Emerging markets, which by some estimates cover about half the world, have often burned investors and advisors but are now primed to do very well. 

Several investing professionals, speaking on Tuesday at multiple sessions of the Investments & Wealth Institute’s conference in Manhattan, said they are very enthusiastic about emerging market investments.

“Everything looks good there,” said Jeffrey Kleintop, senior vice president and chief global strategist for Charles Schwab. He said Asia and emerging markets are “really good,” despite the geopolitical events that are roiling the region.

Katherine Ellis Nixon, chief investment officer with Northern Trust, said “all of the markets” in the emerging markets look promising. She advocated using an investment strategy that didn’t pick one market but “all of them.”

At a separate session, David Semple, portfolio manager for emerging market equity strategy with VanEck, said a recent survey of portfolio managers showed that 87 percent believed that things are getting better everywhere in the world.

“That’s important for emerging markets,” Semple said. He added that factors pushing up emerging market investing are strong growth rates, lack of inflation and very good macroeconomic factors.

“This has led to great revenue growth in emerging market companies,” Semple said. He said sales growth had reversed years “of downward revisions.”

Semple said the earnings per share (EPS) of emerging market companies were in the doldrums, but have now been rising over the last two years. 

“It’s now just the EPS levels; but the fact that they are being revised upwards and that is very significant,” Semple said.

These emerging markets companies are generating “more cash flow,” he added. Emerging market companies also don’t have as much debt as most developed market companies, which should make them a good bet.

“So you have all this cash flow. What are you going to do with it? You can give it out in dividends.”

He added that some companies in the developed world are expensive, but again emerging market companies don’t have that problem even though the emerging market index jumped last year. 

“There is a lot of very expensive stuff out there. We are not part of that,” Semple said. He continued that the expected growth in emerging markets is inevitable. 

“The capital markets in emerging markets are developing,” he said, “and will incrementally find itself as a much bigger part of the investing universe.”