Ashmore, Artio and flashes in pans Ashmore, the emerging markets specialist, fell victim to the taper at the end of last year. Outflows of $3.5bn in the last quarter, more than 4 per cent of its $78.5bn total, as well as some fee changes, had the market a little spooked on Tuesday. From the FT: Mark Coombs, chief executive, said: "Market performance and, to some extent, investor behaviour during the quarter continued to be influenced by uncertainty surrounding US monetary policy and heightened market volatility experienced since May last year." Portfolio rebalancing or the effect of lots of investors playing tourist in emerging markets? What it gives us is the faintest twinge of deja vu. Over in the US there once was a darling asset manager with a keen eye for emerging markets, Artio Global Investors. Spun out of Julius Bayer, it had exploded in popularity on the back of good performance, and when it first planned to list in 2008, its assets under management were trumpeted like so: Boing! However, the financial crisis intervened, and it did not make it to market until 2009, at which point its darling status began to evaporate. Why was that? Well, the assets come and, without performance, the assets go. To update that Aum chart from above: That 2013 total was $11.2bn as of May, at which point it was taken out by Aberdeen Asset Management and what was left of the Artio funds got the airbrush treatment. Anyway, a cautionary tale and all that. Ashmore has been around a lot longer, its assets are spread across more funds, and it took a few extra years to go from $3bn to $78bn in assets. Related Links: It's a good job the only word that rhymes with passive is massive - FT Alphaville This is where all the money goes - FT Alphaville Death of the contrarian - FT Alphaville Party like its 1999 - FT Alphaville