MacroScope

Hundreds of Bangladeshi investors have rioted on the streets of Dhaka in recent days over stock prices that have plunged nearly 18 percent since the start of the year. Police used batons and tear gas to break up protests that blocked roads around the country's main stock exchange.

If this sounds familiar, rewind back to 2008 to another part of the Indian subcontinent, when angry investors rampaged through the Karachi Stock Exchange after a series of precipitous share price falls.

In less developed markets, retail investors often bear the brunt of losses as they tend to account for the bulk of total investment rather than institutional players.

Seen to have greater resources to make more informed decisions than private individual investors, institutional investors account for roughly three-quarters of equity investment in the United States. Compare this to the leading emerging economy of China where they account for about half of the market.

The strength of emerging markets over the last two years, coupled with loose credit conditions, has lured many individual investors regardless of whether they possess the required nous for profitable risk-taking.

Not everyone is upset about the 50 percent surge in wheat prices over the past month.

Wheat’s rise to 2-year highs was caused first by heavy rains in Canada and now by a Russian export ban that was triggered by its worst drought in decades. There are floods in Pakistan, another major wheat grower. But while the wheat market shenanigans are triggering much hand-wringing across developing nations, Argentina, one of the world’s top seven wheat exporters, may be set for a windfall.

Farmers there are increasing wheat plantings, the Buenos Aires Grains Exchange says. The South American country is expected to export around 8 million tonnes of wheat in the 2010-2011 year. With wheat futures on the Chicago Board of Trade at around $8 a bushel, a very simple calculation shows export revenues are going to very significant.