Why treating Asia as an emerging market is 'double jeopardy'

Structural growth in region

Investors will no doubt look back on 2017 as the year which saw Asia knock developed and other emerging markets out of the park, writes Angus Coupland, CIO at Coupland Cardiff.

Despite worries over the impact of the Trump administration on the relationship between the US and Asia, the MSCI Asia index ex Japan returned an impressive 29.5% over the period.  This compares favourably to a return of 11.8% for the MSCI World index, 14.5% for MSCI Europe and 10.4% for MSCI North America. Asia's outperformance was driven by a number of tailwinds very specific to the region. Central to this is its booming young population and rapidly growing middle classes.  Indeed, some estimates cite that by 2030 Asia will represent around 60% of the global middle-class populati...