The index is represented by 33 emerging markets from South East and South Asia, Middle East, Latin America and Eastern European nations. Indian currency was also among the stable ones, leading to no price erosion due to exchange rate movement. India had a zero per cent change in exchange rate.

Among the major Asian markets, only Korea, Thailand and Malaysia posted positive returns of 3.3 per cent, 2.6 per cent and 0.5 per cent respectively. The return on Korean market was mostly on account on 2.3 per cent appreciation of Korean Won against US dollars. Other markets like Taiwan, Indonesia and Philippines gave negative returns after exchange rate adjustments on stock market investments for January.

Brazil followed by Colombia and China recorded the maximum value erosion among the emerging markets. Theyposted a negative return of 28.6 per cent, 23.8 per cent and 18.6 per cent respectively. Brazil's losses were entirely due to the massive 41.9 per cent devaluation of its currency in January, while in local currency MS Index on Brazil has appreciated by 23 per cent.

The best performing emerging markets index was of Eastern Europe which showed a 7 per cent return, while the worst performing emerging markets was Latin America with a negative return of 12 per cent. The key regional benchmark index on Far East, excluding Japan, fell by 3.4 per cent.

The stock market return by the US stocks topped the league of honour among the developed markets. The Morgan Stanley North American index posted 4.3 per cent return while Europe Index posted a negative return of 0.8 per cent.