YOU could make yourself seasick looking at the ups and downs of the Footsie index these days. Both London and Wall Street are quite capable of behaving in the frisky way which used to be regarded as the prerogative of the dashing young emerging markets.
So if you have the strong stomach needed to cope with all this, you might venture a modest proportion of the risk section of your portfolio (it's all risky really but you know what I mean) in some of the less well known emerging markets - those of Eastern Europe.
Russia, which has been moving in as scary a fashion as anything in Asia, recently caught the eye of a number of investment professionals including those who run the Eastern European sector for Credit Suisse and who do the stock picking for the Central European Growth Fund, a quoted investment trust.
Shareholders in the fund recently approved a proposal that its scope should be widened to include Russia. It had already extended the range from its original targets - Hungary, Poland, Czech Republic and Slovakia - to such countries as Croatia, Estonia and Slovenia. Russia until this year had remained specifically excluded. But Glenn Wellman, who heads the stock-picking team, told shareholders: ''Russia has changed.'' He believes it is close to the levels of maturity other European markets had reached by the time the fund was started in 1994.
''We think it is now very attractive,'' he said. ''We will be investing after a lot of hot money went in and out again.''
Of course, Russia still has plenty of problems, not least who will ultimately succeed Boris Yeltsin. But stock market mechanisms have been greatly improved and Western investors no longer feel they need to accompany transfer documents to the company's registrar ito ensure they are entered as shareholders.
And on the economic front Wellman said: ''The fundamental position of the Russian economy continues to improve, and the sharp decline in share prices from last year's peaks has restored the valuation basis of the Russian market.''
While admitting Russian shares carry higher risk than most, something they were demonstrating again this week, he liked them well enough to predict that some 15% to 20% of the fund's investment would eventually be in Russia.
The Moscow market earlier this month dropped around 12% on one of those days when the Indonesian crisis gave all the world's markets a jolt. One fear then was that the rouble might be devalued. The fund will be keeping a careful watch not only on political developments but also on progress in dealing with the budget deficit and reform of the tax regime.
Privatisations, getting a better grip on state budgets and using stock market investments for pension funding figure high in the hopes for most markets in former Iron Curtain countries.
New markets where the Central European Growth Fund has already begun investing are Bulgaria, Romania and Ukraine. Wellman expects to have 8% to 10% of the fund in these countries a year from now.
Poland is this year expected to begin a pensions reform which could have the effect of making its market less volatile. It is expected to speed up privatisations in the next couple of years and is likely to continue to account for about a third of the fund's investments.
The proportion invested in Hungary, where valuations are now similar to those of Western markets, is likely to be reduced. The Czech Republic will be a small proportion as it is seen as less stable.
Central European Growth Fund priced at around 60p is one of those investment trusts whose shares stand at a discount of over 20%. It sees that as ''unacceptably high in the longer term'' and the directors will be discussing ways to deal with it later this year.
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