Surge in emerging markets ETF investments in January, as ETF providers lean towards Latin American products

Emerging markets equity ETFs took a big hit in 2011. But since the start of the new year there has been a surge of investor interest in these products. And State Street and iShares are both favouring Latin America

Emerging market ETFs have had strong inflows since the start of 2012

Since the beginning of 2012, inflows into exchange-traded funds (ETFs) that provide exposure to Latin America have reflected a reversal of the investor outflows that characterised emerging markets investment last year.

While 2011 saw net outflows of about $1.8 billion dollars from emerging markets equity ETFs, in January, $6.6 billion was poured back into these products.

And although only $200 million of these inflows were channelled into Latin American exposure, Steven Cohen, London-based head