BlackRock Made Emerging Markets. So It Can Break Them
Its push into bond ETFs helped channel billions of dollars into developing economies. Investors now have good reason to bail.
The story begins and ends here.
Photographer: Simon Dawson/BloombergNot too long ago, BlackRock Inc. was super bullish on the prospect of exchange-traded bond funds. While it took 17 years for these passive vehicles to reach $1 trillion in assets under management, doubling that would take a fraction of the time, the investment manager predicted. These funds have become “disruptors” of the once opaque and difficult-to-access global bond market, it said.
Passive funds have indeed become popular. More than 60% of institutional investors used debt ETFs last year, up from 20% in 2017. Meanwhile, emerging market bond ETFs represent the fastest growing segment, rising at an annualized rate of 38% over the last decade, to $82 billion in assets under management.