Local Investors in Asia Remain Wary About Re-Entering Game
As Asia's stock markets enjoy a foreign-fed rally, getting locals to join the party could be a tough sell.
Many locals in markets such as South Korea, Japan and Taiwan have held on tight to their money even as stock markets around the region have soared on the back of portfolio investment by foreigners. That could put last year's gains in places like Seoul, where the benchmark index rose almost 30%, and Tokyo, which rose 24%, on a shaky foundation, as traditionally fickle foreign funds can pull out of a market en masse.
For many individuals, there are searing memories of the last time they jumped in on a rally. "I don't have any plans to invest in the local stock market again," says Ms. Lee, a 30-year-old Korean reporter for a Seoul newspaper who asked that her first name be withheld. After losing money on a technology company recommended by a broker friend two years ago, Ms. Lee says she can no longer think about buying a house.
She and others feel there is a catch-22 for local investors: As foreigners become bigger players in local markets, so does the perception grow among locals that foreigners' whims, rather than domestic conditions, determine share prices. "The market rises when foreigners buy local stocks and falls when they sell the stocks. Investors like me can hardly make any profits," she says.
Since mid-2003, investing in Asia has proved an attractive proposition for foreign funds. As U.S. companies ramp up spending, the export-reliant economies and stock markets of most Asian countries tend to bounce back faster and with sharper gains than in the U.S., where manufacturing makes up a smaller part of the economy. The result is booming Asian markets and profits for global investors, who can then take their profits and re-invest them in the traditionally more-stable stocks of companies in the U.S. in time to catch the bulk of the growth cycle.
But if local investors don't become convinced that the good times are back by the time foreigners start to sell, markets could be in for a sharp setback.
One exception has been Bangkok, where Thais became the dominant players in their market in the middle of last year, just in time to continue a rally started by foreigners, many of whom have since bailed out.
In the first half of last year, foreigners bought a net 19 billion baht ($483.8 million) of Thai shares. But from July through December, foreigners were net sellers of 44 billion baht of shares. Despite those sales, the Thai market rose 63% in the second half and was up about 117% for the year, the top-performing market in Asia. What happened, says Mark Matthews, head of Thai sales at brokerage firm CLSA in Bangkok, is that "locals started believing in the recovery story that foreigners had started buying into six months earlier."
Mr. Matthews sees two main factors that brought Thais back. The first is that interest rates are so low "that people just aren't getting any return by keeping their money in a bank any more." That's true throughout Asia, he says. The second factor was hard evidence in people's daily lives of a recovery. Paychecks started getting bigger, layoff notices dropped off and consumer-confidence indicators started rising.
But replicating that elsewhere in Asia might be difficult. In South Korea, for example, last year's stock-market gains came despite an economic slowdown induced by the pricking of a consumer-credit bubble. Foreigners may have been looking at the global-growth cycle, but Koreans were looking at empty wallets and at listed companies average earnings per share of which fell 20% in 2003.
Some analysts believe that picture may be starting to change. Once the Korean economy picks up, "we should see locals coming back to the equity market," Citigroup's chief Asian economist Don Hanna wrote in a report to clients recently. At the end of January, the most recent period for which data are available, foreigners owned 42% of the entire market capitalization in the country.
In Taiwan, where foreign participants own about 12% of market capitalization, domestic market players are closely watching for signs that global investors may be starting to take profits after shares in the country hit their highest level in more than three years in February.
Japan's economy has started to pick up as well, and consumer-confidence surveys there have indicated the gloom may be lifting among Japanese households. Foreigners account for a lot of the market's gains, but there are signs that Japanese investors are stepping up.
Foreigners bought a net ￥9.5 trillion ($87 billion) of Japanese stocks last year, helping to push the Nikkei 225 Stock Average up about 24%. They have continued buying this year, with evidence emerging that a growing number of Japanese may join the party. A poll of Japanese fund managers conducted by Reuters in January suggested that they would allocate an average 32.3% of their funds to domestic stocks, the highest percentage recorded in the survey for more than seven years.
本地投资者对股市反弹无动于衷
亚洲股市在外资的推动下大幅反弹，而本地投资者可能只有在股市暴跌的情况下才会加入。
尽管亚洲地区股市因海外买盘的推动而飙升，但韩国、日本及台湾等市场的大多数本地投资者牢牢地持有现金，不愿投入到股市中。这可能使得去年以来股市上扬的基础并不牢固，原因在于海外资金一般都变化无常，随时可能集体从一个股市上撤出。去年韩国股市上涨了近30%，东京股市上涨了24%。
对许多个人投资者而言，上次股市反弹时买进股票给他们留下了惨痛的记忆。不愿透露名字的李女士说，她再也没有投资韩国股市的打算了。她是汉城一家报社的记者，今年30岁。两年前，她听了一位经纪商朋友的建议，买进了一家高科技公司的股票，结果发生亏损。她说，从此她也无法考虑购买房屋了。
李女士和其他人认为本地投资者面临一种困境：由于海外投资者是本地市场上不容忽视的力量，因此本地投资者越来越感觉到，是外资，而不是国内状况决定著股价。她说，当海外投资者买进本地股票时，股市就上涨，当他们卖出时，股市就下跌。像她一样的本地投资者很难获利。
自2003年年中以来，海外资金投资亚洲股市的兴趣越来越大。随著美国公司增加支出，依赖出口的多数亚洲国家的经济回升速度高于美国，其股市的涨幅也大于美国市场。其结果是亚洲股市的上涨和全球投资者利润的增加，那些海外投资者随后就可以获利回吐，将资金投入到更为稳定的美国公司中，尽可能不错过本轮经济增长创造的任何获利机会。
但如果在海外投资者开始卖出股票时，本地投资者并不认同好时光已经回来，股市就可能出现大幅下跌。
仅有的一个例外是曼谷，去年年中，本地投资者成为市场上的主要力量，就在他们开始推动股市继续上涨时，大多数海外投资者已经全身而退。
去年上半年，海外投资者净买入了190亿泰铢（4.838亿美元）的泰国股票。但从7月至12月，海外投资者净卖出了440亿泰铢的股票。尽管如此，泰国股市下半年仍上涨了63%，全年共上涨约117%，是表现最好的亚洲股市。里昂证券(CLSA)驻曼谷的泰国业务负责人马克?马修斯(Mark Matthews)说，这是由于本地投资者也开始相信经济正在复苏，而正是这一信念6个月前推动外国投资者开始买进泰国股票。
马修斯说，有两个主要因素导致了泰国股市的回升。第一个是，利率非常低，人们将现金存在银行中几乎得不到任何回报。整个亚洲地区基本都是这样。第二个因素是，人们切实感受到了日常生活的好转。工资开始增加，裁员减少，消费者信心指标开始上升。
但这一幕可能难以在亚洲其他地区重演。比如在韩国，尽管消费信贷泡沫的破裂导致经济继续滑坡，但去年的股市却依然上涨。海外投资者一直在关注著全球的增长周期， 但韩国人看到的是他们仍然不鼓的钱包。2003年韩国上市公司的平均每股收益下降了20%。
部分分析师认为，情况可能已开始出现变化。花旗集团(Citigroup)的首席亚洲经纪商唐?汉纳(Don Hanna)在近期给客户的报告中称，一旦韩国经济复苏，本地投资者可能重返股市。根据所能得到的最新数据，截至1月底，海外投资者持有韩国股票总市值的42%。
在台湾，海外投资者持有股票总市值的12%，在台湾股市2月份达到3年多来的最高点后，本地投资者一直在密切关注海外投资者可能开始获利回吐的迹象。
日本经济也开始回升，消费者信心调查显示，日本家庭的信心也开始增加。日本股市的上扬主要是由海外投资者推动，但有迹象显示，日本投资者也正在入市。
去年海外投资者净买进了9.5万亿日圆（870亿美元）的日本股票，推动日经225指数上涨了约24%。海外投资者今年仍在继续买进本地股票，有证据表明越来越多的日本投资者也开始加入到买方阵营。路透社(Reuters)在1月份对日本基金经理进行的一项调查显示，他们平均将把32.3%的资金投入本国股市，是7年多来此项调查的最高百分比。
