Finding room for growth in crowded equity capital markets

Send us Fan MailEquity markets have been on a tear since an initial tumble when the coronavirus pandemic began. Lashings of central bank support for markets, optimism over the recovery, emergency balance sheet repair and issuers and sellers taking advantage of rocketing valuations have kept developed market valuations climbing. It has become a very crowded trade, with investors bemoaning the amount of work they are being asked to do to keep up just to pay top-end prices.But there may better opportunities in emerging market equities. Famous investor Jeremy Grantham of GMO picked the asset class as one to watch at the start of the year. In truth, performance has been mixed since then across different emerging markets. But some, such as Russia, are booming with stellar index performance and plenty of supply. We look at what is driving the surge and what opportunities it may present.