That is partly because the rise of the Chinese economy boosted commodities and robust global trade lifted exports from developing nations.

Those conditions are no longer there. Not only is China growing at the slowest pace since 1990, sluggish global trade also damped any expectations for a swift export-led recovery. Exports from emerging markets are headed for their first decline since 2008, according to CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.

“We don’t think 2004 is the right analog,” Citigroup’s strategists Dirk Willer and Kenneth Lam wrote in a note on Dec. 15.

While emerging market currencies may start a “counter-trend rally” after the Fed’s first rate increase, the declines may resume subsequently, “given that both China and the Fed are likely to remain significant overhangs,” the strategists wrote. With investors expecting only two more Fed rate increases in 2016, U.S. policy makers may end up raising the borrowing costs faster as the economy picks up, they said.

Not all emerging markets will collapse. Sitting on $7.5 trillion in foreign reserves, developing nations have enough at their disposal to contain any fallout.

With yields at 6.4 percent, dollar-denominated bonds sold by developing nations stand out in a market where $7.9 trillion of government securities offer returns below zero.

Yacov Arnopolin, an emerging-market investor at Goldman Sachs Asset Management, said he’s ready to “take advantage of a potential post-Fed knee-jerk sell-off” to add emerging-market assets.

“Most of the world is still faced with low, if not negative, yields, and EM should continue to look attractive by comparison,” said Arnopolin by e-mail before the Fed decision. “Inevitably, U.S. tightening will produce some winners and losers among EM sovereigns, even though we believe the overall sector impact should be muted.”

Weak Countries

Those losers include Turkey, South Africa, Malaysia and Colombia, which either have large current-account deficits or have accumulated too much dollar debt, according to Capital Economics.