Frontier Markets Are Getting a Second Look - NYTimes.com

THREE years ago, when Joseph Rohm, manager of the T. Rowe Price Africa and Middle East fund, visited Lagos, the capital of Nigeria, he was chaperoned by guards carrying semiautomatic weapons. These days, he strolls the streets alone. “I feel safer in Lagos than I do in Johannesburg,” said Mr. Rohm, a native of South Africa.
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That transition underscores the changing reality of so-called frontier stock markets, those that are less developed than emerging markets like Brazil, China and India. Countries, whole regions even, that a few years ago were dismissed as perilous to both body and bourse have come into stock market vogue.

Big investment companies have rolled out mutual funds and exchange-traded funds that put all or at least a big chunk of their money in frontier regions. Mr. Rohm’s fund, one of the older offerings, began in 2007. As of the end of April, it had invested about three-fourths of its $207 million in countries including Nigeria, Kenya and Qatar. For the 12 months through June, it returned 17 percent.