Morningstar has issued its February performance wrap and says investors have been reassessing their exposure to risky asset classes over the past few months.

The global credit crisis and worries about the weakening of the US economy began to raise fears of a global economic slowdown and investors took a flight to safety by heading towards large-cap companies.

Such companies tend to have stable and diversified revenue flows which can weather tough market conditions better than small- and mid-cap companies. However, Morningstar’s data from the month of February suggests that markets’ appetite for risk is perking up.

Chetan Modi, spokesperson for Morningstar, said: “Emerging markets produced dire results in January, with many ranking at the bottom of the Morningstar categories list during the month. During the month of February, however, the emerging markets fund categories made a decent recovery.”