Research & Insight

MSCI Asia ex Japan fell 1.34% in May. All Asian countries fell modestly over the month except China, Hong Kong and Indonesia and all 3 of those rose less than 1% in USD terms.

This article looks at the growth of advisory type wrap accounts and the influence they have had (and are forecast to have) on the Korean equity market. The sale of advisory wrap accounts was approved in Korea in 2001, but it was just last year that the products were highlighted in the market, when ‘star fund managers’ set up their own advisory firms and started to influence the performance of stocks. Wrap accounts have been overweight certain sectors, namely auto and chemical/energy and as these sectors have generated strong returns (assisted by the liquidity generated by the wrap accounts but also from significant earnings growth) this has resulted in increased attention to the wrap account market.

We often hear about climate change, the impacts on the environment and the potential effect on future generations. But how does climate change impact emerging markets?

Performance for emerging market local currency sovereign debt was again very strong in April, with the GBI EM Global Diversified benchmark rising 4.73% in US dollars. With the exception of Peru, all benchmark countries posted positive returns for the month.

Emerging markets gained 3.1% in April, slightly lagging the overall MSCI World return. This was against a backdrop of disappointing economic data out of the US suggesting economic activity is slowing. We continued to see efforts by emerging markets policymakers to control inflation with several central banks continuing to tighten monetary policy during the month.