The latest update to our income portfolios database shows there have been some equity market winners and some in recent months.

One of the winners was emerging market equities which have reversed the decline seen in recent months.

Average exposure to emerging markets in income portfolios is now 4.55 per cent - the highest level since last spring.

It probably helps here that the DFMs we surveyed for our recent sentiment indicator tend to be positively minded towards emerging markets.

One DFM we spoke to said: “We think that emerging markets are proving themselves to be much better at dealing with inflation than their developed counterparts. 

“Central banks in EMs are arguably further ahead of the curve and are implementing more appropriate policies.”

Another said they preferred to have a quality bias for EMs because they felt it was a difficult market to call.

The allocator with the biggest exposure to EMs in their income portfolio is AJ Bell, which has a stonking 15 per cent allocated here.

In fact AJ Bell’s exposure to EMs is bigger than its exposure to US equities and just shy of its exposure to UK equities.

Liontrust and You Asset Management are the only other DFMs with double digit exposures to EMs.

The title of most popular emerging market fund is shared by four funds - each held by two DFMs - JPM Emerging Markets Income, BlackRock Emerging Markets, Fidelity Emerging Markets and Fidelity Index Emerging Markets.

So what about the equity market loser in income portfolios? This is European equities where the average exposure is now 3.8 per cent - the lowest average exposure to this market ever recorded in our income database.

Here it is BlackRock Continental European Income which rules the roost, held by six DFMs.