Schroders Emerging Markets Lens December 2023: your go-to guide to emerging markets
How do EM valuations look heading into 2024?
Profily autorov
Our latest edition of the Schroders Emerging Markets Lens is now available.
Below is a summary of key developments in the equity and debt markets and you can find the links to both presentations here:
Emerging Markets Lens: Emerging Market Debt
Summary of emerging market equities:
- Emerging market (EM) equities bounced back 8% in November, registering their largest monthly gain since January, but underperformed developed markets (DM), which rallied 9%.
- EM lags DM by a sizeable margin YTD, largely explained by divergent US-China market performance (slide 6). Headline EM returns also mask wide country and regional return dispersion (slide 7)
- EM small caps are outperforming broader EM by a wide margin YTD, and are ahead of DM. In styles, EM Quality and Value are ahead of the standard EM Index YTD (slides 8-10)
- EM equities are close to the historical median on a 12-month forward price-earnings measure, but cheap on price-book and dividend yield measures (slides 14, 18 and 20)
- On a standardised composite valuation measure most EM are cheap, and have not significantly changed versus 12-months ago (slide 38)
- A decade of US dollar appreciation has weighed on EM equity returns. Most EM currencies have depreciated in real terms, implying emerging value, although the extent varies significantly (slide 44)
- Read more: Outlook 2024: Equities in the age of the 3D Reset
Most of EM is cheap but the degree varies
EM valuation heatmaps – current z-scores¹
¹The z-score is a measure of how far valuations are from historical mean, calculated since January 2000. Excludes UAE, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait due to limited data history. Combined figure is an average of trailing P/E, 12-month forward P/E, P/B, and dividend yield. Source: Schroders, Refinitiv Datastream, MSCI, IBES, Schroders Strategic Research Unit. Data as at 30 November 2023.
Standardised composite valuations have not changed significantly versus 12-months ago
Latest combined Z-score¹ versus 12 months ago
Asian EM shown in purple, EMEA shown in lime, Latin American EM shown in aqua green.
Excludes UAE, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait due to limited data history. ¹The z-score is a measure of how far valuations are from historical mean, calculated since January 2000. Combined Z-score is average trailing P/E, 12m fwd P/E, P/B, and dividend yield Z-scores.
Source: Schroders, LSEG Datastream, MSCI, IBES, Schroders Strategic Research Unit. Data as at 30 November 2023.
Summary of emerging market debt:
Emerging market (EM) bonds rebounded in November. Optimism towards a US soft landing scenario led US bond yields to fall and the US dollar to weaken, supporting a broad market rally. On a YTD basis, EM bonds have generated solid gains, led by EM local debt (Slide 4)
EMD headline valuations
Spread percentiles - Spreads of key EMD indices (basis points)
Source: Schroders, LSEG Datastream, J.P. Morgan. Data as at 30 November 2023. Percentiles shows where the current spread is relatively to the historical range of spreads, within a range of 0 to 100. The greater the percentile the higher the spread compared to history. Hard EMD =stripped spread, Local EMD =Spread to 5 year UST, Corporate EMD = spread to worst.
Hard currency (HC) emerging market debt (EMD):
- Both the sovereign EM bond index yield (slide 8) and spread are elevated versus their long-term history.
- The above-median hard EMD spread is driven by the high yield (HY) sovereign index. The spread on the investment grade (IG) sovereign market is below its historical average, and remains close to 15-year lows (slide 9)
- In corporate EMD, both the IG and HY corporate spreads are below their historical median (slide 15).
Latin America dominates the HC index, but Africa punches above its weight when it comes to spread contribution…
Hard currency index weights and spread contributions
Source: Schroders, LSEG Datastream, ICE Data Indices, JP Morgan. Data as at 30 November 2023. Please see relevant disclaimers on page 41. Spread contribution calculated as weight of the region multiplied by the spread of that region.
Local currency EMD:
The average real yield premium of EM over DM has moved up from trough. Both the average EM and DM real yields are rising, with EM well into positive territory again; the average DM real yield is still negative (slides 31-32).
The average local EM ex Turkey yield curve is no longer inverted (slide 30).
There are undervalued currencies in all three EM regions (slide 36), but the degree of value varies significantly.
Profily autorov
Témy