In emerging markets, high-dividend stocks have been viewed in the past as a haven amid potential and real volatility in those markets, but no more.

The MSCI Emerging Markets High Dividend Yield Index has dropped 2.55 percent so far this year through April 16. That compares to just a 0.2 percent decline for emerging market stocks overall, as measured by the MSCI Emerging Markets Index.

The high-yield companies are generally older and thus seemed safer, The Wall Street Journal reports. But turmoil in Russia and China is now hurting the high yielders.

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The economy and stock market have suffered in both countries this year. In Russia it's because of the country's adventurism in Ukraine, and in China various industries are slowing.

Russian and Chinese stocks account for 42 percent of the MSCI high-yield index.

Economic growth in Russia totaled only 1.3 percent last year, and China's growth slowed to
7.4 percent in the first quarter, an 18-month low.

In emerging markets, "you may get your yield in due course, but you'll get your volatility with that," David Semple, an emerging-markets portfolio manager at Van Eck Global, told The Journal.

Meanwhile, emerging-market stock mutual funds and exchange-traded funds attracted $2.5 billion in the week that ended April 2, their first inflow since October, according to EPFR Global.

Some emerging markets may enjoy "an avalanche of cheap investment opportunities by the end of the year," Allan Conway, head of emerging market equities at Schroders, told CNNMoney.

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