Strategy Overview
While emerging market currencies have not been immune to the current bout of global risk aversion, the fundamental improvements undertaken by emerging nations over the past decade have enabled them to weather the current tumult with far greater market confidence than in the past. Local currency denominated investments in these countries allow investors to capture high real local interest rates and attractive interest rate differentials as compared to U.S. dollar interest rates. In addition, as the emerging economies remain well-positioned for further fundamental improvements, investors in this strategy may benefit from an appreciation of these currencies, especially in an environment of increasing secular pressure on the U.S. dollar. Currency exposure can also provide important portfolio diversification benefits due to low correlations with other asset classes.
PIMCO’s Emerging Markets Currency Strategy invests primarily in the currencies of, and fixed income instruments denominated in the currencies of, developing markets. PIMCO considers a developing market to be any non-U.S. country, excluding those countries that have been classified by the World Bank as high-income OECD economies (the current per capita Gross National Income (GNI) cut off level is defined by the World Bank as $11,906. In addition, PIMCO may consider additional countries as emerging market countries, based on a broader assessment on their development stage).
| PIMCO’s Emerging Markets Experience |
As part of PIMCO’s Emerging Market practice, the Emerging Markets Currency strategy benefits from the team’s considerable experience, market presence, and expertise.
PIMCO has been monitoring the development of emerging economies since the late 1980s as part of our economic forum process. We started investing tactically in this sector in the early 1990s. In 1997, we began to concentrate on emerging markets as a distinct asset class with the introduction of an institutional mutual fund and, subsequently, separately managed portfolios. PIMCO is one of the largest participants in the market for emerging market debt. We have long been active in local markets investing as well, both on a strategic and tactical basis. Our size and breadth places us in the forefront of information flows from developing countries, thereby supplementing the robust and timely understanding of the market dynamics so crucial to investing in these markets. An additional benefit of PIMCO’s stature in the market is the access that it provides to key policy makers from various countries, helping us maintain an in-depth policy dialogue. PIMCO’s traditional and successful team approach is evident in our emerging market efforts. With over 14 years of average industry experience as a team, our team applies a great depth of knowledge to our emerging markets strategies. The team-oriented strategy also allows us to stay involved in the market while conducting valuable on-the-ground research in the countries that we follow. |
| Role of Emerging Markets Currencies in a Portfolio |
| The principal reasons for investing in emerging market currencies are diversification and the potential for attractive risk-adjusted returns. Local currency denominated investments typically have low correlations with other assets. Investments in emerging market currencies also allow investors to reduce their portfolios’ exposure to a rise in U.S. interest rates and to benefit from potential declines in the value of the U.S. dollar vis-à-vis other currencies. |
| Investment Philosophy for Emerging Markets Currencies |
PIMCO’s emerging markets strategies focus on adding value through an emphasis on the high quality countries which tend to offer the most attractive risk-adjusted-return opportunities over a market cycle. By contrast, we seek to avoid countries which subject investors to the risk of default or credit deterioration. This philosophy embodies the following key principles which guide our disciplined investment process:
- Favor countries with strong or improving underlying fundamentals, attractive valuations, and potential return catalysts
- Synthesize PIMCO’s top-down macroeconomic forecasts with individual country assessments to gauge risks from the external environment and global economy
- Avoid countries which lack an economic and policy framework supportive of their fundamentals as well as those which are susceptible to a defacto deterioration in credit quality or financial contagion due to imbalanced market technicals
- Complement fundamental analysis with a rigorous security selection process to both ensure consistency between views and portfolio positioning and take advantage of relative value opportunities across and within markets
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| Long-Term Outlook for Emerging Markets |
| Emerging markets are well positioned for the global economic landscape that in the context of the not only our continued outlook from a secular perspective that the emerging markets asset class continues to mature, but also from PIMCO’s secular view that the U.S. dollar is susceptible to a decline. Many emerging economies exhibit greater growth potential as compared to developed countries, as a result of greater macroeconomic stability, strong investment inflows, improved liability management, and structural reforms (deregulation, privatization of key industries, further reduction of trade barriers, and greater orientation toward the international economy). Both local and external debt markets also stand to benefit from a broadening of the investor base as investors increasingly recognize the strength of emerging markets. |
| Risk Management / Controls |
Fundamental to the process of risk control are the analytical tools, which are available to measure and monitor exposures in the portfolio. PIMCO has invested considerable resources in developing its own proprietary models to help in this analysis. Extensive use of analytical models allows us to leverage our investment professionals and provides a dispassionate check on our investment decisions.
In the emerging markets area, in addition to the measures referenced above, we closely monitor economic, political, and other developments that impact various domestic and external markets of the economies. This process, which reflects a disciplined recognition of the fluidity of the asset class, is “formalized” in a daily note that assesses, on a timely basis, developments vis-à-vis our existing investment strategy. We also produce monthly and quarterly notes that address these issues within larger trends and detail the investment themes resulting from our analysis and frequent country visits.
Naturally, the process feeds into PIMCO’s quarterly economic and secular forums where developing economies are also discussed in the context of broader global developments. It also provides a real time opportunity for exchanges of views with other PIMCO investment professionals, thereby maximizing the scope for cross-fertilization and relative valuation assessments. |