Global investment return conundrum

It is surprising to see equities underperform bonds for 19 years, of which the last 10 have been an equity bull run

I had the opportunity to read the latest CS Global Investment Returns Yearbook 2019, produced by the Credit Suisse Research Institute. As always, it was a fascinating read, full of data and insight. This year’s issue had some additional data on the Emerging Markets (EM) and was therefore even more relevant. 

On EM, the report looked at data from 1980 onwards and made some interesting observations. Firstly, when looking at the current construct of the MSCI EM index, you realise that out of 24 countries in the index, only six matter. The combined weights of China, Korea,Taiwan, India, Brazil and