Chaoda Modern Agriculture (Holdings) Ltd., a Chinese vegetable grower that's based in Hong Kong, is down 14% in 2011. Jakarta-based PT Astra Agro Lestari, Indonesia's biggest listed plantation company, has fallen 16% this year even after palm oil prices reached an almost three year-high on Feb. 10.
Toyota Motor Corp. and Honda Motor Co., Japan's largest carmakers, advanced at least 14% in 2011. Both companies are based in Tokyo. The Dow Jones Transportation Average, a measure of U.S. truckers and shippers that are considered proxies for the economy, reached a 32-month high on Feb. 16 and gained 3.7% this year.
Sport-Utility Vehicles
Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd., India's biggest sport-utility vehicle maker, slumped 17% this year after oil prices reached a 27-month high of $92.84 a barrel. The Mumbai-based company said in its Feb. 9 earnings release that it's concerned about higher commodity prices and further rate increases.
The cost of using options to protect against losses in developing-nation stocks is near a two-year high compared with contracts on U.S. stocks. Implied volatility, the key gauge of prices, for three-month options on the iShares MSCI Emerging Markets Index exchange-traded fund is 1.5 times the level for options on the SPDR S&P 500 ETF and was 1.7 times higher on Feb. 9, the highest level since November 2008.
"The skies are bluer in the developed markets," said John Praveen, Newark, New Jersey-based chief investment strategist at Prudential International Investments Advisers, a unit of Prudential Financial Inc., which oversees $750 billion. "You have low inflation, low interest rates and growth picking up."