In the past, an investor would have been broadly right to call the end of any emerging market party by monitoring the twin tides of US dollar liquidity and mineral commodity price cycles. If one of these two tides were ebbing — the US dollar appreciating or mineral prices falling — the emerging market party would likely be drawing to a close. If both were receding, the party would almost certainly be over.
With the US dollar — against most 2018 predictions — strengthening again, alarm bells are ringing in highly exposed economies such as Turkey. Meanwhile, industrial metal prices have recently plateaued, meaning the terms of trade for non-oil exporting countries in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America have begun to deteriorate. As if to provide proof, events in Argentina have allowed the bears to turn gloomy.
Any emerging market seen as fragile — for which read “running a current account deficit” so requiring capital inflows to balance its external account — has become vulnerable again. This is especially the case for net oil importers as the crude price has risen too, an unusual occurrence because this rarely happens when the US dollar is also strengthening. Most stock markets in fragile emerging markets have, at the very least, stopped making ground. Meanwhile their currencies have started losing ground as have their debt markets, be they local or hard currency denominated.