Templeton Emerging Markets Group has a wide investment universe to cover—tens of thousands of companies in markets on nearly every continent. While we are bottom-up investors, we also take into account big-picture context. Here, I share the Templeton Emerging Markets Group’s overview of what happened in the emerging-markets universe in the first quarter of 2017, including some key events, milestones and data points going back a bit further to offer some perspective.
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Overview
Country Updates and Key Developments
For those who are interested in really diving into the numbers, I am including some country updates that show changes in key economic indicators and measures more recently and going back further.
In Asia, Indian and South Korean equity markets made strong advances in the first quarter, as both markets benefited from local currency strength.
Several economists trimmed their 2017 gross domestic product (GDP) growth forecasts for India, expecting a temporary negative impact on consumption from cash shortages resulting from last-year’s surprise move to withdraw large-denominated currency notes from circulation. However, growth is still expected to be strong, forecast at 7.2% in 2017 and 7.7% in 2018, making India one of the fasting-growing major economies in the world.3
We continue to favor companies in the consumer sector in India that we feel are well placed to benefit from higher per-capita income and growing demand for goods and services, which, in turn, should support the earnings-growth outlook for consumer-oriented stocks.
In addition, India’s ruling party scored gains in state elections, and legislation related to the incoming Goods-and-Services Tax continued to progress.
