Emerging markets look better value

Over the past 10 years ending 31 March 2002, the MSCI Emerging Markets Free Index is up 23.6%, while the MSCI AC World Index is up 140.3% in sterling terms. This underperformance looks even worse over the past five years, when emerging markets have fallen 21.3%, while the world index has risen 37.1%. It is only since the third quarter of last year that they started to outperform and even then it was by no great margin. The original rationale to support investing in emerging economies was that they provided superior growth while diversifying risk in a global portfolio. After the 1994 M...