Emerging markets march out of 'valley of tears' as investors diversify

LONDON, Aug 17 (Reuters) - War, tariffs and AI gyrations have done little to dent the flow of cash into emerging markets, as reforms, deeper local capital markets and diversification away from U.S. assets reshape the asset class. Global shocks that once triggered sharp sell-offs across developing economies have failed to derail investor demand this year, with emerging market debt inflows at a more than two-decade high and governments issuing record amounts of bonds. Improved policymaking, stronger foreign exchange reserves and growing domestic investor pools have helped cushion countries from the shocks. "Roughly from 2015 to 2025 was like the valley of tears for emerging markets: strong dollar, U.S. exceptionalism, lots of crises, defaults, COVID, etc," said David Hauner, head of emerging markets fixed income strategy at Bank of America. But those dire straits paved the way for the current rebound. "There was so much outflow, a few months of inflows are not going to compensate for that...it's still only scratching the surface of the under-investment that has occurred over the past decade." Foreign capital flows back those views. Institute of International Finance figures show foreign investors plowing $214.4 billion into emerging market debt through July, up from $177.7 billion in the same period last year. Emerging market nations also sold roughly $19 billion of bonds in July, twice the average for the month over the past decade, putting year-to-date issuance at a record $187 billion. The war, which began in February, has largely closed the key Strait of Hormuz passage and boosted global oil and fertiliser prices, feeding through to food prices and wider inflation. Meanwhile concerns linger that the U.S. Federal Reserve could raise interest rates — strengthening the dollar at the expense of many emerging market currencies. U.S. Treasury yields — the basis on which emerging market borrowing costs are priced — are near multi-year highs. But so far, the turmoil has not derailed investor interest. "We can see the fundamentals weakening in the developed world," said Jetro Siekkinen, head of emerging market fixed income with LGT Capital Partners, pointing to debt-to-GDP ratios. Emerging markets, in contrast, have spent years beefing up central bank independence and foreign currency reserves. Many, including Pakistan, Ghana, Ecuador, Nigeria and Argentina, earned credit-rating upgrades. "The diversification (away from U.S. Treasuries) I think is driving this latest performance of emerging markets and frontier as well," Siekkinen said. Capital Economics' aggregate EM currency risk indicator remains near multi-year lows, despite turmoil. This comes despite some, such as BlackRock Investment Institute, cooling on emerging market stocks and hard currency debt. AI mini boom-and-bust cycles have also ramped up volatility in the emerging market equities index, now dominated by tech-heavy stocks in South Korea and Taiwan. IIF data also showed $86 billion of equities outflow through July, nearly 10 times the outflows at the same point in 2025. Investors warn that emerging and frontier markets are more exposed to food inflation and El Niño impacts. Siekkinen said they are highly selective and do not follow benchmarks, citing debt concerns in some countries and lower yields in others. Emerging markets learned tough lessons from COVID, when investor flight contributed to debt defaults from Sri Lanka to Ghana. But the upheaval accelerated efforts to build deeper domestic capital pools, reducing reliance on fickle foreign investors. Emerging economies — especially larger ones such as South Africa or Brazil — now finance themselves overwhelmingly through domestic debt markets. Local-currency sovereign bonds outstanding totalled roughly $13 trillion by end-2024, compared with about $1.4 trillion of international hard-currency sovereign debt, according to research from JPMorgan and UBS. Hauner said local currencies in markets including Brazil, Colombia, Egypt and Nigeria are particularly well positioned. Magdalena Polan, head of EM Macro Research with PGIM, said local investors are helping buffer developing nations from global risk. "The whole pattern of how shocks spread into EM financial markets is different nowadays," Polan said. "Large local investors play some stabilizing role, and that means that the markets do not sell off rapidly, and that there are very few liquidity crunches in most countries." Polan and Hauner said inflation risks stemming from El Niño and rising fertiliser costs are among the biggest threats to continued investment flows. But they and others say there is room to run. "We expect outperformance of EM local debt to extend between now and year end," said Lamine Bougueroua, fund manager with Carmignac. "Investors are realizing they may be over allocated to U.S. assets, and they're allocating to EM. And with geopolitical uncertainty, you want to be diversified in as many jurisdictions as possible." (Reporting by Libby George and Karin Strohecker, Editing by William Maclean)

Emerging markets march out of 'valley of tears' as investors diversify

Investor flows and issuance pick up

Risks remain from war, rates and inflation

Local funding deepens as domestic investors buffer shocks

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