emerged under the popular buzzword, frontier markets. In this paper we provide an introduction to these markets; examining how they are defined and the characteristics that differentiate them from the standard emerging markets.
stability, especially Estonia, Slovenia, and Uruguay.v because they are small.
A more straightforward method is to define a frontier market country as any country which has publicly traded companies on an exchange but is not a member of both the MSCI and S&P emerging indices and not a member of any developed market index. Using this methodology, there are 85 frontier countries in the world (see Exhibit 1). These 85 countries translate into 78 unique stock markets, which include two regional stock exchanges. Of these markets, currently 36 are members of the S&P Frontier BMI Index or the MSCI Frontier Markets Index (shown in bold). We define the remaining 42 markets that are not members of the frontier indices as exotic frontiers and for purposes of this paper have constructed a market capitalization weighted index of 20 of these markets excluded from the frontier indices.vi
Exhibit 1
Europe Armenia Azerbaijan Belarus Bosnia Bulgaria Croatia Estonia Georgia Latvia Lithuania Macedonia Malta Moldova Montenegro Republika Srpske Romania Serbia Slovakia Slovenia Ukraine Latin America Argentina Barbados Bolivia Colombia Costa Rica Dominica Ecuador El Salvador Grenada Guyana Jamaica Panama St. Kitts and Nevis St. Lucia Trinidad and Tobago Uruguay Venezuela Sub-Saharan Africa Benin Botswana Burkina Faso Cameroon Cape Verde Cote d'Ivoire Ghana Kenya Malawi Mauritius Mozambique Namibia Niger Nigeria Senegal Swaziland Tanzania Togo Uganda Zambia Zimbabwe MENA Bahrain Iran* Iraq Jordan Kuwait Lebanon Libya Oman Palestine Qatar Saudi Arabia Sudan* Syria Tunisia UAE Asia Bangladesh Kazakhstan Kyrgyz Rep. Maldives Mongolia Nepal Pakistan P. New Guinea Fiji Sri Lanka Uzbekistan Vietnam
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Major Region Africa Africa Africa Africa Asia Asia Asia Asia Europe Europe Europe Europe Latin America Latin America Latin America Latin America Middle East Middle East
S&P Frontier BMI 2.1% 1.6% 0.7% 9.3% 5.1% 2.4% 0.0% 6.3% 0.6% 2.0% 3.4% 1.1% 2.6% 18.8% 1.1% 0.0% 36.0% 7.3%
S&P/IFCI 6.7% 0.0% 0.9% 0.0% 8.5% 5.7% 43.1% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 9.0% 1.6% 0.0% 18.0% 0.0% 4.0% 0.0% 2.7%
When inspecting the MSCI and S&P Frontier indices, it is apparent that most of their weight is concentrated in the Middle Eastern markets (see Exhibit 2). This is a result of Kuwait and the UAE having quite large equity markets relative to the frontiers found in other regions. Indeed, these markets have been up for review to be included in the standard emerging market indices.ix But frontiers have little exposure to Asia when compared to the S&P/IFCI Emerging Markets index which is heavily concentrated in East Asia due to the large market capitalizations of China, Korea, and Taiwan. There are sub-regions in which the frontier indices have a significant weight of more than 4%, and in which the emerging market indices have no weight, most notably in the Persian Gulf, West Africa, and Central Asia.
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At the sector level, frontiers also appear somewhat different than their larger counterparts. Some of these differences are a result of their early stage of economic and financial market development. For example, financial stocks comprise the vast majority of the frontier market universe. While most of the equities in this category are commercial banks, other common financial companies in the frontier markets include insurance companies, and retail or microcredit banks. All together, financials stocks have historically comprised more than 60% of the S&P Frontier BMI Index and more than 50% in the MSCI Frontier Index.x Exhibit 3 illustrates the differing sector exposures of the MSCI Frontier Index and the MSCI Emerging Markets Index as of 12/31/2009.
Exhibit 3 MSCI Frontier Index 53.8% 17.0% 8.6% 7.2% 4.4% 4.3% 2.0% 1.3% 1.1% 0.4% MSCI Emerging Index 24.3% 8.6% 14.8% 6.7% 14.9% 5.6% 2.2% 3.7% 5.8% 13.5% Difference 29.6% 8.3% -6.2% 0.5% -10.5% -1.3% -0.2% -2.4% -4.7% -13.1%
Financials Telecommunication Services Energy Industrials Materials Consumer Staples Health Care Utilities Consumer Discretionary Information Technology
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Banks are often the first companies to list in nascent equity markets, as they tend to have the greatest understanding and experience working in the capital markets and also require a relatively large amount of capital in order to achieve the scale needed to reach profitability and minimize risks.xii In addition, the Gulf markets are heavily weighted in financials and this region dominates the MSCI Frontier Index. Another product of the fact that most frontiers are at the early stages of their economic development is their relatively low weight in the sectors of health care and information technology. Many frontier economies, most notably in the Persian Gulf, Africa, and Latin America, are endowed with abundant natural resources, which often make up a large percentage of GDP and may provide the bulk of foreign currency receipts.xiii However, the companies that directly own or control these national resources are often considered strategic national assets and remain state owned, and thus are understated in terms of their index weight. Despite this, commodity prices tend to drive corporate earnings indirectly through overall GDP growth, as well as the relative strength of many frontier currencies. As a result, the returns of the frontier market indices are heavily correlated with crude oil and copper spot price returns. In a regression the individual
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correlation coefficients between the annualized returns of the MSCI Frontier Index and the annualized spot price returns of West Texas Instrument Crude Oil and London Metals Exchange Copper were 0.51 and 0.32 respectively for the 10 years ending 11/30/2009. While investing in the frontier markets can provide an indirect hedge against inflation for investors based in the developed world, commodity price fluctuations are also a cause of return volatility.
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The relative lack of liquidity in the frontier markets in turn creates higher trading costs because of higher market impact when transacting a trade. In addition, the lack of large trade flows often coincides with a lack of a large number of competing brokers which can lead to higher frontier market commission rates. Using data based upon a survey of institutional trades from Elkins McSherry over 12 months ending June 2009, the commission for an equal weighted
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basket of 21 standard emerging markets was 25 basis points. xvi Based upon a survey of frontier broker commission rates, the commission for an equal weighted basket of 51 frontier markets was nearly five times higher at 123 basis points. The distinction of the highest commission in our survey belonged to Mongolia, costing over 450 basis points per trade. Market impact as defined by Elkins McSherry using their VWAP method was about 16 basis points for the same basket of standard emerging markets.xvii Assessing market impact for frontier markets is much more difficult as this type of analysis is almost entirely absent for frontier markets. In addition, many exotic frontier markets lack natural trade flow on a daily or even weekly basis, meaning transactions in these markets are virtually on a negotiated basis. Based upon informal surveys of frontier traders and experience of the author, market impact for a basket of frontier markets can range from 100 to 300 basis points.
8.0% 6.0%
4.0%
2.0% 0.0% -2.0% -4.0%
2010e
2011e
2012e
2013e
2014e
Frontier
Emerging
Developed
2015e
xviii
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
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Given their relative lack of liquidity and size, as well as their unique political and economic risks, frontier equity markets should be expected to have relatively high risk premiums and command higher expected market returns, all other things being equal. These higher expected returns are generally reflected in terms of lower valuations, such as lower price to earnings ratios for frontier markets as compared to the emerging markets. Exhibit 6 illustrates the simple average of trailing P/E ratios for the country members of the MSCI Frontier Index vs. the country members of the MSCI Emerging Markets Index as of 4/30/2010.
Exhibit 6
30.0 25.0
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Yet these lower valuations may not be wholly justified by this perception of risk, based on one important observation; many frontier equity markets are still dominated by local market participants who rationally demand higher returns to compensate for the country specific risk they experience. However, from the perspective of global investors, much of this country specific risk should be effectively reduced through diversification within a global portfolio. Modern portfolio theory would suggest that frontier markets have expected returns that are set unduly high for the risk they actually endure. Actual historical returns of frontier markets as compared to emerging markets have been similar. Over the 10 years ending 4/30/2010, the MSCI Frontier Index returned 12.5% per year, versus the MSCI Emerging Markets performance of 12.7%, and the S&P 500 return over
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the same period of -0.2%. An index of 20 of the more exotic frontier markets excluded from the MSCI and S&P Frontier Indices returned an average of 10.3% per year in the seven years since its inception ending 4/30/2010, versus the same 10.3% per year for the MSCI Frontier Index over the same period.xx
Correlation Coefficients
Exotic Frontiers MSCI Frontiers S&P IFCI Emerging
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0.22 0.50
0.52 0.78
0.63 0.83
These low correlations across markets help to dramatically reduce portfolio level volatility in a diversified index or portfolio of frontier markets. For many of the same reasons that they exhibit low cross correlations, frontier equity markets also exhibit low correlations to the major world markets, including the US and European markets. Frontier markets exhibit significantly lower correlations to the developed markets than do the emerging markets because their economies and financial systems are less
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integrated and therefore relatively less dependent on capital and demand from the rich countries. This provides an added benefit of diversification to the total portfolio of US, European, and other investors based in the developed world. Exhibit 8 highlights the low correlation of the frontiers versus the S&P 500 Index relative to other market categories, using running 48 month periods, ending 4/30/2010.xxiii
Exhibit 8
2.00 1.50 1.00 0.50 0.00 -0.50
Exotic Frontiers = 0.38 MSCI Frontiers = 0.69 S&P IFCI Emerging = 0.83 S&P Dev. BMI ex US = 0.92
Dec-02
Dec-99
Dec-00
Dec-01
Dec-03
Dec-04
Dec-05
Dec-06
Dec-07
Jun-08
Jun-00
Jun-01
Jun-02
Jun-03
Jun-04
Jun-05
Jun-06
Jun-07
Dec-08
Jun-09
Another aspect of correlations across market classes that stands out in Exhibit 8 is the increase in correlations caused by the global financial crisis beginning in October of 2008. This trend is consistent with past global market crises, and is clearly detrimental to the cause of risk reduction through international diversification. However, this phenomenon occurred across almost all asset class categories, and the frontiers remained significantly less correlated to the US market than other market categories, especially the exotic frontiers, even in the depths of the crisis.
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frontier countries because of the benefit of diversification. This difference between average country volatility and the lower volatility of the index of these same countries is readily seen in Exhibit 9. This effect is particularly noticeable when looking at the most exotic frontier markets, due to the exotic markets having the lowest cross correlations.
Exhibit 9
Annualized Volatility
Exotic Frontiers MSCI Frontier Index S&P IFCI Emerging S&P 500 Index
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While the trend has been for cross correlations and volatility to rise in recent years, peaking during the crisis of 2008, the frontier markets still have relatively lower volatility than the emerging markets. It is worth noting that the index of 20 exotic frontier markets excluded from the frontier indices had lower volatility than the S&P 500 over the last 5 years.
Conclusion
As a group, the frontier equity markets have displayed similar long-run returns and economic growth prospects with slightly lower volatility than the emerging markets over the last 10 years. In addition, their low cross correlations mean broad and diversified portfolios of frontier markets can produce lower volatility than their larger emerging market counterparts. Finally, frontier markets generally offer lower correlations to the developed markets. This combination of high expected returns and lower volatility mean frontier markets should be viewed as suitable additions to global portfolios. This paper is intended to be an introduction to the frontier equity markets, and many areas are left open for further discussion. For example, the relationship between market size, liquidity and market volatility and the correlation to other markets warrants additional study. To the extent that a frontier markets low volatility and correlation is s imply a product of their small size and lack of liquidity would limit the ability of portfolio managers to achieve the full benefits of diversification in practice. However, the typical frontier countrys lack of financial integration with the rest of the world and the relative importance of country specific factors in driving stock market returns suggest that frontier markets should fundamentally have lower correlations than standard emerging markets.
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In many ways, the frontier emerging equity markets look similar to the way the emerging markets did 20 years ago. Rapid economic growth and elevated risk premiums provide opportunities for attractive long-run returns, and diversifiable country risks allow for relatively low portfolio level volatility in a balanced portfolio. Furthermore, the frontiers low correlations to the developed markets provide significant diversification benefits to international portfolio investors.
S&P Frontier BMI Factsheet. Standard & Poors. The McGraw-Hill Companies. (2009): 1. Web. http://www2.standardandpoors.com/spf/pdf/index/SP_Frontier_BMI_Factsheet.pdf . ii MSCI Barra Global Investable Index Methodology. MSCI Barra. (2010): 47. Web. http://www.mscibarra.com/eqb/methodology/meth_docs/MSCI_Jan10_GIMIMethod.pdf. iii S&P Frontier BMI Factsheet. Standard & Poors. The McGraw-Hill Companies. (2009): 1. Web. http://www2.standardandpoors.com/spf/pdf/index/SP_Frontier_BMI_Factsheet.pdf . iv IMF World Economic Outlook. IMF. Database: April, 2010. Web. http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2009/01/weodata/index.aspx v Corruption Perception Index. Transparency International. 2009. Web. http://www.transparency.org/policy_research/surveys_indices/cpi/2008 vi Our index of 20 exotic frontier markets is market capitalization weighted, with a country weight constraint applied of two times 1/n, where n is the number of markets. The markets included were selected due to the regular availability of pricing data needed to construct the index. The countries included in the index as of 4/30/2010 include: Armenia, Barbados, Bosnia Herzegovina (Sarajevo Stock Exchange), The Eastern Caribbean Securities Exchange, El Salvador, Fiji (The South Pacific Stock Exchange), Guyana, Iraq, Malawi, Maldives, Moldova, Mongolia, Nepal, Palestine, Panama (Bolsa de Panama), Papua New Guinea, Tanzania, Uganda, Uruguay, and Uzbekistan. vii Italicized = countries covered by a regional stock exchange, including the BRVM in West Africa and the ECSE in the Caribbean. Bold = members of MSCI and/or S&P Frontier indices * = Markets unavailable to US investors. viii S&P Index weights provided by Standard & Poors. Previous years index weights available at: S&P Frontier BMI Factsheet. Standard & Poors. The McGraw-Hill Companies. (2009): 1. Web. http://www2.standardandpoors.com/spf/pdf/index/SP_Frontier_BMI_Factsheet.pdf . ix th Brandimarte, Walter. MSCI ups Israel to developed mkt; mulls Korea, Taiwan. Reuters. June 15 , 2009. Web. http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN1524411720090615 x S&P Frontier BMI Factsheet. Standard & Poors. The McGraw-Hill Companies. (2009): 1. Web. http://www2.standardandpoors.com/spf/pdf/index/SP_Frontier_BMI_Factsheet.pdf . xi Bloomberg Terminal Service. MSCI Frontier Market Index and MSCI Emerging Market Index weights. 12/31/2009. xii Quisenberry, Clifford Jr. and Griffith, Benjamin. Banking on the Frontier. Caravan Capital Management, LLC. March, 2009. Contact us to request a copy. xiii Based on data from the EIA and the IMF World Economic Outlook Database for 2008, several frontier markets economies, including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, Nigeria, and Venezuela show net export of crude oil / GDP ratios greater than 50%. xiv Monthly Total Volume is calculated as the total of the 12 month average of all dollar value traded ending 12/31/2009 for companies in each category. The Emerging Markets are defined as markets included in both MSCI and S&P Emerging Market Indices. The Standard Frontier Markets are defined as markets included in either the MSCI or the S&P Frontier Index. The Exotic Frontier Markets are defined as all markets excluded from developed, emerging, and frontier indices of both the MSCI and S&P for which data was available. Data for the Emerging Markets and Standard Frontier Markets was gathered from Bloomberg. Data for the Exotic frontier markets was gathered manually from data from local stock exchanges. xv Value traded data for The S&P Emerging Markets BMI was provided by Standard & Poors. The value traded data for the Standard Frontiers and Exotic Frontier Markets were calculated based on the entire universe of countries in each category using data from Bloomberg. xvi Survey of Trading Costs. Elkins McSherry. June, 2009.
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xvii
VWAP is the average trade price weighted by the volume traded over the period. VWAP is often used as a benchmark for assessing execution. Pricing and volume data can be used to assess how the size of an individual trade affects the pricing achieved relative to VWAP. xviii Calculated as the average of the real GDP growth rate of countries within each category using data from the IMF World Economic Outlook database, updated in April of 2010. IMF World Economic Outlook. IMF. Database: April, 2010. Web. http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2009/01/weodata/index.aspx xix P/E data provided for the MSCI Frontier and Emerging country indices by Bloomberg. xx Returns data gathered from MSCI and S&P. Data for the 20 exotic markets was collected manually. xxi Cross correlations calculated using a simple average of each pair of country-level returns for the S&P country indices, as well as a 20 member index of countries excluded from the S&P and MSCI frontier indices to represent the Exotic Frontiers category. xxii Correlations calculated using monthly returns for the time periods specified. Data gathered from MSCI and Standard & Poors. xxiii S&P and MSCI index data provided by Bloomberg Terminal Service. Quisenberry, Clifford Jr. and Griffith, Benjamin. Neglected Frontier Index Report. Caravan Capital Management, LLC. December, 2009. Contact us to request a copy. xxiv Volatility calculated as annualized standard deviation of monthly returns over the period specified. Data gathered from MSCI and Standard & Poors.
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