Huge gaps in growth and interest rates have turned the flow of money from mature into emerging economies into a torrent, but the truism that some markets are riskier than others should give investors pause for thought.
Currencies and asset prices have hit multi-month highs in a broad swathe of emerging markets, suggesting a degree of complacency in the finance industry that could, in some cases, exacerbate familiar risks posed by inflation, politics and trade imbalances.
"The thinking is 'out of West, into rest'. It's much more indiscriminate than what we've seen before," said Michael Power, global strategist Investec Asset Management in Cape Town.
A consequence of the ultra-low interest rates in much of the developed world, the wave of money heading to these markets is also part of a longer term trend precipitated by their relatively robust economic growth rates.
Record amounts ploughed into the asset class have sent the emerging markets equities benchmark to 2-1/2 year highs, up 14 percent this year, double its global peer's gains. A second round of asset buying to be unveiled this week by the US Federal Reserve could drive emerging markets higher.
But as witnessed during Asia's late 1990s crash, such investor optimism can evaporate quickly.
And evidence that a range of risk factors are being underplayed - from inflation pressures in India and rand strength South Africa to potential trade imbalances in Turkey and unorthodox fiscal policies in Hungary - suggests conditions are ripe for history to repeat itself.
The extra money pumped in by the Fed to spur economic recovery could also push commodity prices up, amplifying price pressures that many governments already strain to cope with.
India this week raised interest rates for the sixth time this year to try to tame stubbornly high inflation. Runaway inflation threatens social stability in emerging economies such as Indonesia and Nigeria, which tend to hold a larger proportion of their consumer price baskets in food.
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