Saturday, Jan 23, 2016
Dubai: Franklin Templeton has started 2016 in a defensive way with lower exposure to equities, Matthias Hoppe, senior vice President, portfolio manager told Gulf News.
“Our main concern was valuations in the main equity markets as they looked quite stretched,” Hoppe said.
“At these levels, however, many markets represent opportunities, for example equities from the Eurozone that will benefit from lower oil prices, lower yields and a cheap currency,” Hoppe, who oversees European multi-asset portfolios and also manages portfolios for clients in Africa and Latin America, said.
In this region, where UAE and Qatar form a part of emerging markets, “certain sectors of the high yield bond market, not related to the energy sector, are also starting to look very attractive,” he said.
Divergence
In current volatile times, investors should try to diversify and have a long-term perspective.
“Against the current background and increasingly obvious divergence in markets around the world, we have been of the view that the long period of very low volatility in markets was likely to be coming to an end. With this in mind, we strive to manage our strategies within a volatility range by controlling the risk contribution of different asset classes in our portfolios,” Hoppe said.
“We have not been selling at all. Being a seller in a market where everyone else is selling is not a good strategy. We are starting to buy again, not all at once, but in little steps,” he added.
By Siddesh Suresh Mayenkar Staff Reporter
Gulf News 2016. All rights reserved.
