Newton's Keen: China concerns versus EM differentiation

ON ASIA PACIFIC

Investors are starting to differentiate between emerging markets rather than tarring them all with the same brush.

Indeed, much of the emphasis so far in 2014 has been on the strife in Latin America and political unrest in Central and Eastern Europe, rather than Asia. Although the political situation in Thailand is far from resolved, there have been some improvements at the margins and the market has recovered from its lows as investors look ahead. We think this differentiation will continue as macroeconomic data makes the variations in fundamentals apparent. For example, the Chinese market has markedly underperformed in 2014 so far as data released points to lacklustre growth. Conversely, bett...