When it comes to emerging markets, investors focus a lot of attention on the BRIC nations, Brazil, Russia, India and China. When it comes to BRIC, Brazil and China get most of the attention. China is a once-in-a-lifetime growth story, and Brazil has become the tenth largest economy in the world due to its natural resources. Russia is somewhat overlooked because of its contentious political history.

Outsourcing giants China and India take the lead in this revolution. According to findings by the BDO 2010 Technology Outlook Survey, China ranks as the number one preferred outsourcing destination for both current and future markets. After China are Southeast Asia and India. According to Dell Services (NASDAQ: DELL) estimates and a KPMG report, Asia would be starting the reversal of the IT outsourcing trend as more western companies have found it cheaper and better to invest in eastern markets such as China and India. Even countries in the east have started to outsource their IT needs, and according to some analysts Asia will account for 26.3 percent of the global consumption of IT and business process outsourcing services in the next decade, up from nearly 20 percent currently. In fact, with the expected rise of the outsourcing industry, Asia’s chip makers are also expected to see improvement in their earnings.

The BSE Sensex and NSE Nifty closed with gains of around 343 points (2.1%) and 95 points (1.9%) respectively. Mid and small cap stocks also closed with gains. The BSE Midcap and BSE Smallcap indices closed higher by 2.2% and 2.3% respectively. Among key Asian markets, while China and Hong Kong closed marginally in the red, India and Korea were among the lead gainers. European markets have opened lower today. The rupee is trading at 46.04 to the dollar.

Cummins, Inc. has a market cap of $11.2B, and it is

Via Bloomberg: (My comments in parenthesis)

I was fortunate enough to drive “the people’s car” on a recent trip to India (that’s me in the photo).

If you have any Malthusian bones in your body, [Mar 24, 2008: WSJ - New Limits to Growth Revive Malthusian Fears] [Jun 20, 2008: World Population to Hit 7 Billion by 2012] you have to wonder - as certain countries waste all their national treasure on bailing out banks, financing the lifestyles of those who refuse to save for themselves and funding pet projects of their politicians, while others are attempting to snatch up as many long-lived assets across the globe as possible - what the long term implications will be. This is more or less parallel to a company that lives for today - happy to kick the can down the road - rather than spends heavily on R&D to prosper for tomorrow. Of course, any such national directives would be considered "socialistic" in certain countries, hence anathema to even consider as national policy. Oh well, much better to send countless paper monies out into the atmosphere to help prop up home prices and capital market values from going where they belong - a much sounder national directive.

Whether or not gold beats all other asset classes again this decade as it did from 2000-2010, "What drives gold is a changing world," the founder and chairman of the world's largest gold producer, Barrick Mining, is quoted as saying by the Tages Anzeiger newspaper. "We sit here at the beginning of a new world."

The BSE Sensex and NSE Nifty closed with gains of around 50 points (0.3%) and 20 points (0.4%) respectively. Mid and small cap stocks however closed in the red. The BSE Midcap and BSE Smallcap indices closed down by 0.6% and 0.9% respectively. On the broader BSE, just one stock gained today for every two that closed in the red.

US: Washington, housing
Volume and volatility could pick up in markets that are sensitive to the dollar and Treasury auctions. Then there’s a GDP revision and a potential decline for the Case-Shiller index. But all eyes are on the health-care summit, hearings on Toyota (TM) and Fed chief Ben Bernanke on Capitol Hill.