Active management

European uncertainty has lowered the price tag for quality stocks

The fourth quarter of 2018 was tough on investors in European equities, and uncertainty appears to be rising as we enter 2019. But the Invesco International and Global Growth team believes that environments like these can result in great prices for attractive businesses. In fact, we haven’t seen valuations in Europe this low since 2013. So, what is our outlook for Europe, and where are we finding opportunity?

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Emerging markets: No shortage of reasons to be cautious in 2019

Key takeaways

• Emerging Markets (EM) face high uncertainty due to US equity market volatility and trade wars.
• Yet we believe EMs as an asset class looks attractive as they are quite undervalued.
• Quality has been out of favor in the EM markets in 2018, but we anticipate a reverse to the mean in the near future.

Emerging markets are one of the few asset classes where informational inefficiencies provide a fertile ground for bottom-up stock pickers (i.e., active investors) to add value. In our opinion, demographics, technology, decreased reliance on commodities and globalization all provide visible long-term growth potential.

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The correction: Why I focus on quality dividends

The October sell-off in global markets has several underlying factors, but the most commonly cited reasons are the rise in U.S. 10-year Treasury yield, concerns on earnings growth and the overall level of valuations.

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Web stocks, user data abuse and regulation

The past few weeks have been characterized by significant volatility in the share prices of the world’s largest internet companies, which comprised the once-vaunted cohort of top-performing “FANG” stocks. In the span of less than one month, revelations about social networks permitting unscrupulous access to users’ personal data, upcoming regulatory changes in Europe, and increased attention by U.S. lawmakers have caused a swoon in global technology and internet equities.

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What may be ahead for equities?

An aging profit cycle and higher valuations suggest now may be a good time to prepare for downside risk

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Investing in emerging markets: Multinationals vs. local

I am often asked why an investor should invest in local businesses in emerging markets instead of putting their money in large multinational companies. For example, why invest in Amorepacific Corp., a Korean cosmetics company, over Revlon, a multinational that derives a portion of its revenue from sales in emerging markets? This is a fair question, and as a long-term global investor, I will outline my thoughts on it in this blog post.

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The increasing role of technology

There was a time when asset managers could largely be agnostic to technology. The common justifications were that the space was too esoteric, dynamic and generally difficult to understand. While there is some truth behind these sentiments, the increasing pervasiveness of technology into our lives and into the business models of most enterprises means that avoiding technology has shifted from abscondment to perilousness.

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Why truly active managers aren’t afraid of rising rates

With interest rates starting to rise, many investors are wondering what impact, if any, the move upward might have on their portfolios. We asked Marina Pomerantz, a portfolio manager on the Trimark Global Equities team and Neeraj Khosla, an investment analyst covering emerging-market (EM) equities for the same team, for their views on the current interest-rate environment.

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When geopolitical tension creates opportunities

Whether it’s nuclear tensions on the Korean peninsula, revolution in the Ukraine, the Brexit vote in the U.K. or an unpredictable legislative agenda from the Trump administration, there is no shortage of geopolitical issues for investors to consider. However, for us as long-term investors, the question is: When do these stresses create buying opportunities?

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What could billions of repatriated dollars mean for bonds?

Tax reform has incentivized companies to return their offshore cash to the U.S. This could create opportunities for U.S. investment grade bonds.

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The death of retail has been exaggerated

For the past couple of years, I’ve been seeing the same headlines over and over, predicting the end of brick and mortar retail. The rationale is that Amazon will continue to expand its offering lineup and wipe out entire sectors shortly after it enters their space.

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Emerging markets as a source of corporate revenue

As you may well know by now, Trimark portfolio managers are not macro investors. We don’t spend our time formulating top-down macro views. Instead, we research individual companies to find those that we believe offer the best return potential.

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What does market volatility mean for fixed income?

Market expectations of inflation have risen in recent days, after signs of wage growth – often seen as a harbinger of inflation – appeared in the January jobs report. We at Invesco Fixed Income believe investor concerns that inflation is finally showing signs of life have helped drive interest rates higher and impacted credit markets, where worries over higher interest rates (and their potential impact on companies) have caused declines in stock markets and other risky assets.¹

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A rising tide for fixed income?

In my recent blog on the impact of the tax reform, I explained why I believe the new tax law should be extremely supportive of the U.S. investment grade (IG) bond market, including provisions that could lead to reduced supply. Looking beyond IG, the news appears to look good for other fixed income sectors as well.

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Why international stock markets should continue to outperform U.S.

2017 marked only the second time in the last eight years that international markets outperformed the U.S., with the MSCI All Country World Index (ACWI) ex-U.S. returning 27.19%, and the S&P 500 Index returning 21.83%.¹ So is this the beginning of a sustained shift in outperformance? On one hand, there is a list of risks facing international markets, from Brexit to a potential slowdown in China. But on the other hand, international companies have recently been trading at a substantial valuation discount compared with the U.S., and we have been seeing strong profit expansion.

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Hiding from volatility? You might be missing out

In many ways, 2017 was an exceptional year. The U.S. equity market did better than most expected, despite concerns about the new President and worries about the economy, valuations, Brexit, North Korea and the Middle East.

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Stocks in this market may offer better value than U.S.

This time last year, the Invesco International and Global Growth team was optimistic about the better relative earnings potential that we saw building in Europe. Indeed, the trends played out to our benefit over the course of 2017.

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Let bonds be bonds – don’t fear duration

Often investors become concerned about duration in a bond portfolio, believing that if interest rates rise, duration will increase the potential for losses.

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Tax reform: A year-end bonus for fixed income?

Despite the near non-stop drama of the legislative process, we ended December with the U.S. Tax Cut and Jobs Act of 2017 being signed into law. What does this mean for fixed income investors? In my opinion, the news is overwhelmingly positive for the U.S. investment grade market; here are four reasons why.

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The high-yield sweet spot

For income-focused investors, yield remains incredibly elusive in most markets, with roughly 20% of global fixed income assets delivering negative yield. In Europe, that rises to about 40%.

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