global investing: The Allure of Over There

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But increasingly other factors, like the combination of low wages and high education levels in India and the migration of human talent to Singapore, determine where capital flows. Winter also points out that in markets where corporate structure remains cloudy--China is a prime example--investors can more safely tap some of the excitement by owning multinationals. "You don't have to buy local stocks to do this," he says. A quarter of Procter & Gamble's sales come from emerging markets, for example, and China alone accounts for 14% of revenues at Anglo-Australian mining giant Rio Tinto. Buying more-established companies may seem less exotic, but for a cautious investor, it's a way to wade into the shallow end of the emerging-markets pool.