But the escape from emerging markets (EM) has been brewing for a while.

Investors have been shifting out of EM since mid-2013, when long-term interest rates began rising in the U.S. as the Federal Reserve primed the marketplace for a long-awaited reduction in monetary stimulus.

Much of the inflows into EM assets in recent years were predicated on a search for yield in the absence of any in developed markets. But as U.S. interest rates have risen in recent months, there has been less and less of a justification to be invested in EM, and those flows have begun to reverse.