My latest article on SeekingAlpha lists out the ticker symbols of the HowMuch.net 2017 list of the World’s most valuable brands.
In it, I pull out four main themes from these top brands which can be attractive basket trades:
Theme #1: BRICs banks
Overall, three of the top brands on the above list with relatively attractive valuations are banks in three of the four BRIC countries: Itau in Brazil, Sberbank (OTCPK:SBRCY) in Russia, and ICBC in China. If we want to look past the Tata top brand in India, we could choose either State Bank of India (OTC:SBKJY) or ICICI Bank (IBN) to complete a four stock, value portfolio of well-known BRICs banks. This basket could be a more focused alternative to the iShares MSCI Emerging Markets Index ETF (EEM) or other EM or BRICs basket, as banks are generally some of the largest and most diversified components of many emerging markets indices. I sometimes consider Canada to be more like an emerging market than a developed market (as it relies heavily on oil and metals and the banks that finance their extraction), so could also include RY to extend this basket to BRICC or loop RY in with the oil basket below.
Theme #2: Telecom
The top brands in Australia, Indonesia, Britain, and France were their telecoms, and Korea’s Samsung electronics is largely trading on the brand of its phones which a large share of consumers use to access those telecoms.…
Theme #3: Oil
Shell, Statoil (NYSE:STO), ENI, PTT, and Ecopetrol (NYSE:EC) are more global oil plays than national consumer investments, but it may say something about the Netherlands, Norway, Italy, Thailand, and Colombia that their most valuable brands are oil companies…
Theme #4: Autos
GM CEO and US Defense secretary Charles Wilson famously said “What’s good for General Motors is good for the country” and vice versa. While the US big 3 auto companies have long fallen off the list of most valuable brands and largest US companies, Toyota, BMW, and Tata (which now owns Jaguar Land Rover) still top this list in Japan, Germany, and India respectively…
More details of these in the full article.
Until next time,
Tariq