Latin America: Judging it on merits

The lemming effect whereby all emerging markets are sold off because of bad news in a few may be slowly breaking down. While Latin America has experienced fallout from the Asian crisis, a survey of US portfolio investors shows their stance towards it quickly recovering to a more positive one. This is largely because of the region’s strong fundamentals and adept handling of volatitilty.

“This survey shows the verdict is still out as to whether the Asian crisis has hit rock bottom and that financial investors are understandably less confident about emerging markets than a year ago,” says Christopher Smith, co-head of emering markets sales and trading with BankBoston, which commissioned the survey.