Asian markets have not been kind to investors this summer – many are still 20% off the highs they hit this year.
But amid all the drama, it’s worth remembering why so many people poured so much money into Asia in the first place – to try for a piece of the extraordinary economic growth of the past five years.
Then it’s worth remembering that stock markets and economies are different things.
The fact that equity markets have fallen sharply does not necessarily say anything about the future of economic growth in Asia – just that most markets were overvalued.
The case for Asian growth over the longer term is still extremely good. There is no reason to suppose that Indian GDP will stop growing at its current 7% to 8%, for example. Investors should therefore still have exposure to the region.
But given that local equity markets are likely to be volatile for some time, vulnerable as they are to worries over the US economy and global interest rates, how should they achieve that exposure? One answer might be to invest in the commodity that a growing Asia needs most – energy.
Asia is far from self-sufficient in this area. South Korea, Taiwan and Japan have to import nearly all the energy they need while, according to analysts at specialist Asian broker CLSA, China imports almost half the oil it uses and India imports more like 70%.
Given this and the rising price of oil, it is no surprise the big Asian economies are looking hard at the different ways they might be able to increase domestic production of energy.
This means stepping up their use of biofuels – Asian ethanol production is forecast to grow by 300% over the next five years – and of wind power. But more than anything, it means that nuclear power is suddenly back in fashion.
China and India between them have 10 new nuclear reactors under construction and nine at the planning stage. Another 43 have been proposed.
Pakistan, Indonesia and Vietnam also use nuclear power.
There is, of course, growing demand for it elsewhere in the world, thanks to the rising oil price and to the green lobby. (In so successfully publicising the global warming problem and pushing forward Kyoto, the greens have made nuclear, with its zero carbon monoxide emissions, look an extremely attractive energy option to both the public and to politicians).
But it is Asia, says CLSA, that forms ‘the core of a global renaissance’ in nuclear power.
Investors in nuclear energy can look to the engineers who design power stations or to the builders who construct them. It is probably much simpler, however, just to invest in firms that produce the raw material – uranium miners.
Those who climbed aboard when I suggested this a few years ago will have done well: the price of uranium has more than tripled in the past three years to around $45 a pound. The price of the last uranium stock I suggested, Canada-listed Cameco, has risen 60% in the past 12 months.
This is not because uranium is rare, but because not much of it is mined. For many years after the end of the Cold War there was little need to think about any shortage of uranium or to bother with opening new mines. Instead, the world just used the supply removed from decommissioned weapons.
Today, those inventories are pretty much gone, and the lack of new production is beginning to look like a problem. Unfortunately for the buyers of uranium, it is not a problem they are likely to see solved soon. Planning difficulties and safety issues mean that it not only takes a long time to get new mines up and running – often 10 years – but it is also extremely expensive to do so.
The supply/demand gap in the uranium market is here to stay, making it likely that the price will keep rising for some time. Some expect it to reach $50 by the end of this year.
Taking advantage of this is simply a matter of investing in the right uranium mining firm.
I would still hold Cameco, but CLSA suggests looking at Australian uranium miners such as Paladin Resources, Berkeley Resources, Equinox Minerals, Nova Energy and Uranex.
First published in The Sunday Times (02/07/2006)