PA Portfolio: Are frontier markets a viable alternative to underperforming EMs?

Caroline Shaw, fund manager, Courtiers Since the start of 2013, frontier market equities have outpaced emerging market equities with total returns of 42.5% versus -2.6%. This wasn't the case for the two previous years, where emerging market equities returned -3.1% over the period versus -11.6% for frontier market equities. At the end of this month, MSCI will carry out an index reclassification exercise that will see Qatar and UAE, currently forming 25% of the frontier market index, upgrade to the emerging market index. This is a major change and funds tracking the relevant indices (bo...