emerging markets

New global hot spots for investors

As U.S. and European economies struggle, investors looking for healthy returns might consider emerging markets.

By Richard McGill Murphy, contributor

FORTUNE -- Today, essentially two global economies exist side by side. The U.S. and its advanced peers continue to struggle with high unemployment, idle capacity, depressed housing markets, and anemic growth. Credit remains tight in much of the developed world, despite historically low interest rates. Debt-laden European nations pose heightened risk for MORE

The best way to play emerging markets

Do you invest through multinationals or local companies? The market may be making the choice easier.

FORTUNE -- Ever since the great crash of 2008, when emerging markets plummeted more than 50%, one strategy has jumped in popularity: buying multinationals to play the fast-growing markets. Giants like Coca-Cola rarely collapse like their developing markets-based competitors. They sell into all the hottest markets such as Brazil, India, and China. And nowadays, multinational MORE

Stocks: Jeremy DeGroot of Litman Gregory picks the best of the best

The mutual fund firm's chief investment officer explains how to choose a mutual fund - and where to invest today.

Interview by Mina Kimes, writer

FORTUNE -- Litman Gregory aims to be the all-star team of the mutual fund world. The firm, which has $6 billion in assets, scours the industry for top managers, then commissions each to run a mini-portfolio for its Masters funds. The roster includes such standouts as Oakmark's Bill MORE

Stephanie Pomboy: Straight talk from a market contrarian

The founder of research firm MacroMavens is down on U.S. stocks but bullish on China, gold miners, and oil.

Interview by Mina Kimes, writer

FORTUNE -- It isn't always easy being a skeptic. Just ask Stephanie Pomboy, 43, a market strategist who jokes that she spent the first half of the year with "nary a cocktail party invitation" because of her bearish outlook. Pomboy, who founded her institutional research firm MacroMavens in 2002 and MORE

Another global recession? Buy India, sell China

Not all emerging markets face the same risks if the global economy falls back into another recession.

By Vishesh Kumar, contributor

FORTUNE -- Anxiety about another global recession is on the rise amid downbeat economic data from the U.S. and a resurgent European debt crisis. And that has investors scrambling to find what Bill Gross of bond giant Pimco calls the 'cleaner dirty shirt' -- assets that might be less tainted than MORE

For U.S. jobs, it pays to look overseas

Let's face it: The American consumer is bad for business right now. Smart CEOs are betting on emerging markets for growth at home.

By Nina Easton, senior editor-at-large

FORTUNE -- Our best future growth prospects are overseas -- and I say this as an agriculture company based in the Midwest." So says Chris Policinski, president and CEO of Land O'Lakes, a name that conjures up Norman Rockwell images of milk cows and butter MORE

Mongolia: A speculator's fantasy

It's boom time in Mongolia, which had a record $1.4 billion in foreign direct investment in 2010, thanks to its copper, gold, and coal -- and neighbor China's insatiable hunger for the commodities.

Ever heard of the tugrik? It's the official currency of Mongolia -- the land of Genghis Khan where, over the past few years, foreign investors have flocked to the sparsely populated country in search of riches.

It was also MORE

Emerging market entrepreneurs are brilliant, crazy & cocky

My goal this morning was to offer a comprehensive review of Brilliant, Crazy, Cocky – a new book on emerging market entrepreneurship by TechCrunch scribe Sarah Lacy. But time is running short, so here is an abbreviated version: Go buy it.

Seriously. This is an outstanding piece of journalism, based on Lacy's ten months of travel to Israel, Brazil, China, Rwanda and Indonesia. She obviously touches on the macro trends affecting MORE

How global should you go?

Most investors still don't have enough international stocks - especially those from emerging markets - in their portfolios.

By Mina Kimes, writer

When it comes to investing, people tend to prefer home cooking. For decades Americans gorged on U.S. stocks and barely touched foreign ones. There was good reason for that -- U.S. equities were, until recently, more widely traded and less volatile than their international counterparts -- but globalization and the MORE

China eats up Caterpillar bonds

Caterpillar is plowing a furrow in what is shaping up as one of the investment world's most fertile fields: The Chinese local-currency bond market.

The Peoria, Ill., tractor maker said Wednesday its finance arm sold 1 billion renminbi ($150 million) worth of medium term notes to institutional investors in Hong Kong.

Caterpillar (CAT), like many other big multinational companies, has been intent on expanding its sales to the world's fastest-growing big economy. MORE