Years of quantitative easing has pushed yields on government bonds down to record lows, and income-starved investors are being pushed out the risk spectrum, forced to choose between more volatile assets to find income. Finding acceptable levels of income exposes portfolios to greater instability ahead—we believe a multi-asset approach can help.

Emerging-market (EM) equities are far more turbulent than their developed-world peers. But there are several things investors can do to capture the attractive return potential while reducing volatility. Staying active is the lynchpin for success.

Many investors in emerging markets (EMs) believe that identifying the fastest-growing economies is the key to finding higher returns. But while this approach has been effective in fixed-income investing, our research shows that it’s fairly useless for guiding country selection in developing-market equities.

It’s getting harder to generate equity returns in emerging markets (EMs). Simply chasing the index—the so-called beta trade—won’t do the job anymore. But with a more discriminating, active approach, we believe investors can still capture opportunities in the next phase of the EM growth evolution.

After several years of disappointing returns, emerging-market (EM) equities are regaining interest, attracting flows and outperforming their developed-market (DM) counterparts this year. For investors thinking about adding EM exposure, we offer seven factors to consider.

High-yield bonds’ attractive income has made them popular in today’s low-rate environment. But market complacency has caused callable-bond investors to ignore a lurking risk: duration extension in a rising-rate scenario.

Why have some equity markets in the developing world flourished more than others? It’s a pivotal question for investors hoping to stake an early claim to the potential emerging-market (EM) success stories of the next decade. 

The failure of emerging economies to piggyback on the rich-world recovery this year is giving investors pause, despite enticing emerging-market (EM) valuations. But investors shouldn’t underestimate the power of this normally symbiotic relationship—or the upside potential in EM stocks next year on even a modest pickup in EM economic activity.

Companies in emerging markets are more profitable and less debt burdened than their developed-market peers, and their shares trade at a deep discount. So when will emerging-market stocks close the gap with global equity markets?

For two years, emerging markets companies have delivered inferior earnings growth and investment returns compared to peers in sluggish developed market economies. Now, the consensus is that earnings growth will catapult from near-zero in 2012 to 13 per cent in 2013. Hopes were high at the end of 2010 and 2011, too, yet analysts were then forced to revise down their earnings estimates. Will 2013 represent another triumph of hope over experience?

It doesn’t seem to make sense. Superior macroeconomic fundamentals in emerging countries have not led to stronger—or even positive—equity returns over the last two years. Since the beginning of 2011, the unhedged return in US dollars of the MSCI Emerging Markets (EM) Index has been (10)%, while the MSCI World Index has delivered 6.5%. What’s going on?

We believe that emerging markets often offer better growth prospects than most developed markets. But, as my colleague Morgan Harting argues, many investors are not exploiting the full potential—often because they are afraid of volatility.