2008年那场大危机中新兴市场大跌超过50%，之后，一个投资策略一下就流行起来了，也就是通过买跨国公司的股票，间接受益于快速成长的市场。类似可口可乐（Coca-Cola）这样的巨无霸公司很少会像发展中市场的本土竞争对手那样出现大起大落。它们的产品销往巴西、印度和中国等所有最热门的市场。而且，如今跨国公司的首席执行官们似乎言必称新兴市场。

    两年前，高盛（Goldman Sachs）的策略师们做出了一项推荐。他们选出了被称为金砖四国“漂亮50”（BRICs Nifty 50）的两篮子股票，其中一个篮子是新兴市场股票，另一个是有新兴市场业务的跨国公司股票。这些策略师们的建议是，可根据哪类股票提供更好的相对价值或增长前景，在两个篮子间来回跳转。过去5年，这两个篮子都有不错的增长。

    但现在欧洲经济岌岌可危，美国经济复苏缓慢，投资者们心里又打起了小算盘。新兴市场咨询机构 Emerging Global Advisors的创始人罗伯特•赫德斯称，人们都说跨国公司为希望投资高速成长市场的投资者们提供了第二条道路。然而，真相是当投资者着眼于新兴市场而买进跨国公司股票时，他们同时也买入了这些公司正在走下坡路的发达市场业务。“这一点机打的稀释了（投资价值），” 他说。

    赫德斯的观点是像百胜餐饮集团（Yum! Brands）、可口可乐这样的公司在新兴市场的成功故事让投资者变得盲目。以肯德基（KFC）、塔可钟（Taco Bell）的母公司——百胜餐饮为例，过去5年间，它在中国的销售额每年增长20%。公司的最新年报写道：“在中国，我们仍处于发展的初期阶段。”

    问题是同样在这5年里，百胜餐饮的美国销售额每年下降6%，从56亿美元降到了41亿美元。两者综合起来的结果是：公司销售额只有凑合的个位数增长。百胜餐饮的股价已大涨了不少。但你能肯定其海外业务未来的增长会填补其美国国内业务的放缓吗？还有，你有把握一直选到最好的跨国公司股票吗？

    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 CEOs seem to begin every conversation with a story about these far-flung markets.

    Goldman Sachs strategists came out with an endorsement two years ago. They composed two baskets of stocks and called them the BRICs Nifty 50. One includes emerging market companies; the other has multinationals with exposure to emerging markets. The strategists concluded that you could hop back and forth between the baskets, depending which stocks offered better relative value or growth prospects. And over the past five years, both groups have risen nicely.

    But now, with European economies in shambles and the U.S. undergoing a slow recovery, investors are turning that wisdom on its head. The myth of multinationals, says Robert Holderith, founder of Emerging Global Advisors, is that they provide investors an alternative path into explosive growth markets. The truth is that when you buy multinationals for emerging markets, you also buy their sagging developed markets businesses. "It's too watered down," he argues.

    Holderith's point is that emerging market success stories from companies like Yum! Brands and Coca-Cola (KO) have blinded investors. Take Yum (YUM), parent company of fast-food restaurants including KFC and Taco Bell. Over the past five years, its sales in China have grown by 20% annually. "And we're just on the ground floor of growth in China," reads its latest annual report.

    The problem is that in the same time frame, Yum's U.S. sales fell by 6% annually -- from $5.6 billion to $4.1 billion. The overall result: a middling, single-digit sales growth rate. Yum shares have rocketed upward. But in the future can you trust its overseas growth to make up for its slowing home market? Moreover, can you consistently pick the best multinationals?

    施罗德（Schroders）新兴市场集团驻伦敦的产品经理艾伦•埃尔表示，两个涵盖更广的指数可以更清楚地解释直接投资新兴市场的理由。 两个股票指数——富时跨国企业指数（FTSE Multinationals Index，成份股为海外营收占比不低于30%的跨国企业）和富时新兴市场指数（FTSE emerging market index，成份股为几个新兴市场的本土公司）过去10年都给了投资者不错的回报。但在这期间，购买新兴市场公司股票的投资者年度回报率却高出13个百分点，年度回报率达到了19%。“在发达市场中，倾向于新兴市场的公司比一般公司要好，”埃尔称。“但还是赶不上新兴（市场）本土的公司。”

估值便宜且波动性降低

    赫德斯和施罗德都销售立足于新兴市场的基金，因此他们的观点并非没有偏见。不过，不管赞同哪一方的观点，有三点是无可争议的。第一，新兴市场指数的估值低于像标普500指数（S&P 500）这样的发达市场指数。第二，如今新兴市场股票的波动性较十年前已经大大降低。第三，新兴市场的股息增长率是发达市场的近三倍。

    经过过去一年的大跌之后，摩根士丹利新兴市场指数（MSCI Emerging Markets index）当前的动态市盈率为9倍，而标普500指数为12.5倍。仅凭这一数据，并不足以买进（新兴市场股票）。投资者依然很担心中国和巴西的市场，以及发达国家大规模去杠杆化将对新兴国家的影响。

    “新兴市场资产的估值还没有便宜到投资者可以无视（08年）那场危机的地步，” 汇丰（HSBC）策略师帕布罗•哥德伯格在最近发布的一份报告中表示。不过，缩水的估值确实能给新的投资者一个较低的门槛，让他们进入这个曾经高涨的市场。此外，哥德伯格还看到了一些希望。“新兴市场不全都是坏消息。美国经济数据好于预期，但衰退风险依然存在，中国经济硬着陆的风险被夸大了，新兴市场的决策层面对经济大环境恶化正在积极应对。”

    Broader indexes make clearer the argument for direct exposure, says Alan Ayres of Schroders' emerging markets group in London. Two stock indexes, the FTSE Multinationals index, which comprises companies with at least 30% of sales earned outside their home market, and the FTSE emerging market index, which includes companies based directly in several developing markets, each paid investors well over the past decade. But investors who bought emerging markets companies earned 13 more percentage points annually over the period, for a 19% annual gain. "Developed companies with that bias towards emerging markets do better than normal developed companies," Ayres says, "but not as well as emerging [market] companies."

Cheap and less volatile

    Both Holderith and Schroders market funds based on emerging markets, so their opinions aren't without biases. But whatever side you agree with, three things aren't debatable. First, emerging market indices are cheaper than developed market ones like the S&P 500. Second, emerging market stocks are far less volatile than they were just a decade ago. Third, dividends are growing nearly three times as fast in emerging markets than in developed ones.

    After slumping for the past year, the MSCI Emerging Markets index trades at 9 times expected earnings over the next 12 months compared to 12.5 times for the S&P 500. The data alone aren't a case to buy. Investors are still plenty worried about markets in China and Brazil, and the effect massive deleveraging in developed countries will have on emerging countries.

    "Valuations of emerging markets assets are not cheap enough to suggest that investors should look through the crisis," HSBC strategist Pablo Goldberg writes in a recent report. Still, reduced valuations do offer new investors a reduced entry point into formerly skyrocketing markets. Goldberg also offers some hope. "Yet not all is bad news out there. US economic data have surprised on the upside but recession risks remain, fears of a China hard landing are exaggerated and emerging market policymakers are reacting to a weaker economic backdrop."

    第二点是，新兴市场的波动性较前些年大大减弱。股票的波动性大致可看贝塔值，即相对于大盘的表现指标。如果股市涨了10%，股票涨了20%，那么该股的贝塔值就是2。历史数据显示，新兴市场指数的贝塔值是标普500指数的1.8倍。而今随着发展中市场的业务日渐成熟、政府环境改善以及更成熟的投资者进入市场，这一比率已经降至1.2 倍。

    第三，发展中市场的股息增速也远高于发达市场。过去10年，摩根士丹利新兴市场指数的股息年增幅为15%，大大高于标普500指数5%的股息年增幅。如今，这两个数据分别为3.5%和2.1%。过去3年，发展中市场的股息都保持了正增长，而标普500指数的股息却减少了5%。

    普通投资者可以有几种方式来尝试投资新兴市场。交易所交易基金（Exchange-traded funds）提供了广泛的股票组合，收取的管理费却只是共同基金的一个零头。最热门的ETF是先锋基金公司（Vanguard）的摩根士丹利新兴市场ETF（MSCI Emerging Markets ETF），该基金持有韩国三星电子（Samsung Electronics）和中国互联网公司腾讯（Tencent）等大盘股，管理费费率仅为0.22%。PowerShares FTSE RAFI新兴市场投资组合（The PowerShares FTSE RAFI Emerging Markets Portfolio）与先锋基金公司的基金相似，但它是根据公司账面价值和现金流来决定新兴市场公司的权重，而不是公司的市值。这个策略能够避免持有过多泡沫型股票。该投资组合的管理费费率为0.85%。赫德斯旗下的Emerging Global Advisors公司管理着一支专注于新兴市场消费支出的ETF，持有包括墨西哥和印度等国龙头企业在内的30家公司。该ETF的管理费费率0.85%。

    如今，是否应该持有新兴市场的股票已毫无争议，因为新兴市场的高增长无人可及。但怎样投资才能充分受益于新兴市场的增长，相关争论可能才刚刚开始升温。

    The second point is that emerging markets are much less volatile than they have been in recent history. A stock's volatility is roughly approximated by its beta, a calculation of its relation to the broader market. If the market rises by 10%, and a stock rises by 20%, it's said to have a beta of 2. Emerging market indexes historically recorded a beta of roughly 1.8 times that of the S&P 500. Today it has fallen to 1.2 as developing businesses mature, governments improve, and more sophisticated investors enter markets.

    Third, skyrocketing dividend growth rates in the developing world aren't even close to those in developed markets. Over the past 10 years, the MSCI Emerging Market index has grown dividends by 15% annually compared to 5% in the S&P 500. It now yields 3.5% vs. the S&P's 2.1%. And in the past three years dividend growth in developing markets has stayed positive as the S&P 500's dividend payment has dropped by 5%.

    There are a couple ways regular investors can play it. Exchange-traded funds offer broad baskets of stocks and charge a management fee that's often just a fraction of those at mutual funds. The most popular ETF is Vanguard's MSCI Emerging Markets ETF, which holds large cap stocks such as Samsung Electronics of South Korea and China-based Tencent. It charges a fee of 0.22%. The PowerShares FTSE RAFI Emerging Markets Portfolio is similar to Vanguard's fund, except it weighs emerging market companies according to their book value and cash flow instead of market capitalization. That protects against holding too many bubble-type stocks. It charges 0.85%. Holderith's firm, Emerging Global Advisors, runs an ETF called focused on emerging market consumer spending which includes 30 leading companies in countries like Mexico and India. It charges 0.85%.

    For now, the argument whether to own emerging markets seems over: they offer growth found nowhere else. The fight over the best way to tap into it might just be heating up.