On virtually any definition emerging market shares are cheap after the recent sell-off. But that does not mean they will quickly rebound, given current investor concerns about recession, collapsing earnings and widespread global risk aversion.

Take the trailing price/earnings ratio for emerging markets. This peaked at 19.4 in October last year, during a rare period when emerging markets were trading at a higher multiple than the developed world. Since then the ratio has collapsed – it fell to as little as 7.0 in late October, its lowest level based on the indices that Datastream has been running since the early 1990s.