ProShares Trust UltraShort MSCI Emerging Markets

EEV

Market cap $3.22M

At the same time developed markets have been generating policy and macro noise, emerging markets have been quietly outperforming. The inextricable relationship between the direction of U.S. monetary policy and emerging market risk assets remains powerful, but this time the rally is not just about the Fed.

Emerging markets equity returns have been driven by extreme mega-cap concentration, with index breadth collapsing to historic lows and masking weakness across much of the opportunity set. This concentration has distorted relative results for active managers, particularly those constrained by diversification rules or broad benchmarks, as small-cap underperformance and index construction limit flexibility.

Following the 2024 U.S. election, there has been a great deal of speculation about how a second Trump administration will set policies that have an impact on the economy. Some have taken a strongly optimistic view of what's to come—a recent Goldman Sachs report suggested that the likelihood of a recession has diminished along with inflation levels and that anticipated changes to tariffs, immigration, and other policies are not likely to dampen economic growth.

Emerging markets continued to expand at a solid pace midway into the first quarter of 2024, supported by broad-based expansion across both manufacturing and service sectors.

Emerging markets have taken solace in the view that the U.S. hiking cycle is over, helping deliver strong returns in 2023. Slowing global inflation has been due to sharply lower core goods inflation, while service prices have remained stickier.

Emerging markets will also be looking closely at economic conditions in mainland China, which will be a key determinant of broader emerging market growth in 2024. A key reason for diverging emerging and developed market performance was the marked variation in demand conditions.