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MONEYTALK

your loving pet decides to chew your face out as an hors d'oeuvre.

This is exactly what happened last week when emerging markets from Brazil to Russia to Turkey to India swooned in unison with a violence that stunned the global banking village.

As the hot money from Wall Street and the Swiss private banking gnomes scrambled to flee sunny markets chock full of shady punters, there was a bloodbath on their stock exchanges. Bombay was hit by a financial neutron bomb.

The Sensex went into a freefall, losing 20 per cent of its value amid rumors of mortally wounded banks, brokers and money managers. Things got so bad that the Indian Finance Minster began to coo reassuring bullish sweet nothings into the ear of panic stricken stock speculators who had the same sort of oopsie-daisy Maalox moment their GCC peers endured back in March.

It is a usually a lousy idea to mortgage the house and the wife to buy pieces of paper in rigged share casinos where the sole role of the client is to be the innocent lamb led to the slaughter by the pinstriped pirates otherwise known as brokers, bankers and, ever so coyly in the Gulf media, independent market analysts. So when Dubai plunged 50 per cent , Saudi Arabia lost half its value in three months, India dropped like a dodo-dead whacked supari chewing Mafiosi don with cement blocks strapped to his feet, Moscow and Jakarta and Sao Paulo saw Mr. market turn manic depressive, Joe and Jane Habibi in Dubai got creamed, particularly if, they were luckless (and witless) enough to buy emerging markets toxic waste from the private banking pirhanas in town.

Private bankers (brokers in fancy suits, in case you have any illusions!) get paid big money to push products. Emerging markets 'structured funds' are a Pavlovian favourite because they provides the juiciest hidden spreads, 5% to 7% upfront at some greedy banks.

When Mama Bubble in the GCC crashed with a vengeance, the great and the good of Dubai financial wizards waved their magic wands and hey presto, rolled out product after product dedicated to India, Turkey, commodities, Egypt, China ( habibi, imagine if one billion Chinamen exchanged their bicycles for Ferraris!) .

So investors who got skinned alive in Gulf IPO's (Oooh, my laments to the financial geniuses who gave us Dana Gas and Nass and the Gulf Sumo Wrestlers Private Equity Fund) were now introduced to the financial delights of Tamil Nadu private equity (yum-yum, Idli Spice Dummynathan, gimme some!) Sri Lanka growth stocks (Tiger, Tiger burning bright, boss.

When emerging markets submerge in grizzly inspired tsunamis, running with the bulls on Dalal Street or Jakarta or Doha is not exactly the optimal route to health, wealth and happiness. In other words, those who try to make a killing in rigged money bazaars only succeed in getting killed when the emerging market does a predictable Atlantis.

Emerging markets investing is the ultimate financial markets rollercoaster. When they be good, they be very very good. But when they go badass nasty, they can cheerfully rip your face apart ,mon. Smoke that in your philosopher's pipe and never, ever forget that Rastaman vibration, baby, is always, always, positive.