Winds of change favour emerging Asia

Winds of change favour emerging Asia. Five years is a long time in financial markets, for companies, countries and investors. It feels as though the rate of change in the last five years has been particularly rapid (although perhaps it always does). That is certainly true of emerging market equities as an asset class. The most obvious change is in the country composition of the index. Israel, 2.7% of the index five years ago (the same size as Malaysia) with its then PPP GDP per capita of US$29,000, was promoted to developed market status by MSCI in 2010. Also promoted (from frontier to emerging in May 2014) were UAE and Qatar (PPP GDP per capita of US$58,000 and US$132,000 respectively - some emerging markets!). Less happy was the demotion of Greece in 2013 from developed to frontier status following the economic crisis there. Tiny, illiquid Morocco was also downgraded out of the emerging market index. Elsewhere, though, there have been seismic shifts in the emerging world. More: (VIEW LINK)