In London we are preparing for one of our few Bank Holiday weekends, and the markets are ending the week on a predictably quiet note.

But in emerging markets the mood is verging on febrile, with governments rushing to intervene in currency and bond markets. Brazil, Indonesia, Turkey and India have all tried to stem the slide in their currencies, a by-product - at least in part - of the QE tapering that is expected to begin next month.

Brazil's central bank announced a $60bn currency intervention programme late on Thursday, including currency swap auctions and dollar repo agreements. The real has depreciated by 15% against the dollar this year, stoking fears of inflation, the perennial bugbear of the Brazilian economy.

The intervention received a cautious welcome from the CDS market, with the sovereign's spreads tightening 11bps to 198bps. But this is still almost 100bps wider than where it was trading in early May, and the markets are more than aware that Brazil's previous interventions have been unsuccessful.

Indonesia has also been active in defending its currency, but the government now appears to be taking a different approach. It announced higher taxes on luxury cars, measures to reduce oil imports and incentives to invest in agriculture.

The sovereign's spreads tightened 12bps to 276bps on Friday, but this is insignificant in the context of Indonesia's recent credit deterioration. Its spreads have more than doubled in the past three months, close to the levels reached in the panic conditions of the second-half of 2011.

Turkey is no stranger to debt and currency crises, but its credit standing has improved considerably in the last decade and it was upgraded to investment grade this year. Nonetheless, it is back trading at junk levels (Markit implied rating of 'BB') as it got caught up in the rout on emerging markets.

Turkey's authorities responded by doing something different from Brazil and Indonesia, though it wasn't particularly radical, it raised interest rates. The 50bps hike was something of a surprise given the domestic opposition to tightening policy. It had little impact on the sovereign's spreads - at 233bps they are well over 120bps wider than early May levels.

Emerging market sovereigns have been the main casualties of QE tapering talk. But Brazil, Indonesia and Turkey all have one thing in common that troubles investors: considerable current account deficits. The situation is not as delicate as the crisis in the 1990s; external debt is lower and foreign exchange reserves are higher. However, that hasn't stopped the markets looking for pressure points, and at the moment emerging market names perceived as vulnerable are feeling the pain.

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