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Thursday, 20 June 2013

In the midst of the fog we can’t see what is in front of us…..



In recent weeks there has been strong sell-offs across the markets. Some of the hardest hit regions are Asia, Emerging and Frontier Markets. I am a strong believer in these regions for a number of reasons, but that would take several blogs for me to expand on this.

I just want to expand on one aspect and this is the new middle class. Middle class is defined as anyone earning between $10 and $100 a day.

In 2009 there were 1.8 billion middle class people on this planet; this is expected to grow to 4.9 billion by 2030. Asia will make up 3.2 billion of this, with Europe sitting around 0.68 billion and North America 0.32 billion.

We can see the impact of this, in China 2,500 vehicles are sold every HOUR. Ghana has seen an 81% increase in car ownerships in 5 years.

India is expected to be the biggest middle class population by 2030 (475 million), Africa and the Middle East 341 million and Latin America 313 million.

There is actually good news behind the gradual withdrawal of QE in the US but this has spooked the markets, with advising clients this information is like gold dust. Why should you consider these regions and should you be reducing exposure? The reality once the fog clears is that these regions will be a major part of our lives within the next twenty years, if they are not already and volatility doesn’t change that story.

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