Global Investing

Frontier markets have an air of adventure and unpredictability about them. One is tempted to ask: Who knows what will happen next?

The figures tell a different story.

In fact, emerging markets overtook frontier markets in terms of volatility of returns as long ago as June 2006, as a recent HSBC report shows. And a more significant milestone was passed a year later, in June 2007, when even developed markets overtook frontier markets in terms of volatility of returns.

Since then, frontier markets have without fail stayed more stable than developed and emerging markets. In 2012, the gap between the closely-correlated developed/emerging markets bloc and frontier markets widened even further as returns in the latter seem to be becoming even more stable. According to David Wickham, EM investment director at HSBC Global Asset Management:

Low correlations across frontier market countries, and indeed with commodity prices, can surprisingly result in low volatility. While it may sound counterintuitive, the volatility of frontier markets can, in fact, be less than emerging and developed markets.  One needs to have a truly global approach in order to reap these potential low cross-country correlation benefits.

What is meant by a low cross-country correlation is that a frontier market such as Kenya is less likely to be impacted by a blow-up in, say, Hungary or even another frontier market such as Nigeria. That makes FM  less prone to swings.

Over the past year emerging markets have broadly lagged an upswing in global equity markets, yielding cumulative returns of 4.5 percent since last August. That’s less than half the return developed markets have provided (see graphic below).

But there are two reasons why a  turning point may be approaching. First the positioning. Foreign holdings of emerging equities have plunged in the past six months and according to research by HSBC they are at the lowest in four years. That’s especially the case in Asia, where fund managers have been jittery about China’s growth slowdown.

International funds appear to have responded aggressively to signs of a slowdown in emerging market economies, the bank observes, adding:

Robust growth from the emerging market basket in January was always going to be tough to beat, but research from February’s gains show just how strong these markets are performing against developed ones, and not just from the traditional BRICs either, research from S&P Indices shows.

Egypt has been a prime example. Following a bout of political unrest and subsequent removal of Hosni Mubarak after nearly 30 years in power, Egypt’s market returns have rocketed, climbing 15.3 percent in February on top of January’s 44.3 percent take-off.

Thailand, Chile, Turkey and Colombia are also on the to-watch list as these emerging lights have all flashed double-digit returns in the first two months of this year, while all twenty emerging markets included in the S&P data were up, gaining an average of 6.62 percent, making gains in the year-to-date a mouth-watering 18.95 percent.

Expectations are running high ahead of next week’s LTRO 2.0 (expected take-up is somewhat smaller than the first time and the previous estimate though, with Reuters poll predicting banks to grab c492 bln euros).

The ECB’s three-year loan operation, along with the BOJ’s unexpected easing, BoE’s QE and commitment from the Fed to keep rates on hold until at least end-2014 may constitute competitive monetary easing, Goldman Sachs argues.

As the moves to ease have been rolled out, we increasingly encounter the argument that such ‘competitive’ (non-coordinated) monetary expansions by developed market central banks are at best ineffective and at worst a zero-sum game at the global level—and perhaps a precursor of something worse, such as a slide towards protectionism.