2011年2月20日

兔年看好中国股市 Rabbit that will shape China’s future

 

新年伊始,我不知道此时是否该重新审视自己从2008年第四季度以来的观点——即市场总体看涨。面对人们对前景越来越普遍存在的一些担忧,我开始问自己,是否该收敛乐观的看法?

简短而言,无论是过去还是现在,答案都是否定的。中国股市的估值并未明显高于其长期趋势水平,投资者行为也不像市场见顶时那样激进。流入股市的资金并不过量,许多投资者继续攀爬“忧虑之墙”(wall of worry)——这正是牛市的典型特征。

我在中国生活了将近一年,对投资中国的理由深信不疑,这影响到了我的观点。中国并不只是寻常的新兴市场。它是在亚洲占据主导地位的经济体,也是世界上最重要的两个国家之一。这将持续对投资者产生重大影响。

从上周开始,中国进入了兔年。对于中国而言,这是关键的一年。它将决定这个全球第一人口大国能否成功地在持续增长与遏制通胀之间实现平衡。今年3月,我们将看到中国“十二五规划”的全部细节——而明年中国共产党新一任总书记将会上台。这种政治换届让我相信,今年中国政府将避免出台任何过于突然的举措。

中国在金融危机期间受到了冲击。它认识到了自己对全球其它国家(尤其是美国)的依赖是多么严重。从现在开始,中国的政策将侧重于让本国经济更为独立自主,减轻对出口的依赖。中国作为低成本世界工厂的时代已经过去。

由于经常来往于欧亚之间,我不断看到一个“双速”世界的出现。随着过度举债的国家偿还自己背负的巨额债务,发达国家的增长将低于金融危机爆发前的水平。新兴市场将不会免受这种放缓的影响,但它们将实现较高的增长,资金将持续流入这些国家。

不过,中国经济增长的驱动力量将会发生改变。消费将变得越来越重要,服务业——比如教育、医药和金融服务——将出现强劲增长。相对而言,低成本制造业、大宗商品和基础设施已成为昨日黄花。

这并非轻率地拒绝考虑许多投资者对中国的担忧,尤其是在日前中国再度加息25个基点之后。我认为,包括中国在内的所有新兴市场,将不得不习惯结构性的通胀上升。目前,食品价格通胀正推动物价不断上涨——它占到了中国消费者价格指数(CPI)涨幅的70%左右。

我的结论与那些担忧中国通胀的人有所不同。但收紧货币政策并非与食品相关通胀的解决之道,因此我相信,中国政府将会慎重使用利率工具来解决价格压力。我赞成如下观点:中国政府甚至可能乐于见到食品价格上涨,将其视为一种提高农村收入的方式。农村居民收入一直落后于城市。

重要的是要认识到,中国消费者不会像西方消费者那样,受到利率不断上升的影响。消费贷款在中国还很不成熟,尽管它在发展。由于储蓄率很高,中国消费者甚至可能从加息中受益。

我目前的投资方法与我在英国管理资金时的方法略有不同,更接近于我在欧洲大陆运用的方法——那时我正在波兰和匈牙利等当时的新兴市场中寻找机遇。总体而言,我对两类机遇感兴趣。第一,我发现了大量业绩每年增长20%-30%的公司,就像是处于发展初期的西方企业。尽管这些公司价格有些高昂,但由于增长前景更好,估值是合理的。

第二类企业增长得较为缓慢——比如说15%至20%——但它们的吸引力在于,这些公司的股价远低于西方企业。

对于像我这样的选股者来说,中国是一个充满投资机遇的宝库。在过去10个月左右的时间里,我出席了大约340场公司会议。并非所有公司都符合我的预期,我花了大量时间反复核对它们的管理或财务是否表里如一。然而,我相信,在一个相对而言仍被研究得不够充分的市场,发现别人未能发现的机遇的几率比较高。即使对总体市场前景不那么乐观,对于在这里找到的选股良机我也持乐观态度。

注:本文作者是富达国际基金(Fidelity International)投资经理。

译者/何黎


http://www.ftchinese.com/story/001036928


 

At the start of the year, I wondered if it was time to reassess the generally bullish view of markets that I had held since the last quarter of 2008. Faced with some increasingly widely-held concerns about the outlook, I began to question whether I should temper my optimism.

The short answer was, and remains, no. Valuations are not materially higher than their long-term trend and the behaviour of investors is not as aggressive as it tends to be at market tops. Flows into equities are not excessive and many investors continue to scale the wall of worry which is typical of a bull market.

My view is coloured by a continuing conviction about the case for investing in China, where I have been living for almost a year. China is not just any emerging market. It is the dominant economy in Asia and one of the two most important in the world. This will continue to have important repercussions for investors.

The year of the rabbit, which began last week, is a pivotal one for China. It will determine whether the world’s most populous nation can achieve a successful balance between sustaining growth and containing inflation. In March, we will see the full detail of China’s next five-year plan (the 12th) – and next year will see a new president take the reins. This political changing of the guard gives me confidence that the authorities will resist

doing anything too dramatic this year.

China had a shock during the financial crisis. It realised how dependent it was on the rest of the world and, in particular, the US. Policy will from now on be geared towards making the Chinese economy more self-reliant and much less dependent on exports. The days of China as the low-cost workshop of the world

are gone.

Travelling between Europe and Asia, I continue to see the emergence of a two-speed world. Growth in the developed world will be lower than before the financial crisis as the countries that over-extended unwind the high levels of debt with which they have saddled themselves. Emerging markets will not be immune to that slowdown but they will enjoy

higher growth and money will continue to flow towards them.

The drivers of growth in China will change, however. Consumption will become increasingly important and service industries – such as education, as well as pharmaceuticals and financial services – will experience strong growth. Low-cost manufacturing, commodities and infrastructure are, relatively speaking, yesterday’s story.

This is not to dismiss lightly the concerns many investors feel about China today, not least after this week’s further quarter-point increase in interest rates. I think that all emerging markets, China included, will have to get used to structurally higher inflation. Rising prices are currently being driven by food inflation, which accounts for around

70 per cent of the increase in China’s consumer

price index.

My conclusions are not the same as those who worry about inflation in China. But monetary tightening is not the answer to food-related inflation so I believe that the authorities will be measured in their use of interest rates to tackle price pressures. I have some sympathy with the argument that the government may even be comfortable with rising food costs as a means of lifting rural incomes which have lagged those

in the cities.

It is important to realise that Chinese consumers are not affected by rising interest rates in the same way as they are in the west. Consumer borrowing is very underdeveloped in China, although it is growing. With high levels of cash savings, Chinese consumers might even benefit from rising rates.

 

My approach to investing is a little different from the one I employed when managing money in the UK and closer to how I operated in continental Europe when I was looking for opportunities in then emerging markets such as Poland and Hungary. Broadly speaking, I am interested in two types of opportunity. First, I am finding plenty of companies that are growing their earnings at between 20 per cent and 30 per cent a year and look like their western counterparts but at an earlier stage of their development. Although these are a little more expensive, the valuations are justified by the higher growth prospects.

The second group is growing a little more slowly – say between 15 per cent and 20 per cent – but the attraction here is that these shares trade at a big discount to western companies.

For a stockpicker such as me, China is a treasure trove of investment opportunity. Over the past 10 months or so, I have had around 340 company meetings. Not all were what I expected and I spend a lot of time cross-checking whether the management or the financials are what they seem. In a market that is still relatively under-researched, however, I believe that the chance of discovering what others have missed is high. Even if I were less sanguine about the overall market outlook, I would be optimistic about the remarkable stockpicking opportunity I find here.

Anthony Bolton is president, investments, at Fidelity International


http://www.ftchinese.com/story/001036928/en

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