| This is Bloomberg Opinion Today, a deep dive into Bloomberg Opinion's opinions. Sign up here. Investing in growth is a no-brainer. And so the MSCI Emerging Markets index — which started in 1988 — was a natural way to funnel interest (assets) into the burgeoning companies of developing countries. The makeup of this Morgan Stanley index has changed since, increasing to 25 from the original eight, with lots of countries (and the stocks of their leading companies) dropping in and out. In a blazing run from 2003 to 2007, the index out-performed the S&P 500 on an annual return basis. The record's been spotty since, with the global financial meltdown and the Covid pandemic playing their parts. As Shuli Ren says, the benchmark index "has not outperformed its US counterpart [in] consecutive years" since 2010. After a terrific 2025 performance, the MSCI EM seemed poised to break that jinx this year. Shuli said a few things contributed to the nearly 17-point positive differential to the S&P: "a weak dollar, benign global economic growth, and investors' desire to diversify internationally." The Iran war, however, has wiped the optimism away with hostilities between Washington and Tehran basically shutting down the fossil fuel traffic so critical to most nations on the index. So far this year, the S&P is up around 7% while the EM is down 0.71%. Shuli says, "In Taiwan and South Korea, where the likes of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., Samsung Electronics Co. and SK Hynix Inc. make chips for Nvidia Corp., about 60% of energy consumption comes from oil and gas... A prolonged oil shock could raise input costs for global tech companies and slow down their capital spending. This, in turn, hurts domestic growth in developing countries." Curiously, China is still part of the EM, even though the enormous size of its economy makes its "developing" status anachronistic. Beijing isn't really throwing a lifeline to the rest of the developing countries. Instead, it's continuing to use its exporting superpowers to buoy the economy — even though it really doesn't know what to do with all that money. Other economies will continue to record trade deficits with the People's Republic at a time when their industries are sputtering. Perhaps it's time to rename it the "submerging markets" index. As Shuli says, "What's the lure of emerging markets if there's no growth?" Who Doesn't Want to Become Chinese? India | Speaking of emerging nations, there's fear in the US that India may — like China — become the next wanna-be global challenger to American hegemony. Mihir Sharma quotes US Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau, who, while visiting New Delhi last week, said, "We will not make the same mistakes with India that we did with China 20 years ago." Mihir begs to differ. India, he says, isn't "becoming Chinese" like the Chinamaxxing meme that swept US social media recently. And Washington shouldn't see it that way. He says, "The problem [with China] wasn't that an emerging economy drew interest and investment. The problem was that the world over-invested in an explicitly mercantilist, state-directed model that had the incentive and ability to pivot swiftly into expanding its own economic power at everyone else's expense." India is different, he says, "It is driven by the private sector, not by the state." The country can be frustrating and messy. Indeed, because of its free-falling style, "India is not China, and many of its residents fear it will never be" — as much as their patriotism shapes global ambitions. Isolating India, Mihir says, "is much more likely to produce a geopolitical and geo-economic challenger… and the US should be careful to not feed this instinct." Let India be, and its frenetic "underperformance" will keep it from being a potent threat. Otherwise, prepare for Indiamaxxing! "In 1919, John Maynard Keynes marveled at the Londoner who could order by phone various products of the whole earth from his bed, while sipping his morning tea. A century later, India has democratized this convenience through cheap smartphones and a national system of instant mobile payments, overtaking the US to emerge as the second-largest e-retail market after China by number of shoppers. Yet this innovation is being hijacked by 'dark patterns' — design elements that trick users into overpaying, or paying for things they never wanted. This global scourge has assumed chaotic proportions in India." — Andy Mukherjee in "The Dark Side of India's Digital Gold Rush."  "With the world reverberating to the risks of an oil-price shock, Latin America is actually poised to strengthen its geopolitical position. … The conflict arrives at a time when Latin America's macroeconomic foundations are far more resilient than in past decades. Inflation has largely returned to low single digits and is expected to be only marginally affected by increasing crude prices. Labor markets remain solid, and central banks hold sizable international reserves amid strong investor confidence and prudent monetary policy. … Even Argentina, historically the weakest link during bouts of global volatility but now a net energy exporter, stands to receive a hard-currency windfall ...'" — in Juan Pablo Spinetto in "The Iran War Has One Clear Regional Winner." Finland's ready to take on Russia. — Liam Denning Trump's deadly war planning. — Timothy L. O'Brien It's not just Dubai that's a travel mess. — Andrea Felsted Porsche's missing parts. — Chris Bryant What's $100-a-barrel oil good for? The planet. — David Fickling China is caught in an OpenClaw grip. — Catherine Thorbecke AI and climate can be friends. — Lara Williams Anthropic knows how to say "No". — Parmy Olson The "World" Baseball Classic is too US-centric — Adam Minter Walk of the Town: Danish Melancholy | One of my favorite painters is Vilhelm Hammershoi. At the height of his activity — from the end of the 19th century to the year of his death in 1916 — he captured the light and the interiors of the apartments he lived in on Strandgade, a long street a block or so in from Copenhagen's harbor front. While his palette is limited, his orchestration of brushstrokes is incredible. At times, they appear to have the quantum effect of George Seurat's pointillism — two or more different shades combining to create a different visual and psychic tone.  A painting by Vilhelm Hammershoi at the Davids Samling collection, Copenhagen Photograph by Howard Chua-Eoan/Bloomberg That is the kind of magical multiplicity that Copenhagen seduces me with: astonishing depth with an apparently narrow range. That's why I'm there so often. As cities go, it is small, but the friendships I have made there are deep. It was thus with great pain this week that I wrote about the debacle faced by the restaurant Noma — whose original location on Strandgade was where most, if not all the abuses, alleged by the New York Times took place. How can a place that made me and many other diners so happy also be the locus of so much cruelty? Art and quantum physics can make two different things shimmer miraculously as a single entity. In real life, however, we have to deal with coarser dimensions. Fire in the belly? Cool down.  "Don't worry. I can only eat so much hot and spicy food." Illustration by Howard Chua-Eoan/Bloomberg Notes: Please send cold comfort and feedback to Howard Chua-Eoan at hchuaeoan@bloomberg.net. Sign up here and find us on Bluesky, TikTok, Instagram, LinkedIn and Threads. | 
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