Russia: a cheap bet for contrarians

Investors in emerging markets who ignore Russia are missing a trick. Max King explains why.

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Russia: an exciting market for 2017
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Asia dominates the emerging-market indices, with the result that other regions tend to be ignored by investors. This tendency is compounded by the negative stereotypical views that are attached to Latin America, Africa and eastern Europe. For the contrarian investor, happy to go against popular sentiment provided that fundamental factors are on his or her side, these markets currently have a strong attraction and none more so than Russia.

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Max King
Investment Writer

Max has an Economics degree from the University of Cambridge and is a chartered accountant. He worked at Investec Asset Management for 12 years, managing multi-asset funds investing in internally and externally managed funds, including investment trusts. This included a fund of investment trusts which grew to £120m+. Max has managed ten investment trusts (winning many awards) and sat on the boards of three trusts – two directorships are still active.

After 39 years in financial services, including 30 as a professional fund manager, Max took semi-retirement in 2017. Max has been a MoneyWeek columnist since 2016 writing about investment funds and more generally on markets online, plus occasional opinion pieces. He also writes for the Investment Trust Handbook each year and has contributed to The Daily Telegraph and other publications. See here for details of current investments held by Max.