The coronavirus spared many frontier markets from the same infection rates suffered by Western countries, but not their stock markets. In Vietnam, for example, the VN Index fell 26.1% in dollar terms during March, outpacing US benchmark indices such as the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which dropped by 13.74% over the same period.
Frontier markets are getting used to it after taking a pounding in recent years. International investors remain firmly focused on their homes markets in the US and Europe, or rapidly opening ones like China.
In the following interview, Thomas Hugger, founder and CEO of fund manager Asia Frontier Capital, argues that there has never...