relaxing后接什么:5 stock pros confess their biggest market worries

Feb. 10, 2012, 12:01 a.m. EST
5 stock pros confess their biggest market worries
Euro-zone debt, U.S. economic woes weigh on investing strategies
ByBarbara Kollmeyer, MarketWatch

Reuters
MADRID (MarketWatch) — The headaches besetting globally oriented investment managers are constant, but the pain essentially has two sources: Slow economic growth and the European sovereign debt crisis.
Greece has struck a debt-restructuring deal with its private creditors, and a path seems clear to a second bailout from international lenders, but investment managers are sensitive to the volatility and losses that international-markets stockholders suffered in 2011. And there’s still a lengthy list of problems to confront.
For a sense of how asset managers are coping with the current global investment climate and to understand their worst fears, MarketWatch spoke to five seasoned professionals who are based outside of the U.S., from London to Hong Kong, about their biggest stock-market worries:
Khiem Do: Baring Asset Management
“How is it going to end?” Khiem Do asked about Europe’s debt troubles. “How much has to be written off and who is going to take the haircut?”
In response to this uncertainty, Do, manager of Baring Asset Management’s closed-end Asia Pacific Fund, Inc. (NYSE:APB) and head of the investment firm’s multi-asset management for Asia, is steering clear of banks in the U.S. and in Europe that are closer to the crisis. The Hong Kong-based fund manager is investing in Asian banks instead.Read more: 5 money moves an Asian stock-fund manager is making now.
At the same time, Do added, “We don’t want to be too bearish on the U.S. economy right now.” So the fund manager favors U.S. utilities, telecommunications, consumer staples, technology and energy stocks.
“If there were to be a massive selloff in European banks due to any of the macro risk,” he said, these sectors would still do all right. Said Do: “They are more stable companies.”Read more: Greek political leaders reach deal.
Rainer Baumann: Sustainable Asset Management
Rainer Baumann, Zurich-based head of portfolio management at Sustainable Asset Management, is concerned that the U.S. economic growth this year will fall short of expectations of 2%-plus.  
Europe can learn a lesson (or 3) from the U.S.
MarketWatch.com columnist David Weidner stops by Mean Street to discuss the three key things that Europe can learn from Americans. Photo: Getty Images.
“Fundamentals seem to be fragile,” Baumann said.
Sustainable Asset Management, which oversees about $11.4 billion in assets, invests only invest in companies that are sustainable leaders, which acts as a natural hedge. “Our companies are more stable and robust,” he said.
Plus, he added, companies with a clear way of addressing long-term trends, problems and risks can often work through tough times.
Roche Holding AG (SWL:CH:ROG) (OTN:RHHBY) , for example, has a place in the SAM Sustainable Global Equity Fund.
Roche, Baumann said, has an ideal combination of attractive fundamentals and valuation. IBM Corp. (NYSE:IBM) is also in the fund. “It’s a company that outperforms and their policies and strategies address future challenges or future risks,” he said.
Didier Saint-Georges: Carmignac Gestion
Economic growth is also key for Didier Saint-Georges, member of the Investment Committee at Carmignac Gestion, which has over €45 billion under management. He said the Paris-based firm has been progressively raising exposure to equities after paring back in 2011.
“Europe is in the doldrums, U.S. growth is stabilizing at an average level, but we have good prospects for consumer-led economic growth in emerging markets,” said Saint-Georges. “Therefore we are avoiding very domestic sectors and we favor companies which will be positioned to capture demand, which will be mostly in emerging markets.”
He added: “In addition to holding European and U.S. exporters, we have a lot of Chinese, Indian, Brazilian and Indonesian stocks oriented towards local consumer demand,” such as electrical appliance companies and local car distributors.
Dividends are not the main draw. “One has to be very careful in an economic downturn about sustainability of dividends in this environment, in that growth is a scarce resource. We think if we find good growth stories we get better performance,” Saint-Georges said.
The Carmignac Investissement Fund’s second-biggest holding is Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) . Saint-Georges said the firm likes the company for its growth story, but also for the potential that Apple could one day pay a shareholder dividend.
Neil Dwane: Allianz Global Investors/RCM
Neil Dwane, London-based chief investment officer for Allianz Global Investors/RCM, which has €500 billion under management across all major asset classes, said he’s concerned about the Middle East. Specifically, he’s paying close attention to the situation in Syria and Iran and the ramifications of last year’s Arab Spring revolutions. Any trouble in those regions could lead to higher oil prices, he said.
“The reason I am worried about it is because we’re already seeing world economic growth slowing to below what we’ve been used to for the last 10 to 15 years, with emerging markets being the key driver of that growth,” Dwane said. “My concern would be any further ratcheting of the oil price would put that growth at risk.”
Investors need to think about the economic impact that an interruption in the oil supply would have on China and Asia, which is already paying a premium price for crude, he said.
“Because we think emerging markets are the growth engine of the world, we like oil, as well because BP (NYSE:BP) (LSS:UK:BP) , Shell (NYSE:RDS.A) (LSS:UK:RDSA) and Total (NYSE:TOT) (EPA:FR:FP) have good dividends. So we think you kind of get a confluence of positive effects. Stocks are cheap, no downside.“
Nick Nefouse: BlackRock Inc.
Corporate profit margins for the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index (SNC:SPX) have been on a tear since bottoming in late 2009. But as BlackRock’s Nick Nefouse points out, that is not going to last forever.
“You get to a point in the cycle where you made a lot of money, but it starts to slip,” said London-based Nefouse, product specialist for the BlackRock Global Equity Income Fund. “We’re not dealing with those things yet,” he added, “but the mean reverts over time.”
Investors should focus on quality companies that can withstand volatility better than rivals, and stocks that pay dividends, Nefouse said, though he cautioned that dividend-paying companies are not always high quality.
Global telecom fits the bill nowadays. “The sector is not really well liked by a lot of people in the market; there’s a fairly big underweight globally. Second, they generate a lot of free cash flow, which is what we like to see, a pay out to shareholders in form of dividends,” Nefouse said.
He also likes more cyclical areas and particularly industrials, such as those in the U.S. that have sold off in the last few months. “A lot of the time the market selloff has happened to higher-quality names.”
Like many others, he’s bracing for more volatility this year. “You’ve got to be more patient and look out a bit farther, Nefouse said. “There’s a lot of risk within the market...in the short-term the market is not always driven by fundamentals.”