Heather Arnold spends all day assessing the prospects for the world’s economies and their stock markets, and doesn’t see too much to worry about.
China – the epicentre of market turmoil that’s reverberated around the world – is in a natural growth transition, and neither the nation’s yuan policy nor its slumping equities should be a big concern to global investors, says the director of research at Templeton Global Advisors. Low oil prices will be cured by, well, low oil prices, as production is cut in the US while demand steadily climbs.
Arnold is buying more shares.
“The depth of pessimism that’s out there seems unwarranted,” Bahamas-based Arnold, who also oversees about $42bn as a fund manager at Templeton, said on a visit to Tokyo this week. This is “ultimately for us a good thing.” Global equities erased about $7.8tn in value this year as the slowdown in China and rout in crude weigh on sentiment. Stocks in Shanghai, Tokyo and Europe are in bear markets, a measure of commodities is near an all-time low, and the yen jumped as investors sought havens, while others moved to cash. Arnold sees Europe as the cheapest market, using measures including cyclically adjusted price to earnings. It’s the area where they’re most overweight, she said. The next-best opportunities are in emerging market shares, particularly Asian financial companies, Arnold said.
The Templeton Growth Fund, the largest of 16 funds she helps manage with $14.1bn in assets, has lost 11% this year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The $6.4bn Templeton Foreign Fund is down 13%. While Arnold’s calm about the rout, she says she’s far from complacent.
“Relaxed is probably an overstatement,” she said. “When you’re managing people’s money, you’re ever vigilant, because you do look at what’s going on and try as best you can to say, is there new news in this? But when we look out, we’re still very optimistic.” On China, she says the equity market is going through teething pains and it doesn’t say much about the underlying economy. Local investors were overexcited from the middle of 2014 and shares went too high, and now they’re too pessimistic, she said. The Shanghai Composite Index surged 151% from July 2014 to a peak last June. It’s since dropped 44%.