Markets continued to drift southwards in October. Reaction to the outbreak of hostilities in Israel was ambivalent, initially rising on the expectations that this could mark the end of US monetary tightening and then falling away again on robust employment numbers and Q3 GDP figures.

The previous 18 months have without a doubt, been a time to be defensive. Keeping in line with global events, our approach has equally kept us in the more defensive group, in line with our more defensive absolute-return fund peers, rather than taking a hit like less defensive multi-asset peers.

In a recent interview with the German financial press Aubrey’s Emerging Market portfolio manager, John Ewart, provided answers to questions we are frequently asked by allocators and gave insight into our investment process and philosophy.

At the end of August, we opined that now might be a good time to look at Europe again because it would be difficult for the ECB to justify higher rates as Germany was technically in recession. US inflation was coming under control and interest rates had probably peaked. Inflation was falling and was down at 5.3% in the Eurozone in July.

In 2020 and 2021 covid lockdowns and subsequent re-openings distorted the historical trend, but India literally roared back to life after covid and by the end of 2021, the market had perhaps run ahead of itself.

At Aubrey, we have had approximately a third of our GEM fund invested in India since 2014 when the transformational Modi government took charge. India has a number of positive factors supporting economic and corporate growth, such as positive government policies, ideal demographics, urbanisation accelerating, and an increasing middle-class consumer base.

Investment Analyst, Jay Younger, reflects on European Q2 results so far whilst looking forward to future performance.

Why do we focus only on the consumer within our Emerging Markets Strategy? With growing populations and long-term, secular consumption growth, Aubrey Director Mark Martyrossian details why the EM consumer remains one of the most exciting trends open to investors.