Navigating Investing in Today's Markets with Alison Shimada
Senior portfolio manager Alison Shimada shares her team's balanced approach to navigating emerging markets, emphasizing the importance of shareholder returns, valuation discipline, and macro risk assessment.
Transcript
Cameron Pickoski: We're here in Fort Lauderdale this week at our National Sales Summit, where the theme is “Charting the Course.” With that in mind, Alison, we wanted to talk to you about how you and your team are navigating investing in today's markets and, more specifically, how you guys assess whether or not EM (emerging market) valuations properly reflect both long-term risks and opportunities.
Alison Shimada: Thank you. I think one of the ways that we navigate is really through our approach, which is really to incorporate both shareholder return as well as capital appreciation, which is very important in times like this because if we see, for instance, dividend yields or additional share buybacks coming through, that's the point in which we would look at a stock. And if things are overextended or expensive, then the shareholder return comes down. So, it's an indicator to maybe reconsider. But one cannot ignore the macro implications as well. We have to consider country risk and geopolitical risk as well. Having very solid opinions on each country by each analyst is extremely important as well as for the PMs (portfolio managers). So, I think that's the way we navigate and always have navigated these EM markets.
Key takeaways
- Focusing on both shareholder returns and capital appreciation can help guide investment decisions in emerging markets.
- The team believes valuation discipline is key, with indicators like declining shareholder returns signaling when a stock may be overextended or expensive.
- Thorough assessments of country-specific and geopolitical risks by analysts and portfolio managers can be critical to navigating the complexities of emerging markets.
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