Cats, dogs and country risk

Emerging markets got clocked pretty much in proportion to their tech exposure, with China, Taiwan and Korea down about 1% in US dollar terms, and Thailand, Indonesia and Turkey all up. Turkey was today’s big winner, with the Turkish market up 1.5% in dollar terms on stronger-than-expected GDP growth.

Remarkably, the risk attached to EM currencies fell across the board. The implied volatility of options on EM currency rates vs. the US dollar (the normalized cost of hedging) was down today in almost all the EM currencies–even the Korean won, despite the beating that the tech-heavy KOSPI index took. That’s yet another dog that didn’t bark. The tech cat is being skinned alive, but the sleeping dog of systemic risk is undisturbed.

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