A month into 2011, one of the biggest swings in asset flows has been the outperformance of previously lagging developed market equities against once red-hot emerging ones.
The chances are that this rotation by investors, encouraged by shifting valuations, inflation concerns and growth spurts in some developed economies, will remain in place for a while -- perhaps six months -- but it is not likely to become a permanent fixture.
Nothing has happened to dilute the overarching view that emerging markets are a long-term, strategic growth story, albeit with somewhat heightened political risk -- as is now being seen in Egypt and Ivory Coast.
Standard & Poor's cutting of Japan's sovereign debt rating on Thursday, meanwhile, was a stark reminder that, in contrast to emerging economies, many developed markets continue suffer from government bank balance problems.
But for the time being, the tale of the tape is clear -- the flows are into developed markets and away from emerging.
So far this year, MSCI's developed market stock index has risen a healthy 3.2 percent -- healthy in the sense that in the highly unlikely event this rate continues, developed market stocks would have the best compounded gain in at least 40 years.
The benchmark emerging market index, however, is in negative territory, having fallen more than three quarters of a percent.
Individual country indexes show the same pattern. The U.S. S&P 500 is up more than 3 percent for the year while the Sensex has lost around 10 percent.
The outperformance goes further. On a day-by-day basis last year, developed markets outperformed emerging markets on just 47 percent of occasions. So far this year, they have done so around 63 percent of the time.
And in terms of beta, a gauge of how a security reacts to moves in the market, emerging markets are moving closer to being in lockstep with developed markets -- meaning that at the moment there is little to be gained for the extra risk they may carry.
Emerging market beta is currently close to 1.0, compared with 1.8 about five years ago.
