Senior Portfolio Manager Anthony Kettle’s weekly BlueBay Emerging Market Debt commentary offers readers a concise yet wide-ranging macro overview. Kettle covers markets large and small, providing insight on how financial, political, and economic developments in one region affect markets elsewhere. Here is his latest insight.
Summary
Risk markets consolidated this week ahead of key catalysts, including trade talks between the US and China. In the equity space, the S&P 500 lost -0.5%, while the Euro Stoxx 50 and emerging-market (EM) equities both gained +0.5%. The US rates curve had a modest bear flattening move, with 2-year yields 7 basis points (bps) higher and 30-year yields 5bps higher. Meanwhile, 10-year US real rates rose by 2bps to end the week at 2.06%.
In EM credit markets, spreads were 6bps tighter for corporates and 11bps tighter for sovereigns, while total returns were +0.1% and +0.3%, respectively. In the corporate space, the transport sector was an outperformer, while the oil & gas sector continued to be a laggard. In the sovereign space, Ukraine, Argentina and Nigeria were all relative outperformers, while investment-grade names lagged overall.
In EM local markets, returns were down -0.2%, with foreign exchange (FX) driving the underperformance. Regionally, Latin America was an outperformer, with Brazilian rates and Mexican FX performing well. In a reversal of recent trends, Asian FX was an underperformer. Finally, Romania was a notable underperformer this week as markets digested local political developments, which will present a challenge to the country’s current investment-grade rating.
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