Mark Mobius upbeat on emerging economies

Global investment guru Mark Mobius has a positive outlook on emerging economies in the long term and believes that their stock markets would be at much higher levels in the course of year than present levels.

Mobius, the Franklin Templeton executive who pioneered emerging markets' investing, on his blog post said, "From a long-term perspective, we continue to have a positive outlook on emerging economies".

"We believe that emerging stock markets could be much larger than they are today, and over the long term, their combined value could potentially exceed the combined value of the US, Japanese and European equity markets," Mobius added.

The year 2011 was a tough one for global as well as emerging equity markets. As per MSCI Emerging Markets Index as of December 31, 2011, emerging market equities as a whole ended the year with double-digit declines.

The largest declines were recorded by markets like Egypt, where political unrest flared up through much of the year, eastern European markets such as Turkey, Hungary and Poland, which were affected by regional concerns, and India, which saw a series of monetary tightening measures as the central bank battled to contain rising inflation.

"The high-growth economies of China and other emerging Asian and Latin American countries lost some momentum as the year wore on, but to us they now appear poised for softer landings than their developed-market counterparts," Mobius added.

Interestingly, however, in the year 2011, the importance of large emerging economies such as India and China got strengthened in the eyes of the investors, he said.

"While several developed economies are still plagued by worries about their sovereign debt levels, many emerging economies are characterised by high growth rates, low debt-to- GDP ratios, and high foreign reserves," the executive chairman of Templeton's Emerging Markets Group said.

These fundamental strengths are likely to continue in the months and years ahead, and would eventually be reflected in the earnings and share prices of emerging-market companies, over time, believe Mobius, but warned that going forward, high inflation and market volatility will be the two main risks for emerging stock markets.

Though inflation has eased slightly in some emerging economies allowing them to move to a more stimulative monetary policy, Mobius said, "we cannot exactly predict when the next market correction will hit us nor know how great or small it will be, but we do realise that market volatility is here to stay."