Emerging market equities is one of the few asset classes where investors are still seeing value, but as the asset class makes a comeback investors have different takes on whether to allocate to regional funds or leave geographical allocation to portfolio managers.
Jupiter Merlin has shaken up its allocation to emerging markets in its Growth and Worldwide Portfolios, opening a position in the Invesco Perpetual Asian fund, managed by William Lam.
China has been making all the headlines in recent weeks after it celebrated the Year of the Dog on 16 February. After such a strong year for Chinese investors in 2017, many headlines focused on the opportunities which lie ahead, but are there dangers that investors need to be aware of?
Chetan Sehgal, lead manager of the Templeton Emerging Markets Investment Trust (Temit), said the portfolio’s core themes of investing in Information Technology (IT) and consumerism will remain during his stewardship, having just taken the reins from the outgoing Carlos Hardenberg.
UK investors remained upbeat about global investment opportunities in February, but confidence in UK corporate and government bonds declined.
The eyes of the world fell on South Korea on Friday, as the opening ceremony of the 2018 Winter Olympic Games took place in Pyeongchang.
Ashmore continued to benefit from high investor demand for emerging markets products, recording close to $8bn in net inflows over the first half of the year.
Winterflood Investment Trusts has removed the Templeton Emerging Markets Investment Trust (Temit) from its recommend list of funds until the future direction of Franklin Templeton’s emerging markets team becomes clearer.
After several tough years, things have been looking more positive for investors in emerging markets over the last couple of years, with the region outperforming its developed market peers in both 2016 and 2017.
Frontier market funds are leading Europe’s emerging market fund pack with Charlemagne’s frontier market offering at the top, according to FE Analytics.
Whenever a fund manager has a prolonged period of success in their area, certain terms get bandied about as to their status within that field. One favourite used by journalists is ‘guru’, indicating a manager has moved on from ordinary status, to the extraordinary.
Andrew Harman, senior portfolio manager at First State Investments, believes strength in emerging market equities, rising inflation and low high-yield spreads will influence the firm’s multi-asset portfolio positioning in the year ahead.
