After investing lightly in the asset class during its boom years, public pension fund managers increased their holdings of emerging market securities this year right as the asset class crumbled. This is according to a new report from Goldman Sachs. Emerging markets brought higher returns than U.S. equities in 2016 and 2017, but over the course of 2018 that trend has reversed strongly. The highly tracked MSCI emerging markets equity ETF EEM is down by more than 15% this year while the U.S. benchmark S&P 500 has been about flat.