Asian bond funds allow people to invest in government and corporate debt of Asian countries. These funds usually focus on emerging countries, so they exclude Japan. Depending on which financial group you ask, there are 21 to 23 countries classified as "developing" or "emerging" in the region.
The funds also divide up by currency type. There are those based in local currency (meaning the currency of the particular emerging country), or those that are hard-money based (based in the presumably more stable home currency of the investor...like the U.S. dollar).
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Finance: What Are Emerging Markets?34 Views
finance a la shmoop. what are emerging markets? well a market is any place in
which you buy stuff, like Nasdaq or a Safeway store, or your enterprising
friends online edible underwear business. well the above are mature markets or [edible underwear website shown]
economically mature anyway. emerging markets are generally new players to a
given area of interest. today Latin America is becoming a mature market it
even hosted an Olympics. but thirty years ago still reeling from corrupt dictators
in various flavors Latin America was emerging. after the war in Vietnam was
done and the Napalm had been hosed off that smiling seagulls, this entire region [napalm exploding]
became a market that investors took seriously as they came to leverage their
relatively educated and industrious workforces who assembled computer [factory workers put together products]
circuit boards portable CD players and those weird electronic dogs that were
pretty sure can see into your soul. well the concept of emerging markets also
applies to product areas it doesn't just have to be a geography you know a
country or countries. in 1995 the internet itself was an emerging product
market. it had never existed before. it was very small for about oh five [America online pictured]
minutes. and then it emerged. today there are essentially zero businesses that
aren't internet businesses. it has emerged.
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