Brave investors should venture out to frontier markets

Look beyond emerging markets: a category of small, exotic countries known as frontier markets are illiquid and highly risky – but could be very rewarding, says David Stevenson.

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Most investors will probably be aware of the attractions of emerging markets such as Brazil, Russia, India and China (the Brics). But there's another category of smaller, fast-developing countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America that warrants closer attention: frontier markets. These comprise countries with markets either too small or too illiquid to be included in the big emerging-market indices.In practical terms, this means they are difficult to trade in but they also offer real opportunity.

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David C. Stevenson
Contributor

David Stevenson has been writing the Financial Times Adventurous Investor column for nearly 15 years and is also a regular columnist for Citywire. He writes his own widely read Adventurous Investor SubStack newsletter at davidstevenson.substack.com

David has also had a successful career as a media entrepreneur setting up the big European fintech news and event outfit www.altfi.com as well as www.etfstream.com in the asset management space. 

Before that, he was a founding partner in the Rocket Science Group, a successful corporate comms business. 

David has also written a number of books on investing, funds, ETFs, and stock picking and is currently a non-executive director on a number of stockmarket-listed funds including Gresham House Energy Storage and the Aurora Investment Trust. 

In what remains of his spare time he is a presiding justice on the Southampton magistrates bench.