Emerging markets have above-average risks

Article Excerpt

Emerging market stocks have lagged the performance of developed markets over the better part of the past decade. But they may now offer better investment value and better growth prospects than some of their developed-market counterparts. That’s still only for a small part of your overall portfolio—where you may want to take on extra risk. Despite having had real economic growth rates much higher than developed markets over the past eight years, the stock market returns of emerging markets were about half of that for developed markets. Key indicators suggest that the next decade may provide a better result for emerging markets. Improving economic fundamentals The economic fundamentals for more-established emerging markets are improving and in many cases are better than many developed markets. As a group, emerging markets have become much wealthier over the past 20 years. Since 2000, China’s real GDP per capita has risen 60%, India’s by 41%, and South Korea’s by 24%. In contrast, Italy’s real GDP per capita contracted…