After many years of low and negative interest rates, the Bank of Japan has changed course, creating opportunities for Japanese investors and implications for global markets. Templeton Global Investments outlines the positives and the risks.

Our Emerging Markets Equity CIO Manraj Sekhon provides the team’s midyear outlook, including how secular trends driving opportunities in emerging markets have accelerated because of the COVID-19 crisis.

While US-China trade issues still haven’t been resolved, there are reasons to be optimistic about the prospects for emerging markets in the coming year.

Emerging market equities were off to a strong start overall in 2019, rebounding from a 2018 downturn.

Numerous uncertainties weighed on investor sentiment in 2018 and led to a down year for emerging markets overall, although the fourth quarter saw some outperformance versus developed markets.

Emerging markets continued to struggle in October amid an environment of heightened equity-market volatility globally. Manraj Sekhon, CIO of Franklin Templeton Emerging Markets Equity, and Chetan Sehgal, senior managing director and director of portfolio management, believe the pullback presents long-term investors with opportunities amid what they dub an overreaction. They present the team’s overview of the emerging-markets universe in October.

July marked the first month of the calendar year where emerging markets posted positive performance overall, with frontier markets leading the way.