Some scope for contrarians in 2014

FORECASTING how an entire year might pan out is always hugely daunting because of the uncertainties involved, but now the overwhelming majority of investment strategists are predicting an economic recovery for the US and Europe in 2014 and are recommending buying those "developed" markets or DMs. The expected return is quite modest at a high single-digit, with 10 per cent the upper limit.

Asia, classified as one large "emerging market" or EM (except for Japan, which is categorised as a DM) is mainly seen as "underweight"…