South Asia Investor Review

This ( China's $46 billion investment in Pakistan ) can not be purely politically driven. Beijing is commercial: CEO’s, not think tank intellectuals, travel with politicians.  Barron's Asia Spurred by  Chinese investment , the smart money is taking notice of Pakistan as an attractive investment destination. The investors are looking at the fact that Pakistani stocks have been outperforming both emerging and frontier markets for several years. The benchmark index of the Karachi Stock Exchange (KSE100) is up more than 20% in the last 12 months, according to  NASDAQ.com . Pakistani Shares in 2015: After a dismal March, MSCI Pakistan rebounded strongly this month, returning 9.1% so far. In April, the iShares MSCI Frontier 100 ETF (FM) rose 4.3%, the WisdomTree India Earnings Fund (EPI) dropped 1.2%, the iShares MSCI India ETF (INDA) fell 1.9%, according to  Barron's Asia . Source: Economist Magazine KSE-100 Performance: In 2014, the KSE-100 Index gained 6,8...

"The bottom line is that Pakistan is not going to go away. We want to buy stocks that look cheap as prices come down as a result of the flood." Mark Mobius, Head, Templeton Asset Management Ltd Pakistan's main shares index KSE-100 rose 28% (26% in US dollar terms) in year 2010, as profits registered 14% growth and dividend yields of 5.2% in the companies making up the index. The market gains were driven by significant foreign buying, particularly by insitutional investors after the massive summer floods in KP, Punjab and Sindh provinces. Foreign institutional investors bought $1.2 billion worth of shares, and sold about $687 million, with the net FII capital inflow of $522 million during the year. One example of renewed foreign institutional buying after the post-floods market is Mark Mobius of the Templeton Asset Management Ltd , as reported by Businessweek . “There will be an impact on growth but company valuations are very, very attractive now and therefore we continu...