Country and Industry Factor Influence on Investment in Latin American Emerging Markets

In this paper, we analyze country and industry factors that influence investment strategies in Latin American emerging markets. This analysis show investors seeks different benefits from their investment, and country-specific political and economic events are very important to investors. In very recent years, the gaining importance of industry effects relative to country effects has come to light. The industry factor, studies have shown, has displaced the country factor as the main cause in the variability of equity returns. This phenomenon appears to be tied to the increase in international investment in general, as well as the ever increasing globalisation of the world economy. This study utilizes the variance approach to test the relative importance of country, industry, size and time specific sources to determine the variation between emerging Latin American markets and to assist investors in optimizing returns from their international portfolios.