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Featured Author: Gurpreet Pal
Gurpreet Pal is an analyst on the Artisan Partners Sustainable Emerging Markets Team.

As the COVID-19 pandemic evolves, emerging markets are set to take center stage. The US, Italy and other developed markets appear to be flattening the curve and starting to reopen their economies. In comparison, many emerging markets appear to be in much earlier phases of an outbreak. Within EM, India is an especially intriguing country to watch as it seems to be managing the pandemic better than previously feared.

India has the seemingly right conditions for a high number of cases and rapid transmission:

The Q1 market selloff was broad-based and intense, fueled by deep uncertainty about the pandemic’s true threat. In our view, the market did little to discriminate among individual firms, preferring to re-rate sectors given the short timeframe, rapid price action and lack of information.

Of course, our process is built to capitalize on market dislocations, when fear and uncertainty dominate, as is the case in our current environment. But we are also vigilantly risk-aware. This is where a thoughtful and repeatable process makes all the difference. 

Amid significant market volatility due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we remain steadfast in our commitment to our investment philosophy. With a foundation in long-term structural tailwinds, resilient businesses and strong operators, our approach is designed for not only good times but challenging ones as well. Acknowledging the unprecedented nature of these circumstances and the uncertainty of a global health crisis, we thought a few words about our investment approach and how the investment team is spending its time would be appropriate.

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to drive heightened uncertainty and historic daily volatility, we thought an update may be appropriate. We are closely monitoring this rapidly evolving situation, remaining focused on our deep company analysis in order to understand the impacts to businesses’ growth outlooks, as appropriate. As this crisis has unfolded, companies have revised their revenue and earnings outlooks sharply lower. While supply-chain disruptions emanated from China as early as January, the economies of Western Europe and the US are just now experiencing their corresponding demand shocks.

Global financial markets have been experiencing sharp drawdowns and extreme volatility. Although the catalysts may be unique—COVID-19 and an oil price war between Saudi Arabia and Russia—the occurrence of such dramatic turns in global financial market and economic conditions is not. We believe a narrow focus on sustainability helps account for such unpredictable periods. While we are not immune to these gyrations, we believe we are also in a period of opportunity. We continue searching for companies with sustainable competitive advantages or unique access to growth—characteristics that enable companies to persist through volatility, succeed after the dust settles, and generate alpha over the long term. 

In my nearly 30-year investing career, I have been through a number of stock market routs. This one ranks up there as one of the worst—if not for its depth (which remains as yet undetermined), then certainly for its intensity. The market has sold off faster than ever in history, and I have never seen more days of double-digits or nearly double-digits declines in such a short time period. This makes sense, as it’s probably the fastest drop-off in economic activity we’ve ever seen—one day, everyone’s at work; the next, everyone’s at home and all the restaurants are closed. The panic and fear are extreme, with emotion filling the void where information and analysis normally exist. Yet in every instance during my career, periods of fear and panic have presented incredible bargains; I believe this one is no different. I have learned that when it feels really bad, it’s usually the best time to allocate capital. It is painful and ugly right now, but our goal is buying the long-term survivors and compounders to position the portfolio for strong multi-year gains later. 

Escalating concern around the containment of COVID-19 and its impact on global economic growth has sparked an aggressive turn in risk sentiment over the last few weeks. The selloff in noninvestment grade markets has been unprecedented in terms of speed and severity. The repricing of risk has resulted in high yield spreads moving from under 400bps to more than 900bps in just 4 weeks (Exhibit 1). For context, it took 11 months during the 2008 recession for spreads to cross the same threshold, and more than 28 months during the 2000 downturn.

Escalating COVID-19 concerns and Saudi Arabia’s decision to cut oil prices and boost production have prompted a sharp selloff in global equity markets over the past month. We are monitoring both situations closely and believe the biggest relative performance risk from here is massive volatility. While there will likely be large up days for battered sectors, we expect a drift lower on balance until the true extent of the COVID-19 impact can be discounted into stock prices. 

One of my fundamental beliefs about investing in credit markets is it’s possible to find the best risk-adjusted return opportunities through fundamental credit analysis and value identification across the capital structure—flexing between high yield bonds and bank loans. I take a value investor’s approach to the below-investment grade market to look for opportunities tied to dislocation and mispricing.

In addition to rigorous bottom-up research, the Thematic team leverages a slew of analytical tools to eliminate subjectivity and manage risk.