Gyroscopic Investing

The large mutual funds that helped fuel rapid growth in developing countries have begun hastily retreating from those investments, contributing to the recent sharp decline in global markets.

In the last week alone, investors pulled $2.5 billion from emerging-market bond funds, the largest withdrawal since January 2014.

The world’s fastest-growing economies — led by China — have been propelled by soaring commodity prices, robust currencies and access to cheap loans, primarily through the sale of high-yield, high-risk bonds. But China’s decision to devalue its currency has set off a chain reaction of panicked selling around the world that contributed to the biggest one-week loss on Wall Street since 2011, sending the Dow Jones industrial average into correction territory (10 percent below its recent peak). The index was down 531 points on Friday and nearly 6 percent for the week.