BRIC - out, CEEMEA - in? Change of guard in emerging markets...

I was happy with my Emerging Markets index fund thinking it had me covered across all emerging markets - well not really :-)

The "traditional" concept of emerging markets being primarily the BRIC countries (Brazil, India,China) has now taken another turn. Probably because these countries have started looking a little frothy with billions of dollars of foreign investment in the last 5 years or so. They've got to take a breather sometime - right?

Well, now you dont need to restrict yourself to only the traditional emerging markets. The new (well atleast for me) buzz around is CEEMEA - meaning Easter Europe, Middle East and Africa.

If you want to be early to the party of the next decade (who knows - it might be), consider investing in these countries. Of course it is a given that these are highly risky investments (ever been to Nigeria?), but with great upside potential as well.

Wanna roll the dice on this with some play money?

Check out TRowe Price's new Middle East Africa fund - TRAMX. It opened up in September this year and it has already returned over 11% (in a month!). Of course it may go the other way next month and correct by as much as 50%, but we're talking a small portion of one's assets here - not one's retirement savings.

This fund stays out of the murkier areas in Africa - has quite a few holdings in South Africa and taps into countries like Bahrain, Qatar, Oman etc. The expense ratio is quite reasonable given the exotic fare in which the fund invests.

Another plus I believe is that since this fund is brand new, it does not suffer from asset bloat and the manager has a lot of freedom to really "light it up" :-)

I'm thinking of giving it a shot.......