Staying on top of emerging markets risk

After several years in the doldrums, fund managers are once again turning a serious eye to emerging markets. But at what price? In an analysis of emerging market debt in this issue, page 14, some funds have managed to post strong annualised mean returns but the price is high annualised standard deviation levels. One of the main problems for emerging market funds is the shortage of reliable information needed to assess emerging market risk, a factor that has resulted in many managers bombing out. There are of course exceptions. The Ashmore Russian Debt fund springs to mind - the only Russia...