Monday, November 30, 2020

Goldilocks year awaits emerging markets defying Covid-19 pandemic rout

 

Underpinning the recovery is a resurgence in foreign-investor interest.



Emerging-market investors seem to have everything going for them right now, with the November rally offering a hint of what 2021 may have in store.

A plethora of tailwinds from accommodative central banks to an impending change of U.S. president and Covid-19 vaccine progress has put the assets of developing nations on course for some impressive milestones. Bonds have wiped out their year-to-date losses, while MSCI Inc.’s currency index is poised for the best month since January 2019 as well as a second successive annual gain. The MSCI stocks gauge is on track for its best month since March 2016.

Underpinning the recovery is a resurgence in foreign-investor interest. Fourth-quarter portfolio inflows to emerging markets are poised to hit the highest in eight years, data from the Institute of International Finance show. Yet, for all the euphoria, foreign positioning in bonds and equities for developing nations excluding China remains light, and Deutsche Bank AG’s Sameer Goel, says the rally is far from over.

“It’s Goldilocks for emerging markets’ under-invested assets as we go into 2021,” said Goel, the bank’s head of emerging markets macro research in Singapore. They “have considerable cyclical catch-up potential.”

Deutsche Bank isn’t alone in seeing further gains. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. have made bullish calls on the asset class in recent weeks. UBS Group AG said last week emerging-market assets may benefit from the prospect of “near-complete normalization” in global economic mobility by the end of next year.

 

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