10 Emerging-Markets Stocks That Will Survive the Trade War

The old saying goes: When America sneezes, the world catches a cold.

One of the huge newbuildings that have been erected in the last few years in Gabarone. Gabarone is the capital city of Botswana in Africa. In front of the building on land that will eventualy
(Image credit: Getty Images)

The old saying goes: When America sneezes, the world catches a cold. As the world’s largest importer – and holder of its largest trade deficit by a country mile – the United States is the planet’s indispensable economy. And emerging-markets stocks, with their dependence on foreign capital and high concentration in cyclical and commodity sectors, are particularly vulnerable to weakness in the U.S.

There’s nothing quite like a good trade war to give investors the jitters. But it’s not just the ongoing spat between Presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping that has investors unnerved. U.S. economic growth appears to be topping out for this cycle, and issues in the American market have a way of spilling across borders.

When western investors go into de-risking mode, they tend to throw out the baby with the bathwater, dumping high-quality emerging-markets stocks in a flight to cash. But in doing so, they often create fantastic buying opportunities.

Jeremy Grantham and his colleagues at Boston-based asset manager GMO are not known for being wide-eyed Pollyannas. They’re sober value investors best known for calling the last two major bear markets in 2000 and 2008. Perhaps not surprisingly, Grantham & Co. see U.S. stocks performing poorly over the next seven years, losing 3.7% per year. But interestingly, GMO expects emerging-markets stocks to return 5.2% per year over the next seven years. Even more interestingly, they see EM value stocks returning 9.8% per year.

Today, we’re going to look at 10 strong emerging-markets stocks that might give you a bit of heartburn, but ultimately should weather the trade war and reward new money. Most depend heavily on domestic EM consumers rather than on exports or trade flows, and all should be considered potential buys on any weakness in the coming months.

Disclaimer

Data is as of Sept. 3.

Charles Lewis Sizemore, CFA
Contributing Writer, Kiplinger.com

Charles Lewis Sizemore, CFA is the Chief Investment Officer of Sizemore Capital Management LLC, a registered investment advisor based in Dallas, Texas, where he specializes in dividend-focused portfolios and in building alternative allocations with minimal correlation to the stock market.