… but may have a place in many portfolios

Article Excerpt

As mentioned on the previous page, many investors have moved out of emerging markets, given their poor performance over the past decade. However, emerging market fundamentals are improving, and we think that most investors could include a small portion of emerging market ETFs in a balanced portfolio. Here are three reasons to support this view. Over the past 30 years, investors in emerging markets have experienced roughly the same returns as investors in the developed markets (all measured in U.S. dollars). However, volatility in the emerging markets was much higher. Given that history, it is understandable that most investors would be reluctant to invest there. However, emerging markets can from time to time provide spectacular returns. The graph indicates returns for investors holding emerging markets for rolling 36-month periods. The average return over these rolling 36-month periods was a rather unspectacular 28%, or 9.3% per year. That’s not much different from the developed markets and therefore probably not worth taking the risk. But this…