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Emerging market returns

Global/emerging markets · 2011 to 2026 · USD total return · 1 source · data as of 31 Jul 2026

Emerging markets is a label, not a place. MSCI decides which countries go in it, based on how developed the economy is, how big and liquid the market is, and how easily foreign investors can actually buy things there. The list is reviewed every year and countries move in and out of it. So a fifteen year emerging markets return is a number calculated across a membership that kept changing underneath it. The headline is 5.60% a year over the fifteen years to June 2026. What that single figure hides is the interesting part. Taiwan compounded at 12.96% over exactly the same stretch, and other constituent markets delivered a fraction of the index. Averaging those together and calling the result an asset class is a bit like averaging the temperature of a fridge and an oven and reporting the answer as room temperature.

This page has the index return, the country by country breakdown, and the two things that get skipped most often. That these are dollar returns, so the currency does a great deal of the work. And that the best performing market of the period was carried heavily by one semiconductor company.

Nearly everything here comes from one dataset built on MSCI indices, with the market capitalisation figure from a separate source. Both are linked at the bottom with their dates. If a number is going to matter to a decision you make, get it from there rather than from my summary of it.