You must be mad, why Pakistan?

I was like most people thinking it must be crazy thinking to jump into Pakistan stock on the recent blog entry, consider to buy Maybank if it's reaches bargain or steal level. Unless I have too much money or no other investment choice why taking such a risky proposition?

Turtle was not alone, Templeton too invested in this market.

In Pakistan, a market shunned by most institutional investors but which accounted for 5.3 percent of Templeton's Asian Growth Fund's portfolio, Mobius said the country's stocks were attractively priced at forward price-earnings ratios of less than 10.

Pakistan's stock market is Asia's top performer this year, up almost 10 percent on top of a 40 percent rise last year. Economic growth has averaged about 6 percent in the last five years, but the South Asian country has been plagued by political instability and militant attacks.

A Templeton spokesman said the firm's Pakistani investments included CB Bank, Oil & Gas Development Co (OGDC.KA: Quote, Profile, Research), Faysal Bank (FYBL.KA: Quote, Profile, Research) and Pakistan Telecommunication (PTCA.KA: Quote, Profile, Research).

"It's working out for us well," Mobius said, noting that recent elections had replaced an unpopular military-backed government with a civilian government that was likely to retain the previous administration's pro-private enterprise policies.

Risk comes with what we don't know. I feel it was less risky after gaining more knowledge about the subject. Beside watching what the expert is doing, the other factor affecting my thinking was there is a shift of economc prosperity from indstriaIized to agricultural and resource-based nations. Truth is the last 5% was from experience and gut feels but like Soros always says: I am fallible, I could be wrong, Investing emerging market is risky and volatile, however given enough time, these markets can provide satisfactory returns. I leave it to you to judge Templeton track records.