07/02/2014 10:15 AST
The plunge in emerging markets is taking a bite out of the performance of funds managed by some of the biggest names on Wall Street, including BlackRock, Brevan Howard and T Rowe Price.
Some mutual funds are already down 10% so far this year, thanks to declining stocks and currencies. And that drop has intensified selling pressure as investors rush to pull more money out.
“It has been a disappointing beginning of the year,” said Will Landers, a BlackRock equity portfolio manager with close to $4bn in assets under management. The BlackRock Latin America Fund is off 10% this year.
Generally, hedge funds appear to be weathering the sell-off better. Many managers reduced their exposure to emerging markets late last year because of shaky economic prospects, and the current volatility creates more opportunities for those who use short strategies.
Emerging markets had been the darlings of the financial world between 2009 and early 2013, driven by a belief that countries such as China and Brazil would lead global growth in the next few years, while developed world economies would remain nearly stagnant.
But emerging markets investors have turned nervous for many reasons, from the US Federal Reserve’s pullback in its bond buying program to upcoming elections in India, Brazil, Turkey, Indonesia and elsewhere.
The street battles between protesters and the authorities in Ukraine, turmoil over elections in Thailand, and bomb blasts in Egypt are not helping either.
So jittery are investors that a shock 425-basis-point hike in interest rates by Turkey’s central bank last week did not even buy the currency a 24-hour reprieve before selling started again. Illustrative of this is the iShares MSCI Emerging Markets fund, which is down 9.7% in 2014 through Wednesday.
The ETF - the second-most actively traded in the US - ended last year down 5.8% and rose 17% in 2012.
Fund investors worldwide pulled $6.4bn from emerging market stock funds in the week ended Jan. 29, their biggest outflows since August 2011, according to data from a Bank of America Merrill Lynch Global Research report.
And investors and analysts say that the debt markets can be just as treacherous.
“I’d advise only those investors with much higher risk tolerances to invest in emerging market debt as they become much more volatile,” David Sekera, corporate bond strategist with Morningstar, said on a webcast.
Brazil, Latin America’s largest economy, has dragged down many funds this year, including T. Rowe Price’s Latin America Fund, which has declined about 11%.
The Dreyfus Brazil equity fund and the Fidelity Latin America fund are also both down about 11%.
Investors are still not swayed, however, to trim their exposure in Brazil.
“Even after the 13-14-15% declines, I am sticking with my big bets. I am thinking long-term,” said Jose Costa Buck, who oversees the T Rowe fund, adding that he plans to hold many of his stocks for “at least three years.”
BlackRock’s Landers shares the same sentiment and sees opportunity in the selling pressure. He said in an email to Reuters: “For a long-term investor, this offers an opportunity to buy some cheap stocks,” citing Vale, down about 6% so far in 2014; Itau, down about 0.4%; and Ambev, down about 9.5%.
Brazil is also grappling with other concerns, from outdated infrastructure to a stubbornly high inflation rate, and a reputation for state intervention that has spooked many investors.
Landers cautioned that significant improvements in the Brazilian economy probably will not happen until after the October presidential election.
Scott Mather, head of global portfolio management at Pimco, also signaled he sees the declines as an opportunity.
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Reuters
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