How much more “emerging” have the emerging markets left to do? Probably not much, given the vast amount of capital and hope invested in the asset class already.
The extraordinary scale of what has occurred is evident from the equitisation ratio – a broad-brush indicator of financial development that measures the market capitalisation of a country’s stock market in relation to its gross domestic product. According to Warren Buffett, this ratio is “probably the best single measure of where valuations stand at any given moment”.
Different economic structures lead to different levels of equitisation – a small country such as Switzerland that hosts a number of large multinational companies would be expected to have a higher ratio than, for example, Italy. The same goes for a country like the UK that offers its stock market as a platform for companies from all over the world.