Fund managers forced to rethink bet on emerging bonds Once a source of rich returns for yield-hungry investors, emerging markets are hammering home a long-ignored truism: banking on currency strength to enhance returns on stocks and bonds is not a one-way ticket to profits. Currencies such as the rupiah and lira have slumped 10-20 percent this year as a seismic shift in global capital flows rattles even relatively robust markets, exacerbating international investors losses on the underlying assets. And as a long-term dollar uptrend gains momentum, fund managers are being forced to rethink their decade-long view of emerging currencies as an obviously strong bet. That means having to start actively managing exchange rate risk - and the cost of hedging may well make the underlying investment look far less attractive. (Read more: Can emerging marketsoffer inflation protection?) So far this year, a strategy based on holding the lira, zloty, real, Mexican peso and rouble versus the euro, dollar and Swiss franc is losing 2.3 percent, Citi calculations show. Returns on the same trade in 2012 were almost 9 percent while full-year returns have been negative only three times in the indexs 12-year history, in 2002, 2011 and 2008. The volatility has been horrific on emerging currencies, Marino Valensise, CIO of Barings Asset Management told the Reuters Investment Outlook summit this week. We are perplexed by high volatility even on currencies such as Mexican peso which was brought down...for no reason. In the past, fear of missing out on currency appreciation made investors reluctant to offset exchange rate exposure. But analysts say investors are now more open to discussing hedging. Valensise remains reluctant to hedge but acknowledges the risk, especially for emerging debt, where currency appreciation contributed up to half the annual return in some recent years. (Read more: Emerging markets may become new force in euro rally) Currency volatility is going to be an issue for investors in EM bond markets because the currency side is so big relative to the bond return, he said. So a dollar-based investor who earned 8 percent yields on Indian bonds would still have plunged into loss due to the rupees 12 percent year-to-date fall versus the greenback. In many ways the currency weakness is hardly surprising. Growth in developing countries is slowing, exports are falling and once-famed current account surpluses are dwindling. And as the tide of global liquidity ebbs, over $30 billion has flowed out of emerging bonds alone in the past six months, according to data from fund tracker EPFR Global. Everything out there is conspiring to weaken emerging currencies, said Luis Costa, head of CEEMEA FX and debt strategy at Citi. Theres been a big change in mindset ... Until this year FX was a source of alpha (enhanced returns) but now, if you hold local debt, the currency is the problem. (reuters)
Posted on: Sat, 23 Nov 2013 21:22:12 +0000
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