Russia “allowed the currency to move so cheaply that the current account, despite the very large drop in oil prices, the current account right now is in a very large surplus,” said BlackRock Emerging Markets Portfolio Manager Amer Bisat in an interview with Bloomberg, noting that this is rare and unusual for a resource-producing country given the current economic backdrop. “In the meantime, they were able to deleverage and pay back all their external debt using reserves while maintaining a very big cushion of reserves.”
More intrepid investors may target some of the cheapest emerging markets. For instance, Russia is currently the cheapest on absolute terms, with a forward P/E ratio for the MSCI Russia Index at 4.9, compared to its 5-year average of 5.2, according to Capital Economics.
Market Vectors Russia ETF
