Rising Asian affluence boosts consumer shares
Stocks of consumer discretionary companies have jumped significantly as region's middle class expands
Bangkok
WHEN Samak Srisarakham first came to Bangkok as an 11-year-old with his older brother, he slept in bare-bones communal bedding next to a tennis court. He could barely imagine growing up to a life of fancy restaurants, new clothes and the latest electronics.
Yet 30 years later, he's a tennis coach in the Thai capital, and a perfect illustration of what former Goldman Sachs Asset Management chair Jim O'Neill calls "the biggest story in the world" when it comes to investing: the rise of the emerging-market consumer.
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