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Extending the light rail through Central Mesa is a step closer now that the Federal Transit Administration has approved Metro light rail’s request to enter the project development phase.

This means that Metro can start the engineering process of the 3.1-mile extension that runs along Main Street from the current end-of-line at Sycamore on the west side of town through downtown Mesa and on to Mesa Drive.

This is the first step in receiving $75 million from the federal government. The engineering contract is for $12.5 million and has been awarded to Jacobs Engineering, headquartered in Pasadena, Calif.

Preliminary and final engineering will take about two years and the Central Mesa extension is scheduled to be completed in 2016.

“Central Mesa is a solid project,” said Steve Banta, Metro CEO, in a news release. “While the FTA process is competitive, our project received a favorable rating and should fare well in its application for federal grant money.”

The total project cost is estimated at $200 million and will be paid for using a mix of regional and federal funds. The regional funding sources were approved by the voters in 2004 as part of Proposition 400, according to John Farry, spokesperson for Metro.

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Two years after the credit squeeze began, Americans are still pulling back.

A government report released Thursday showed that consumer credit fell at an annual rate of 4.5% in May, making it the fourth consecutive month of declining credit.

Total consumer credit fell a seasonally adjusted $9.1 billion to $2.4 trillion, the Federal Reserve reported.

Economists had predicted a decline in total borrowing of $3 billion, according to a consensus estimate from Briefing.com.

"No one is shocked to see another decrease," said Tim Quinlan, an economist with Wells Fargo. "This report, combined with disappointing May retail sales report, is the latest indication of weakness in consumer spending."

The decline was led by a 10.5% drop in revolving credit, which includes credit card debt payday loans.

Non-revolving credit — car, personal and student loans, among other things — also decreased. It declined by $1.82 billion, or 1.5%.

The Fed on Thursday also revised its April figures. After originally reporting that credit had gone up by $1 billion, it now says credit decreased by $14.9 billion.

Quinlan expects consumer credit to continue to decline "as consumers try to gradually repair their balance sheets."

And consumers are being more conservative.

"We look to a modest growth in personal income, but now expect consumers to split that increase between spending and saving," Quinlan added. 

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Most major automakers reported U.S. sales strongly up from a year ago, but weaker than both May’s sales levels and industry forecasts.

The weaker-than-expected sales and the slower sales pace could be a sign that the weakening economic and jobs outlook is cutting into demand for cars.

Overall sales were up 14% from a year ago, according to sales tracker Autodata, but that left sales down 11% from a year ago. The seasonally-adjusted annual sales rate came in just under 11.1 million vehicles, the weakest reading since February.

Experts said rising worries about the economy are clearly cutting into dealer showroom traffic. A survey released Tuesday from the Conference Board found consumer confidence falling sharply and the percentage of Americans planning to buy a new car in the next six months falling to a record low of 1.2%, from 2.7% in May.

That’s a concern heading into the summer, which is typically a big sales season for automakers.

"It’s really a scary thing," said Jessica Caldwell, senior industry analyst at Edmunds.com. "The past week has been a barrage of bad economic news, and that’s not helping. I think it’s going to take a pick-up in the economy, more than new models or incentives to get sales going again."

The one thing going for most automakers are lower than normal inventories of new cars on dealer lots heading into the summer, despite the slowing sales. Jesse Toprak of TrueCar.com said automakers have all learned to limit production more than they did in the past. That will be bad news for consumers, though, since it means cash-back offers and other deals typical during the summer sales season will be tougher to find this year.

"When you have low demand and an abundance of supply, that generally triggers an incentive war. That’s not what we’re seeing this year," he said.

GM, the nation’s leading automaker, reported sales up 11% from a year ago, as the four brands it continues to actively sell — Chevrolet, Cadillac, Buick and GMC — posted a 36% rise. There was a 98% drop in sales for Hummer, Saturn, Pontiac and Saab, the four brands GM shed as part of the bankruptcy process. Those brands now make up only 0.3% of its sales as GM disposes of its remaining inventory.

But GM sales slipped 12.5% from May. Forecasts had been for a decline of between 8% and 10% compared to May.

Steve Carlisle, GM’s vice president of global product planning, said most of the decline from June was due to a 30% drop in fleet sales to businesses customers, such as rental car companies. The decline was planned due to the front-loading of those sales early in the year, he said low fee cash advance. Retail sales to customers declined only slightly from May.

"It’s not so far off expectations," Carlisle said. He added that GM is expecting retail sales to remain flat the rest of the summer.

George Pipas, Ford’s director of sales analysis, said the industry has been seeing modest improvement each quarter from the fourth quarter of 2009 to the second quarter, which closed out in June. He’s hopeful there will be further modest improvement in consumer demand going into the summer.

"I think modest is the operative word," he said.

Ford (F, Fortune 500) reported that sales at its Ford, Lincoln and Mercury brands were up 15% from a year ago, but down 13% from May. Forecasts had been for a 17% rise from a year ago.

Sales fell 29% from a year ago at its Volvo brand, which it is in the process of selling to Chinese automaker Geely.

Ford sales were enough to keep it ahead of Toyota Motor (TM) in competition for the nation’s No. 2 sales position. Toyota sales were up only 7% from a year ago, but that left it down almost 14% from May sales levels. Forecasts had been for a drop of 12% to 13% from May.

Jim Lentz, president and chief operating officer of Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A., said his company was pleased with its June sales results, but he acknowledged that "the entire automotive industry struggled in June as weakening consumer confidence weighed on sales."

Chrysler Group reported that its sales soared 35% from a year ago, but that was still down 12% from May levels. Chrysler, at least, was able to edge past forecasts, which had called for a year-over-year gain of 33%. Caldwell said Chrysler leaned heavily on fleet sales to support its sales total during the month. Chrysler does not break down the difference between fleet and consumer sales though.

Honda Motor reported only a 6% rise in sales compared to a year ago, which resulted in a 9% drop from May’s sales total. But that was better than Japanese rival Nissan, where June sales were up 11% from a year ago, but down 23% from May. Both fell short of forecasts.

Hyundai Motor Group, which includes both the Hyundai and Kia brands, was able to buck trends by posting a modest 3% gain from its May sales levels, and a 28% increase from a year ago. That topped the forecast of a 13% gain from 2009 levels. 

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Alibaba.com’s first U.S. acquisition will be small-business sales software company Vendio Services Inc. of San Mateo.

Terms of the deal, announced Thursday, were not disclosed. The deal is expected to close next month.

Alibaba, the giant Chinese Internet company based in Hangzhou, said the acquisition is part of its $100 million investment plan for AliExpress, a wholesale transaction platform operated by Alibaba.com.

With the deal, Alibaba picks up a company with more than 80,000 small-business customers in the United States that use Vendio software to sell across multiple online marketplaces.

Alibaba.com CEO David Wei called Vendio a “strong strategic fit” for the company.

“We continue to look for synergies and investment opportunities to grow our customer base, acquire additional technology and add new applications that will help our customer base grow and prosper,” Wei said in a press release.

Vendio will become a new business unit within Alibaba.com and will retain its own brand name and operations. Mike Effle, Vendio’s COO, will assume the role of CEO while current CEO, chairman and co-founder Rodrigo Sales becomes a strategic advisor to the company.

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Your Internet bill will go up $50 a month! You won’t be able to access your favorite Web site! Your Internet connection is going to slow to a crawl!

That’s just some of the rhetoric and doomsday scenarios flying back and forth over the contentious subject of "Net neutrality." Many of the sky-is-falling, self-serving arguments are standard Washington lobby shop speak, but the reality is quite different.

The talk heated up last week, after the Federal Communications Commission proposed regulatory changes that would give it a say in how the Internet is delivered to consumers.

Under the mandate, dubbed "Net neutrality," the FCC would require Internet providers, like phone and cable companies, to treat all Web content equally. That would prevent providers from restricting access to certain sites or applications, or even collecting fees to deliver some sites faster than others.

On one side, the Googles (GOOG, Fortune 500), Yahoos (YHOO, Fortune 500), Amazons (AMZN, Fortune 500) and eBays (EBAY, Fortune 500) of the world say Net neutrality is crucial because it would foster an environment where cool new things on the Web could develop, and it would prevent Internet providers from blocking access to sites like Hulu and YouTube that carry a heavy strain on the network. It would also prevent Internet providers that own media companies from favoring their own content over others’.

On the other side, the Comcasts (CMCSA, Fortune 500), AT&Ts (T, Fortune 500), Verizons (VZ, Fortune 500) and Time Warner Cables (TWC, Fortune 500) of the world say they have been able to provide very good and increasingly better Internet access to customers without any regulation from the FCC. They say Net neutrality would slow down their Internet service and that the costs would be too prohibitive.

Independent analysts say there are elements of truth to both arguments.

"There appears to be very little risk that broadband service providers would severely discriminate against traffic or content from competing companies," said Daniel Hays, partner at consultancy PRTM. "But the flip side of that is the reality that they want to be able to discriminate against applications and users that unfairly clog their networks."

Here’s a quick look at some of the changes you might see if Congress approves the FCC’s proposals:

Will my Internet bill go up?

Your broadband service probably won’t cost more than the incremental amount your bill already goes up every year.

"It’s unclear how any regulatory changes might get back to consumers," said Doug Williams, broadband analyst at Forrester Research. "That sounds like a lot of saber rattling on the part of the carriers."

But it’s not just the carriers touting higher prices. An independent Frost & Sullivan study found that a Net neutrality law could raise consumers’ broadband bills by $10 to $50 a month.

Here’s why. Regulation would make providing Internet service less cost-effective for broadband companies, according to the study. That means companies would likely stop building out their networks. However, if the FCC decided to force carriers to continue increasing capacity and service, those costs would be passed onto consumers.

Cable and phone companies have been using the report to fight the FCC’s proposal. But the study is based on the assumption that the FCC would propose broader and stricter regulations than the ones it actually has proposed.

In fact, historical precedent also suggests the Frost & Sullivan study is far fetched: After AT&T merged with Bell South in late 2006, the FCC subjected AT&T to a two-year Net neutrality rule. During that time, AT&T’s broadband prices did not rise, and AT&T actually invested more in their infrastructure on their own volition.

"Empirically, it doesn’t prove to be the case that increased regulations will result in higher consumer prices," said Markham Erikson, executive director of the Open Internet Coalition, a group that supports Net neutrality.

How would it impact my service?

Net neutrality would force Internet providers to provide their customers with access to any Web site. But that’s what the broadband companies have been doing for years — without any regulation.

It’s an extraordinarily rare occurrence when a service provider denies its customers access to a Web site, app or program. Comcast’s temporary block on some peer-to-peer networks that were clogging up its network in 2007 is one of the only examples. Some mobile companies have also instituted restrictions, like AT&T’s ban of the Sling media app on the iPhone and Verizon’s blocking of pro-abortion text messages in 2007.

"Excluding content providers does not make good business sense, especially with a growing number of alternatives, like 4G," said Mike Jude, analyst at Frost & Sullivan.

Analysts said it’s much more likely that broadband providers will begin charging customers for the amount of data they download, just like wireless companies charge more for packages with a greater number of minutes.

Since a Net neutrality law would ensure that customers can download or upload whatever they please, some are worried that users will soon experience system bottlenecks that slow down their Internet speeds (think AT&T and the iPhone). But carriers, including AT&T, continue to spend billions of dollars a year improving network capacity, and the communications industry has been resilient about making improvements during tougher regulatory periods in the past.

"Ultimately, we’re talking about very large broadband pipes out there, which can provide 100 megabit speeds," said Jude. "Is Net neutrality a concern? Yes, but that doesn’t supercede the carriers’ purpose of deploying the network in the first place." 

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Out-of-pocket costs for the millions of Americans with employer-based health coverage rose again in the past year, although at a slower pace than the year before, according to a new industry report released Tuesday.

However, as employers prepare to make health reform’s mandated changes to their benefits plans later this year, the changes could shift some costs away from workers and raise them for companies.

American workers spent 7.4% more on their health care coverage over the past year, according to the sixth annual survey conducted by health care consulting firm Milliman Inc. The increase translates to about $506 more that workers contributed to their care - $321 for their company’s health plan and $185 for employee out-of-pocket expenses.

But, in a bright spot for workers, the increase was lower than the 10.6% boost in the survey a year ago.

"Although employers are still bearing about 60% of their workers’ health care costs, this is a pretty significant amount that employees are paying," said Lorraine Mayne, principal and consulting actuary with Milliman.

"If you think about a family of four with a household income of $50,000, they are paying about 8.7% of their income in employee contribution to their coverage," she said.

The report also showed that employers’ subsidies on their workers’ coverage increased about $797, or 8%, over the past year.

According to the Census Bureau, about 177 million Americans — more than half the population — are covered by employer-provided health insurance.

Under health reform, there are four major near-term changes that companies have to make to their coverage plan that will push up their share of health care costs.

These changes include expanding dependent coverage for adult children up to age 26, removing lifetime and annual limits, eliminating co-payments and co-insurance for certain preventive services, and prohibiting any restrictions of children’s coverage for preexisting conditions.

"For many employees, these changes will increase the value of their benefits," said Mayne. "But for many others, those who don’t have adult children for instance, the changes will have little effect."

Your medical costs

Including both what employees pay and what employers contribute, the total 2010 cost of health care for a typical family of four increased 7.8% to $16,771, according to the Milliman report.

Physicians made up the biggest chunk, at 33% of total medical costs, according to the report. However, the rate of increase in physician costs declined to 5.2% from 6% in 2009.

The fastest growing component of health costs is hospital outpatient care, up 11.6%, compared to an increase of 10.2% the prior year. The report said the increase was driven by increases in the cost of care rather than people using the facility more.

Elsewhere, hospital inpatient costs increased by 9.8% and pharmacy costs rose 6.1%

In a look at 14 metropolitan areas, the report cited Miami, New York and Chicago as three cities where health care expenses are about 10% higher than the national average.

Total health care costs for a family of four exceeded $20,000 in those three cities, with Miami topping out at $22,089.

The Milliman Index is based on a national survey of more than 4,000 employers as well as data from the Kaiser Family Foundation. 

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The Obama administration took the first concrete steps Thursday to make good on its pledge to halt new offshore drilling projects, suspending the approval process for new wells off of the Virginia coast.

The Minerals Management Service, part of the Interior Department and the agency charged with issuing new drilling leases, had scheduled three public hearings in Virginia this month to solicit public comment about new wells off of the state’s coast.

The agency said on Thursday that these meetings are now suspended indefinitely, pending a government safety review of offshore drilling.

The process was halted "so that information from the ongoing review of outer continental shelf safety issues that the President has directed can be appropriately considered in those meetings," according to an MMS statement.

Last week president Obama said all new offshore drilling will be halted until the cause of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill is identified.

But leases for new oil wells were not expected for at least a year, whereas the investigation should wrap up in months.

Thursday’s announcement is the first time the Obama administration has actually put the brakes on a plan to open up more areas of the country to offshore drilling bad credit pay day loans.

Obama has supported increased drilling in the past, and just a month ago opened up a few new areas for drilling in the eastern Gulf of Mexico, off the East Coast and in Alaska.

That was the first offering of new leases in the Atlantic since 2008, when a decades-old ban on new offshore drilling expired.

Obama has emphasized he still supports increased domestic oil production, but says it needs to be done safely.

The BP disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, where an oil rig exploded last week, continues to unfold. Eleven of the rig’s workers are presumed dead, and oil is still leaking into the Gulf in what could be one of the worst spills in U.S. history.

The ban on offshore drilling and its subsequent lifting refer only to new drilling. A big swath of the Gulf of Mexico has always been open to oil production, and produces nearly a third of the country’s crude.  

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Revenue took a 26 percent dive to $261 million at equipment rental firm RSC Holdings Inc. during the first quarter.

The Scottsdale company (NYSE:RRR) reported a first-quarter net loss of $38 million, or 37 cents per diluted share, compared with a loss of $14 million, or 13 cents, for first-quarter 2009. The bottom line primarily reflects a decline in business activity and the resulting impact on volume and pricing, although that impact was partially offset by cost-cutting initiatives, officials said in announcing financials Thursday.

“While operating in a still-challenging economy, we drove utilization up with momentum building throughout the quarter. Our industrial diversification strategy and transition to playing offense enabled us to meet or exceed our first quarter revenue, adjusted EBITDA, and free cash flow expectations,” said CEO Erik Olsson in a statement. “To build on this momentum, we continued to position the company for the future with five new location openings, selective investment in our rental fleet and further investment in our sales and marketing organization with an emphasis on key account management.”

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This is a weekly roundup of promotions, appointments and employee accomplishments in the Birmingham metro area. For more People on the Move, check out the Birmingham Business Journal’s print edition each week. Send announcements to ccrawford@bizjournals.com.

FINANCIAL

J. Samuel Henderson III, president of Jefferson and Shelby counties for Southern States Bank, was named Paul Harris Fellow by Rotary International. Henderson is active in the Shades Valley Rotary Club. He joined Southern States Bank in October 2008.

LEGAL

Baker Donelson Bearman Caldwell & Berkowitz PC named Kevin R. Garrison its Birmingham Pro Bono Attorney of the Year. Garrison works with the Homeless Experience Legal Protection program and is part of a team of attorneys representing individuals wrongfully incarcerated by small towns in the metro Birmingham area because they could not afford to pay fines for minor infractions such as traffic violations and petty misdemeanors. He concentrates his practice in construction litigation.

MANUFACTURING

Bob Holt, vice president of sales and marketing for ThyssenKrupp Steel USA LLC, will deliver the keynote address at the 2010 University of Alabama Spring Sales Banquet April 23 at NorthRiver Yacht Club. The event will take place from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Holt, a veteran of the steel industry, was appointed to his current position in October 2007. He is responsible for the commercial activities in the carbon steel segment of TK's new $4.2 billion carbon and stainless flats processing facilities, currently under construction in Calvert, 30 miles north of Mobile.

MEDIA

Thomas E. Jackson was honored for more than 22 years of service to the Alabama Educational Television Commission by Alabama Public Television at a dinner March 24. Jackson, who is leaving the commission, was appointed to the position in 1987. Jackson is the founder and president of Market Technologies, a Birmingham-based company that provides medical diagnostic equipment across the Southeast.

Niki Noto, a recent graduate of University of Alabama, won a challenge in Atlanta Falcons Reality Inside Reporter Competition, which could lead to a chance to be a personality on AtlantaFalcons.com through the 2010 football season, beginning with the NFL Draft.

NONPROFITS

Members of the Nature Conservancy of Alabama’s Board of Trustees recently met at the HudsonAlpha Institute of Biotechnology in Huntsville. Members are Steve Graham and Rick Horsley of Birmingham; Dr. Ed Colvin of Birmingham, Jim Wadsworth of Clanton, Donald Sweeney of Birmingham; Steve Northcutt and David Donaldson of Birmingham and Elizabeth Downing of Mobile.

U.S. Marshal Marty Keeley is scheduled to be guest speaker for the Homewood Chamber of Commerce’s April 20 luncheon at the Homewood Public Library Auditorium. Keeley was appointed to the position in 2002. He began his career in law enforcement in 1969 at the Mountain Brook Police Department. In 1987, he was promoted to the rank of chief of police. He is a graduate of the FBI National Academy and has a law degree.

REAL ESTATE

Dennis Key of Jasper was recognized as the Appraisal Institute’s April Volunteer of Distinction for Region IX, which includes Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina and Tennessee. Key has been a member of the Appraisal Institute for 20 years and involved in the real estate valuation profession for more than 30 years. He currently teaches appraisal courses at Auburn University of behalf of the Alabama State Revenue Department and serves as an appraiser mentor to new appraisers in the days before state licensing. He has been president of his own firm, Key Co. Inc., since 1979.

UNIVERSITIES

University of Alabama at Birmingham professor of history Colin J. Davis has been selected to receive the 2010 Caroline P. and Charles W. Ireland Prize for Scholarly Distinction. Davis, who works in the UAB Department of History and Anthropology, specializes in comparative labor history and U.S. labor history. He has been a member of the UAB faculty since 1991. He will present his lecture “Trans-Atlantic Maritime History: Food For Thought” during a reception April 19 at The Club.

Urban education expert Steve Perry, author of “Man Up! Nobody is Coming to Save Us” and “Raggedy Schools: The Untold Truth,” is scheduled to speak at the University of Alabama at Birmingham from 7 to 9 p.m. April 27 at the Alys Stephens Center.

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Woe is us.

Unemployment is 9.7 percent. The U.S. stock market is still 25 percent off its high. The federal deficit is measured in trillions. Our dollar is mocked overseas.

The Chinese lecture us on fiscal responsibility as they lend us billions of dollars so that we can buy their TVs, clothing and other trinkets of an American lifestyle built on credit.

The 20th century was the American Century — with our nation the premier economic and military superpower. The 21st century may belong to someone else.

That possibility has implications for investors. If growth is going to be faster overseas, is that where you should be investing?

That’s not an easy question. Venturing abroad means taking currency and political risks that we don’t get at home. And foreign stock prices may already reflect high growth prospects, making them no bargain.

The chances are you’re already investing more globally than you think. The S&P 500 companies — all big American firms — draw 40 percent of their revenue from overseas, up from 32 percent eight years ago, according to T. Rowe Price, the Baltimore mutual fund firm.

At least in the short run, growth in the developing world will be more rapid than in the U.S., or Europe and Japan for that matter.

The International Monetary Fund expects economic growth of 2.7 percent in the U.S. this year, only 1 percent in the Eurozone and 1.8 percent for Japan. By contrast, the IMF expects 10 percent growth in China, 7.7 percent in India, 4 percent in Mexico and 6 percent in emerging markets overall.

This may be the first global economic recovery led by China. The world usually follows the U.S. The IMF expects the growth gap to continue through 2011, with 2.5 percent growth in advanced countries, and 6.9 percent in emerging markets.

Those growth rates should, in theory, mean higher company profits and higher stock prices. So, should we be buying stocks in Brazil, India or the Far East?

Over the past decade, you’d have been much better off investing in the developing world than at home.

Since March of 2000, the Hang Seng Index of stocks traded in Hong Kong is up 66 percent with dividends reinvested and measured in U.S. dollars. The Mexican Bolsa and Brazilian Bovespa were both up 269 percent and the Russian Trading System Index was up 725 percent as of midweek. By contrast, the S&P 500 index of large American stocks lost 3 percent over the last 10 years.

The last five years also favored the foreigners. The MSCI Emerging Markets Index gained 84 percent in that time, excluding dividends. The S&P was flat.

American investors have noticed. Lately, 95 percent of American investments in foreign stocks have gone into the emerging markets, notes Alan Skrainka, chief market strategist at Edward Jones in Des Peres.

Skrainka thinks that’s a mistake. "When the crowd heads one way, you’d better head the other," he notes. The emerging markets have largely had their run, and it’s too late to jump aboard, he argues.

As they say on the fund prospectuses; past performance is no guarantee of future return.

"The emerging markets have been temporarily underperforming the U.S. markets for the last three months. This could persist for a year or two," says Chad Morganlander, portfolio manager in global asset allocation at Stifel Nicolaus & Co.

Morganlander’s bottom line: Don’t jump into emerging markets with both feet. Tiptoe in during dips in the market.

If you’re thinking of investing there, you had better enjoy roller coasters. Emerging markets are 60 percent more volatile than the developed world.

The great stock market crash sent U.S. stocks down 56 percent from their 2007 highs by March of last year. Emerging markets fell 66 percent before bouncing back.

"It has a much rougher road on the downside than the U.S. market," said Morganlander.

There’s more oomph on the way up, too. Both the emerging markets and the S&P are now both 25 percent off their highs of 2007.

Step outside the developed world and an investor finds a whole new set of worries: the whims of Latin strongmen and Iranian ayatollahs, unstable currencies, religious conflicts and guerilla insurgencies.

While world stock markets were crashing in late 2008, investors in India had an extra worry — nuclear war as Indian and Pakistani rattled swords in the wake of the Mumbai massacre. The Indian market had dropped 73 percent by March 2009.

On the other hand, the emerging markets aren’t as wild and woolly as they used to be. Currency blowups, rampant inflation and outright fraud aren’t as common and fiscal controls are better. "In some cases, their sovereign debt picture is better than Japan, the UK, Greece, maybe even the U.S.," says Paul Christopher, senior international strategist at Wells Fargo Advisors in St. Louis.

All this argues for letting a pro do the stock picking, which is what you get when you buy a mutual fund.

Morningstar, the mutual fund analysis firm, recommends Oppenheimer Developing Markets (ODMAX) and American Funds New World (NEWFX). New World supplements emerging markets stocks by buying developed-country stocks in companies that do a lot of business in the developed world. That tends to smooth out the roller-coaster ride a bit, says Morningstar.

You could also buy the whole shebang at once. iShares MSCI Emerging Markets Index (EEM) is an exchange-traded fund that tracks an index of third-world stocks in 20 countries, with the bulk in China, Korea, Brazil, Russia, South Africa, India, and Mexico.

Another alternative is to target certain countries through country-specific funds. "The best opportunities in the world come from selecting countries the way you select stocks," says Christopher, of Wells Fargo.

China has been the big growth story of the past decade, but some think the Chinese market is overheated. Stifel’s Morganlander sees a bubble building. Much of last year’s growth was government-manufactured, the result of stimulus spending designed to make up for falling exports. Stimulus doesn’t last forever, he notes, and when the building boom ends, the nation could have a nasty fall.

India is a better bet, he says. It’s economy is less dependent on exports than China and the Indian government is friendlier to foreign investors.

Countries such as Brazil and Mexico are natural resource plays. They supply food and raw materials for the high-growth Asian markets.

Meanwhile, a stronger dollar is making one developed market — Europe — look a little sweeter at the moment.

The dollar was on a long decline against major currencies from 2002 to 2008, weighed down by our trade deficit. That’s one reason that foreign investments performed so well, when measured in dollars. The financial panic of 2008 sent the dollar up as worried investors fled back to the buck, but the greenback’s slump resumed last year.

Lately, though, Europe has been having its own financial panic over the chance that Greece might default on government bonds, followed possibly by Spain and Ireland. The euro is down 10 percent against the dollar since November.

If you think that the euro’s problems are temporary, and the dollar is still a dud, then European stocks look interesting. "If the dollar’s weakness resumes, you’ll earn a good return," says Skrainka.

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