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Natixis Global AM: oportunidades de inversión ante el actual escenario económico global
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    <strong>Artículo publicado en <a href="http://www.lacartadelbolsa.com">La Carta de la Bolsa</a> el Miercoles, 05 de Agosto en la sección: Articulos</strong>
    <h3 class="titulo_articulo">Natixis Global AM: oportunidades de inversión ante el actual escenario económico global</h3>
    Redacción
    <p><strong>Greece, China and Fed rate life-off creating volatility and opportunity in global markets. </strong>Debt crisis in Greece, China’s stock market frenzy, a New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) three-hour shutdown and a nearing Fed rate lift-off are key contributors to daily turmoil in global markets this summer. Four portfolio managers from across Natixis Global Asset Management offer diverse perspectives on recent market events and investing through them.</p>
    <p><strong>William Nygren, CFA</strong><strong>®</strong><strong>, Portfolio Manager</strong></p>

<p><strong>Harris Associates</strong></p>

<p><strong>China and Greece: Value or trouble?</strong></p>

<p>At Harris Associates, we are long-term value investors. So we think about what is likely to happen to global gross domestic product (GDP) over the next 5 to 7 years, rather than over the next few quarters. From that standpoint, not only is global GDP likely to be higher than it is today, but emerging markets are likely to compose a higher percentage of total global GDP than they do today.</p>

<p>That said, I currently believe it is more appealing to invest in international companies that have sizable exposure to emerging markets like China rather than have direct investments. Although Chinese markets had a summer sell-off, I still don’t think direct investments in high-quality Chinese companies are cheaper than what we can get through international companies that have big business in China. Additionally, we like the legal protection and corporate governance protection you have when investing in developed markets. So I would much rather buy, for example, global consumer product companies that have significant parts of their business in emerging markets than to try to find a company located in an emerging market that happens to be cheap today.</p>

<p>In terms of Greece, it’s a very minor part of Europe’s GDP. It has helped to depress prices of all European equities. In many of our portfolios at Harris, we have a large exposure to Europe because we look at it as a value opportunity. This view is regardless of whether the eventual outcome is a Greek exit from the euro zone or some sort of restructuring so that they can repay their debt</p>

<p> </p>

<p><strong>Bruno Crastes, Chief Executive Officer,</strong></p>

<p><strong>H</strong><strong>2</strong><strong>O Asset Management</strong></p>

<p><strong>The Fed after the Greek and Chinese hiccups</strong></p>

<p>Over the past few months, investors’ attention has been monopolized by some immediate risks.</p>

<p>The last chapter of the Greek drama has finally set the stage for a realignment of Greek politics with the Greek people’s deep attachment to the euro. With extreme risk now behind for the euro zone, the cyclical recovery in the area, the European Central Bank’s (ECB) quantitative easing program and the strengthening of the institutional framework are back at the forefront of what is going on in the region. Indeed, Greece was the only remaining hurdle for looking at the euro zone as a great place to invest. In that sense, it is extremely supportive for European assets that Greece has now become a fading source of risk.</p>

<p>The rollercoaster in Chinese equities has been the other center of attraction as of late, and a brand new source of acute regional risk. The Chinese authorities definitely saw it that way when considering their heavy-handed response to what could be considered from outside as just a healthy correction to a bubbly equity market. Unlike the mature Greek drama, this new uncertainty out of China is not likely to go away any time soon, as in our view equity volatility should be only the first chapter of a long Chinese drama ahead of us.</p>

<p><strong>For markets, though, Greek politics and Chinese equities have been short-term diversions from the gigantic challenge posed by U.S. monetary policy. The Fed normalization, both its starting point and its eventual pace, is the big elephant in the room.</strong></p>

<p>The U.S. economy is quite detached from Greece and China. It barely trades with the first and mostly imports from the second. Lower domestic demand in China is affecting the U.S. the least among large developed economies. As key</p>

<p>FOMC members have been repeating ad nauseam, external shocks are factored in their decision making only to the extent they have a material impact on the U.S. economy.</p>

<p>This leaves the FOMC centered on its primary mandate of stable inflation and maximum employment. Here, the commitment of key FOMC members, including Fed Chair Janet Yellen, to begin normalization this year as long as the trajectory of the U.S. economy remains aligned with the FOMC’s own forecast should be the starting point of any analysis. Up to now, these members have been happy with the steady improvement in the labor market, in spite of a weaker start of the year in terms of GDP growth. Not only have their broad range of labor market indicators consistently improved, but the unemployment rate itself is at 5.3% in June, already close to the Fed’s central tendency forecast of 5.2%–5.3% for December 2015 and 4.9%–5.1% for December 2016. Unless something dramatic hits the U.S. economy soon, by September their judgment should still justify the same positive view on the labor market, if not a more upbeat one.</p>

<p>Still, investors have been dismissing the chance of the FOMC acting this September, postponing the first hike to December 2015 or even March 2016, the other meetings with a pre-set press conference. Not only are these market expectations somehow disregarding the willingness of the FOMC itself to normalize from this year on, they are at odds with some market technical issues that make December an unlikely date for the first hike. Indeed, the end of quarter is prone to local dislocation of the short-term rates. In particular, the interdealer repo rate usually spikes due to balance sheet scarcity, while the stronger demand for the Fed’s reserve repo program creates a downward pressure on this rate at the lower range of the money market (the Fed’s Reserve Repo Program rate, RRP). As the effective fed funds rate is floored by the RRP, the challenge in engineering the first hike at an end-of-the-year meeting would compound with the difficulties intrinsic to today’s money market. Hence, the FOMC should be reluctant to begin its normalization in December 2015.</p>

<p>If December is indeed ruled out, then the FOMC has the choice between September 2015 and March 2016 for the first rate hike. The latter date is too far away for any FOMC member committed to begin normalization this year and keen to be able to hike gradually afterwards. This leaves September 17, 2015 as the most likely date for the Fed’s lift-off, a scenario that would surprise the market as it stands today. Investors should brace themselves now for the Fed acting sooner rather than later.</p>

<p> </p>

<p><strong>Igor de Maack, European Equities Manager,</strong></p>

<p><strong>DNCA</strong></p>

<p><strong>Disorganized Grexit avoided for now</strong></p>

<p>For the financial markets, the prospect of a disorganized summer Grexit has been postponed indefinitely. It appears markets have already welcomed this agreement and will quickly focus more on micro-economic topics (corporate-earnings season) or more bond-related topics (the forthcoming increase in U.S. rates). This third aid plan for Greece may be the last. The terms are so constraining that one could even wonder whether it was drawn up with Greece’s future exit from the euro zone in mind.</p>

<p>If Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has failed to enact his party’s demands, Europe and countries such as France should not necessarily start singing the sweet melody of triumphalism. This agreement, no more historical than previous ones, has shown the glaring internal divide on the subject of the economic path to follow. However, the euro zone cannot be criticized for having completely abandoned Greece, a criticism which populist parties have skillfully employed. For the people who painfully made their way through the crisis of 2008, they are discovering that Europe's monetary construction, from which they benefited immensely, is well and truly federalist and that it usually helps those who are economically strong, the least indebted or the more rigorous who impose their ideas.</p>

<p>As it has been said - you can deny reality but you cannot deny the effects of having denied it. Today, the Greeks are waking up to a set of very demanding reforms, banks which remained closed for weeks and an even greater mistrust on the part of their European partners. Is this what they really wanted? It is doubtful.</p>

<p>On the global geopolitical front, the agreement on Iranian nuclear power seemed to ease the markets and could push oil prices down further. If everything goes to plan concerning the political approval of this new Greek plan, if Ukraine does not flare up again, if China picks up a little, if the rise in U.S. rates is well absorbed, the European stock markets should resume a positive trend by the end of the year and remain the most welcoming galaxy in the milky way of financial investments.</p>

<p> </p>

<p><strong>Elaine Stokes, Fixed-Income Manager</strong></p>

<p><strong>Loomis, Sayles & Company</strong></p>

<p><strong>Climate change in fixed-income markets</strong></p>

<p>Since the 2008-2009 Global Financial Crisis, what global fixed-income managers have been doing really is climbing a mountain to get back out of the difficulties that we were in. And we’re not climbing a small mountain like I might hike up in Vermont. What we are tackling is Mount Everest. And if you tackle a mountain like that, what you’ll find is as you get closer to the top, you have an atmosphere, or climate, change. We are clearly in one of those periods.</p>

<p>So like a mountain climber, you need to move forward, then take maybe half a day to walk yourself back to camp and hangout for a little bit while your body adjusts – and wait for the storm to pass.</p>

<p>A lot has changed over the past year or so that the marketplace is trying to digest. We have over 150 new regulations just since 2010 to contend with. There are very different involvement levels and unprecedented monetary policies by central banks around the world. Then there is a change in demographics underway, along with technology eating into labor markets. So with all that going on, it’s really created a marketplace that is struggling to understand where growth and inflation are going. And those are two key factors we need to understand to be able to position portfolios.</p>

<p>Also, the long-term direction for interest rates looks like it will be higher than it is today because of the significant amount of debt that has been added to the system and placed on most of the developed world. Our view at Loomis on a Fed rate lift-off is it could happen as early as September and most likely by the end of 2015. The U.S. economy alone supports a higher interest rate. Unfortunately, with the significant amount of central bank involvement and the challenges around the globe, it’s not really appropriate for the U.S. to act without taking into account what’s going on globally.</p>

<p>Starting about a year and a half ago, we really started to focus on pulling interest-rate risk out of our multisector portfolios and take down a lot of our high-quality corporate bonds that were very tied to interest rates. Also, because the U.S. economy is the strongest among the developed nations, we are favoring U.S. credit. However, we need to be more cautious in our selection today as signs are starting to show that the U.S. is getting a little bit late in the credit cycle. In this environment, long-term secular plays in areas like healthcare and technology – the things that are driving the U.S. economy and that should do well even in a slowdown – become more attractive.</p>
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