The last year has been an especially tricky one in investment terms, but even so I was surprised to see quite how oddly things panned out.

As discussed in the final MoneyWeek Asia email of 2011, I got one macro call right – the inflation threat seems to be fading fast in most emerging markets, but it didn’t help my investment thinking much. The year’s top performers were an odd split between safe havens (government bonds) and, surprisingly, risky assets that promised growth (countries such as Indonesia). Anything in between got squashed.