Money flees emerging markets with no respite in sight

London

MONEY is fleeing emerging markets en masse in 2015 for the first time in 27 years and few global investors are tempted to return to equities, currencies or bonds there as many of the populous economies defining the asset class slow inexorably.

Over the three decades or so of the modern 'emerging markets' securities industry, periodic shocks and sharp drawdowns have typically been followed by big returns for those bold enough to snap up cheap assets during the darkest moments.

But this episode - seeded by fears of tighter US credit and a rising US dollar alongside a commodity collapse accompanying a secular slowdown of China's economic growth - has a different feeling and there's been a slow bleed for more than two…