Читать книгу The Emerging Markets Handbook - Pran Tiku - Страница 7

The term emerging markets first gained traction in 1980, as a small group of investors began broadening their search for more profitable opportunities around the world. By then, the stigma attached to many of these countries – of overpopulation, poverty, corruption and so on – had begun to diminish, and it was soon recognised that these economies were becoming vibrant thanks in large part to natural resources, cheap labour, and large populations.

There have always been emerging markets. The United States, for most of its early existence, was considered an emerging market, as were countries such as Japan after the second world war. Based on the historical trend, the implication is quite clear: yesterday’s emerging markets are likely to enter the mainstream tomorrow. This creates an extraordinary opportunity for those investors who stray off the beaten path, away from the well-known, established (sometimes also called developed) and familiar markets. This book is an attempt to familiarise the reader with countries that are not a staple of daily investment conversation, but that are likely to become critical in the next phase of globalisation.

Today’s emerging markets entered the consciousness of many investors in the 1990s. By that time China had already created growth on an unprecedented scale for almost a decade and a similar trend was showing in India as it started to open up its economy in 1991. Brazil, home to a wealth of natural resources, along with Russia and its massive energy reserves, also began to make headlines and capture the attention of many investors. But the love affair with emerging markets tends to be fleeting for many domestic investors – sometimes it is based on the sentiment surrounding the politics of these countries, which can be unstable, and sometimes it is based on the ever-changing economic data. However, many times it is just that these opportunities are sought during the brief periods when there is a lack of opportunity in domestic markets.

This book analyses many of the world’s emerging markets using both short-term and long-term data and provides readers with a longer-term investment case. It demonstrates that emerging markets deserve a place in many investment portfolios, as studies continue to show that most portfolios are seriously underinvested in this area.

Portfolios that are globally diversified and include emerging markets will benefit from diversification and are also likely to achieve above average risk adjusted performance over a longer period of time, despite the short-term volatility experienced by many emerging markets.