For Asian market watchers, there’s been a pretty clear divergence across emerging markets in the past few months. Known either as the ‘north-over-south’ trade, or the exporter trade, investors shifted their money out of domestically driven southeast Asia, and into the export markets of South Korea and Taiwan.
But, if the past few days are anything to go by, the trade may already be reversing.
Since late November, southeast Asian markets have been in volatile mood. The big bull markets of 2010 – Indonesia, Philippines and Thailand – all seemed to lost their vim. Some trading sessions in the new year have seen heavy selling. Investment downgrades have followed suit.