Quote from opmtrader:
Are there specific factors driving each market or is it simply a pullout from the high yielding emerging markets in general?
Unwinding the reverse carry trade is a big part of it; no one wants to be trampled in another stampede for the exits.
Russia has a President looking more and more like a dictator and a terrorist problem in Chechnya growing more serious by the day with another recent assassination; in a favorable macro climate those little issues can be overlooked, in an unfavorable one they can't.
China has a serious overinvestment problem and no clear way to deal with it. If they revalue their currency by a small amount, say 5%, that might only encourage speculative capital flows in expectation of further revaluation. If they revalue by a larger amount, say 10-20%, they give their export business to the neighbors.
Meanwhile, the overinvestment danger is becoming clear to smarter players: unused infrastructure is a massive waste in the short run and can take decades to recoup, as telecom investors found out in the US. - not to mention China's banks are rotten to the core.
Nobody can stomach a plummeting dollar right now; with oil as strong as it is, an overly strong Euro would be a deflationary killer for Europe, and Asia doesn't have enough internal strength to wean itself off the US consumer.
Add in rising interest rates and the potential for a short term bounce, and you have flight to quality back to safe haven US assets.
In an environment like this, risk appetite is significantly diminished and quality is the watchword of the day. I think a lot of situations can be understood by looking at risk appetite and understanding how conditions alternate between favoring high octane on one side and safety on the other.
The emerging market / junk bond holiday was based on a relatively stable period where the fed broadcast its intention to keep rates low and trends were under control, so everybody got loaded with permission from the headmaster. Now all those stable trends are becoming unhinged at once. We're at the top of a roller coaster and we can't see what's on the other side.