CoreMacro

The EM EPS recovery has been narrow, solely driven by TMT stocks in China, Korea, and Taiwan. EM corporate profits are set to contract in the next six to nine months. Unlike in the past, US dollar weakness will be deflationary, not reflationary, for EM share prices.

Special Report

Unlike in past episodes, US dollar weakness will be deflationary, not reflationary, for the rest of the world. In this context, EM local currency bonds offer a superior risk-reward profile. Stay long domestic bonds in select EM countries.

India's IT service exports have been booming and will continue to do so despite wider AI usage. Indian IT stocks, however, will not benefit from it as the expanding Global Capability Centers (GCCs) in India compete with the nation’s IT companies, driving the latter's profitability down.

Global currency markets have entered a new era. This implies that the framework for analyzing exchange rates must also change. We introduce a new framework for analyzing EM currencies and classify them into resilient and vulnerable categories. Finally, we are adding more EM domestic bonds to our portfolio and making many changes to our currency trades.

Peru’s economic resilience will help its markets outperform their EM peers. Domestic macro fundamentals are robust, and strong external accounts will lead to a stable-to-strengthening currency versus the US dollar. Overweight Peruvian equities, local bonds, and sovereign credit relative to their respective EM benchmarks, and go long 10-year domestic bonds (currency unhedged).

Special Report

The prevailing narrative around the world is that Chinese households are not spending enough and that China has overly relied on exports for economic growth. Some parts of this conjecture are incorrect. The primary economic imbalance in China is neither inadequate consumption nor outsized exports. The main economic excess is overinvestment.

Taiwan, Singapore, and Korea's currencies might appreciate versus the USD, driven by capital repatriation from domestic private investors away from the US. This thesis is less pertinent to India, Indonesia, and the Philippines because they have large net foreign portfolio liabilities. Malaysia and Thailand fall in the middle, while China is an exception. Investors should play intensifying deflationary pressures in Asia by betting on lower interest rates in the region.

In the long run, Mexico will emerge as one of the biggest winners of US tariffs as the US diversifies supply chains away from China. In the medium term, however, a US growth slowdown and tariffs will push Mexico into recession. In EM portfolios, we remain overweight Mexican equities, domestic bonds, and sovereign credit. We are reiterating a buy on 10-year domestic bonds. Go long MXN versus CNH.

Bessenomics has failed so far. The key pillars of Bessent’s policy mix – achieving lower interest rates and robust economic growth – have been severely jeopardized. The US dollar has depreciated for different reasons than Bessent had envisioned and has pushed up long-term US bond yields. A trade deal between the US and China will likely come too late to preclude a major downshift in global growth.

Amid the storm of global financial uncertainty, Argentina stands out as a free-market safe haven. The lifting of currency controls was the last step taken by this country to embrace market mechanisms. We recommend that investors buy Argentine equities, sovereign credit, and domestic bonds, and overweight Argentina within EM equity and fixed-income portfolios.