As China’s role on the world stage continues to loom larger, many investors are contemplating whether to separate the country from the rest of their emerging markets (EM) equity allocation. Most arguments for such separation are based on China’s fast-growing weight in broad EM equity benchmarks, but it’s not necessarily that simple. Let’s take a closer look.

The answer? It depends

We believe the key decision point here should not be China’s dominance of the EM indices, but rather, the extent to which a stand-alone China equity allocation can be viewed as similar (or dissimilar) to an EM ex-China equity allocation. If they are, in effect, more or less the “same thing,” then the relative size of one to the other will likely make…

Sustainable investing is no longer the exclusive domain of equity investors. Indeed, there is a growing consensus that sustainability can be just as critical to investment outcomes in fixed income markets. Although environmental, social, and governance (ESG) integration and adoption have historically been slower in fixed income as compared to equities, investor demand for “green bonds” and other sustainable fixed income solutions has risen rapidly in recent years, particularly since the onset of COVID-19. Accordingly, the pace of new product innovation and proliferation has picked up as well.

Case in point: The booming global market for green/sustainability bonds has now expanded to convertibles — hybrid bonds that can be converted from debt into equity. While European debt issuers have thus far comprised most of the volume in these green, sustainability-linked, and/or social bonds, US and Asian issuers have become increasingly active in the space. The recent uptick of issuers selling green/sustainability convertible bonds includes companies focused on…

In a June 2021 white paper, A source-based approach to managing inflation risk, co-authored by our colleague Adam Berger, we laid out what we believe are the five most likely sources of higher inflation over the coming decade. One of them was climate risk or, more specifically, the potential for input price shocks caused by the ongoing trend of global climate change. Since this inflation source may not be on many investors’ radar, we’d like to revisit why we think climate change is inflationary and suggest strategies to help reduce the threat to client portfolios.

The relationship between climate change and inflation

• Overview: A price shock to a systemically important input price will tend to spur higher inflation as businesses pass it on to consumers, leading to “cost-push” inflation. While this has historically been due to geopolitical forces driving oil prices, we believe the impact of climate change on a range of commodities will be…

Question: Could rising “short-termism” actually provide an alpha opportunity for longer-term-oriented equity investors? Ironically, yes in my view. Let’s look at today’s financial technology (fintech) sector as an illustrative example.

Froth in fintech IPOs

I’m concerned about growing froth in the fintech initial public offering (IPO) market because much of the recent activity there signals that investors are continuing to take on more and more risk in pursuit of hoped-for near-term rewards. Here are some behaviors that, to me, highlight the potential for…

With US stocks notching record highs this year, significantly outperforming their Japanese counterparts, the spread between the two equity markets’ valuations has widened meaningfully in recent months (Figure 1).

Why the performance dispersion? Japan’s relatively slower COVID vaccine rollout and the disappointing lack of economic support provided by the (previously) much-anticipated Summer Olympics have clearly weighed on market sentiment of late, but equity investors’ apathy toward Japan actually dates back several years. One might even say that it has become entrenched.

The good news? The valuation gaps between Japan equity and its global peers have arguably reached…

After a lengthy absence, inflation has finally returned to the US, but for how long depends on who you ask. Many observers, including the US Federal Reserve (Fed), continue to expect today’s inflationary pressures to be more or less “transitory” in nature. Market pricing suggests that many investors share that belief.

However, here are five reasons why I believe US inflation could prove to be far more enduring than widely expected by the Fed and market participants.

1. A still-early economic cycle: The US economic cycle is still in its very early stages, as shown by the recent high level of…

In my opinion, the answer to the question above is “less than most people expect.” I think life will return to “normal” in ways that may be hard to imagine amid worries about the Delta variant. Early in the pandemic, my colleague Eunhak Bae wrote the following about living through 9/11 in New York City: “In the immediate aftermath, it seemed like no one would ever fly on a plane again. That obviously turned out not to be true. Today, it may feel like the world has changed for good. But I believe humans are blessed with selective memories and a desire to revert to what they know, so people will once more buy things, go see things, and congregate to share experiences.” When I first read those words, I thought the reversion to normal would happen much more quickly than it did, but I still think that’s our destination, perhaps within the next six – 12 months.

Why inflation will be an exception

The big change I foresee is in inflation, which has been unusually low for an extended time (1.4% over the decade ended December 2021 and 1.6% for the trailing 15 years). We have seen in past crises that economic stimulus tends to be harder to…

In their June 2021 paper, Why fragility is the new reality for the stock market, our colleagues Brian Hughes and Gordy Lawrence conclude that: ”An imbalance has developed between the supply of and demand for liquidity, and as a result we’ve seen a significant increase in the potential for the public equity market to jump from a state of calm to one of chaos.”

Within our global trading department, we couldn’t agree more. Here are our latest thoughts from a trading perspective on ways to potentially navigate those states of “chaos” that may arise, often unexpectedly, amid market shocks or bouts of heightened…