Alfredo Mordezki


“I felt optimistic at the beginning of the year as a result of the valuations and fundamentals. Indeed, this could hopefully be another year of two-digit returns on credit.” Alfredo Mordezki, Santander Asset Management


option will have been to be mildly constructive on emerging markets but whenever that cycle threatens to turn, as we saw last year, emerging markets react more severely than developed ones to the prospect of tightened monetary policy. To have always been saying that we are mildly constructive about 2016, 2017 or 2018 is because we have had a constructive monetary backdrop. Neidert: Cautious optimism is the standard stance of investment managers. It is the shorter definition of their job; if they were not optimistic they would not do it. They have to be cautious because their job is about identifying and managing risk. It is easy to say that following a correction valuations are in a better place than they were 12 months before and therefore optimism is justified. Collins: There is a persistency of a more positive emerging market debt story. There are two angles in relation to that. One is that managers have a bias and tend to be long the market. So there’s an issue in the industry where managers need to be more two-way in their positioning. Some are doing that and doing a good job, but they are the minority. The other point is that a lot of the factors underpinning a


June–July 2019 portfolio institutional roundtable: Emerging market debt 11


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32