The Contrarian Investor: Grim prospects for emerging markets?

CONTRARIAN INVESTOR

This year has not quite gone to plan. The Year of the Horse was supposed to be the 12 months in which confidence in the future finally started to fan out from the US into the rest of the developed markets.

Instead, gold and T-bonds seem to have had a cracking start, while just about everything else withers on the tapering vine. A bad start to the year is usually a harbinger of even worse to come. My sense is most developed world equity investors are still fundamentally bullish. But I would also have to say I am with Dominic Picarda at Investors Chronicle when he frets: “the latest spread-betting positioning data I have read show around three-quarters of traders are long of the FTSE, with two-thirds long of the Dow and almost 90% long of the Nikkei. I would be much happier if there were wal...