Monday
The week kicked off with a bank holiday Monday, which meant a slightly slower start to the week. I took my children to the London Zoo, which is always a family favourite.
Despite the UK bank holiday, US markets were still open, so in the afternoon I spent some time going through US earnings with read across for emerging markets. Google, Amazon and Microsoft all reported at the end of the previous week, so I read through these updates given their importance for our technology holdings in Korea and Taiwan. I also looked through our internal research from Asia, where our analyst on Korean memory had published updates on the two main companies in that sector.
Tuesday
Tuesday started with a company meeting with a chip designer that we had recently bought in our GEMS portfolios. It was a good opportunity to learn about their evolving business model, especially the potential upside from their growing custom ASIC design business catering to hyperscalers. This was followed by our weekly EMEA & LATAM call, where all of the EM portfolio managers and analysts catch-up to debate new ideas and share any updates on our views. This week, we discussed recent earnings results, with our EM consumer analyst sharing some interesting insights around the impacts of the conflict in Iran on Middle Eastern property markets
Over lunch, I met with a broker to discuss the domestic Chinese semiconductor industry, before heading back to the office to go through some earnings results. We are deep in earnings season, so much of my time at the moment is spent going through company results to work out if they have implications for our investment theses or conviction. I then had a catch-up with my mentee, and we had a chat about a Swedish fibre optical business he was working on. It’s always nice to learn about something new, and to hear about what the analysts outside of EM are looking at.
The day ended on a high watching Arsenal win an exciting game in the Champions League semi-final.
Wednesday
This morning started earlier than planned, with a 5am wake-up courtesy of my children. Before heading into the office, I took the early start as chance to exchange some messages with my fellow GEMS portfolio manager Nick, who is based in Hong Kong. We discussed some overnight news flow around design changes in the cooling systems for Nvidia’s chips, and whether this would impact any of our portfolio holdings in Taiwan’s AI supply chain. We also discussed an ongoing IPO in the Chinese biotech sector
Once I arrived in the office, I attended an in-house company meeting with a memory producer – this was widely attended by Fidelity PMs given memory is such a hot sector at the moment, and the meeting was useful to gain more conviction on the cycle, as well as insights into topics such as competitor dynamics and capacity expansion plans. This was followed by a trip to the gym, which I always prefer during the day when it is quiet!
The afternoon began with a coffee with a now-retired Fidelity small cap portfolio manager, which was a good opportunity to share investment ideas and discuss the GEM funds. This was followed by another company meeting, this time with a European manufacturer of a substrate material used in data centres. Whilst we don’t own the business in the portfolios, we do own some of their Taiwanese competitors, so it was helpful to learn more about the industry dynamics.
Finally, I sat down to send some trades, keeping my fellow GEMS and regional portfolio managers – Nick, Zoltan and James – updated on the changes I made, and then finished off going through some more earnings results.
Thursday
I began the day with a trip to the gym, before heading into the office for our weekly China Insights meeting. This is similar to the weekly EMEA-LATAM call and provides an opportunity to catch-up with the China research analysts and portfolio managers. I then had another company meeting with a European sportswear company, where a Chinese peer has recently acquired an equity stake.
Over lunch, I headed out across St Paul’s to Morningstar’s Investment conference, where I was giving a brief update on Fidelity’s GEMS long-only and long-short strategies, as well as speaking about my outlook on EM markets.
In the afternoon I updated some of my accounting screens which I use to come up with potential ideas for our investment trust (Fidelity Emerging Markets Ltd) and the FAST Emerging Markets fund which have the ability to short.
Finally, the day finished with a couple of quick beers with some of my colleagues in the European team before dinner with the EM sales team at one of the big banks.
Friday
Friday started with dropping my daughter off at nursery, and then on my commute to the office listening to a call with our Shanghai-based technology analyst, where we discussed his ideas in both the semicap and fabless sectors.
My diary is much quieter today, so I spent as much time as possible reading internal research. In our India office in particular, there were a couple of initiations of coverage this week in the industrials and diversified financials sectors, so I read through both of those and looked at their financial models. I also looked through the ratings upgrades and downgrades from the analyst team this week – one analyst in the mining sector recommended across the desk that I take profit in one of the holdings in his sector (so I followed his advice).
In the evening, I took my daughter to a children’s theatre show and then we went for a pizza afterwards.
Weekend
Over the weekend, I headed to Bath with my wife and children for my nephew’s 2nd birthday, before making it back to London in time to catch the Arsenal game on Sunday evening (another win!)
