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But with frenzied buying all around adidas superstar pride pack saldi , returns have been declining precipitously in the last few weeks. Investors in emerging market bonds saw average profits of 10 percent this year - masking a surge of 30 percent in Brazilian and Ecuadorian paper, for instance. JP Morgan Chase's EMBI Global index is up 19 percent since September 2002.


Nor is this a new trend. The EMBI Global Index has witnessed in each of the last four years an average gain of 14 percent. According to Bloomberg, the assets of emerging market debt funds surged by one tenth since the beginning of the year, or $948 million - compared to $648 received during throughout last year.


The party is on. Emerging market debt is either traded on various exchanges or brokered privately to wealthy or institutional clientele. The obligations fall into categories too numerous to mention: insured and uninsured credits, defaulted or performing, corporate against municipal or sovereign and so on.


A dominant class of obligations is called "Brady bonds" after the former U.S. Treasury Secretary Nicholas Brady. These securities are the outcomes of the rescheduling pf commercial bank loans (sometimes defaulted) to developing nations. The principal of the rescheduled debt - guaranteed by U.S. zero coupon Treasuries deposited by the original issuer in the Federal Reserve or some other credible institution - remains to be fully paid. The interest accrued on the principal until the moment of rescheduling is reduced and the term of payment is prolonged.


Brady countries include Venezuela adidas superstar grigie saldi , Brazil, Argentina, Ecuador and Mexico, to name just a few. The bonds have been trading since 1989. Only one Brady bond has ever defaulted (Ecuador). No interest payment was ever missed or skipped.


As Nazibrola Lordkipanidze and Glenn C. W. Ames observe in their paper, "Hedging Emerging Market Debt", the terms of individual Brady packages vary. Individual countries have issued as few as one adidas superstar verde saldi , and as many as eight different bonds, each of which can vary with respect to maturity, fixed or floating coupons, amortization schedules, and the degree to which principal and interest payments are collateralized.


The market is besieged by - mostly offshore - mutual funds managed by the likes of Pacific Investment Management Company (PIMCO), AllianceBernstein adidas superstar gialle saldi , Scudder Investments, MFS Investment Management and Mainstay Investment Management.


Emerging market debt attracted entrepreneurial fund managers who set up nimble and agile shop. Ashmore Investment Management was divested to its current owners by Australia & New Zealand Banking Group. Despite the obvious shortcomings of its size - limited access to information and research - it runs a successful Russian fund, among others.


When the United Kingdom based firms, Garban Securities and Intercapital Securities, merged late in 1999, they transferred their illiquid emerging market securities businesses into a common vehicle adidas superstar 80s saldi , Exotix. The new outfit's team was poached from the trading side of emerging markets divisions of various investment banks. Exotix brokers the purchase and sale of fixed income products from risky countries.


Maxcor Financial, a broker-dealer subsidiary of Maxcor Financial Group, is an inter-dealer broker of various securities products, including emerging market debt. It also conducts institutional sales and trading operations in high yield and distressed debt. AIG Trading, of the AIG group, maintains a full-fledged emerging markets team. It boasts of "senior level contacts within many central banks adidas superstar w saldi , allowing us to provide rare insight".