Indian stocks offer good bargains: Mark Mobius

Stocks in India and China offer "good bargains" after declines this year dragged down valuations in Asia's two largest emerging markets, Templeton Asset Management's Mark Mobius said. "We've been rearranging the portfolio based on valuations, which have come down pretty dramatically in places like India and China," Mobius, oversees emerging- market equities as executive chairman of Templeton, said in Toronto. "There've been big declines." The two most populous nations are the worst performers among largest global stock markets this year as soaring raw material prices and slowing economic growth weigh on profits. Benchmarks in the two nations had surged 162 per cent and 47 per cent, respectively, in 2007.
Mobius joins investor Jim Rogers in favoring Chinese stocks. Rogers, who said he hasn't sold any of the Chinese equities he started buying 1999, told investors not to "give up" on the nation's stock markets. The Chinese stock benchmark is the third-worst performer among the 88 global indexes tracked by Bloomberg, plunging 42 per cent this year in dollar terms on concern that the cooling economy, which expanded last quarter at the slowest pace since 2005, will damp profits. Stocks in other emerging markets are still cheaper. The MSCI Emerging Markets Index is valued at 13 times reported earnings and traded at about 12 times last week, the lowest since July 2006. The index dropped 17 per cent in 2008, and fell to an 11-month low on July 16.