The JPMorgan emerging-market money manager who has outperformed 95 percent of his peers since 2014 follows a three-word mantra: buy the dip.
As the dollar weakens and global central banks turn dovish, that means Leon Eidelman is adding Indian lenders, Chinese insurance companies and Latin American financial technology firms.
“During 95 percent of politically induced noise, there tend to be good buying opportunities,” said Eidelman, whose $6.2 billion (R86.67bn) JPMorgan Emerging Markets Equity Fund is among the $21bn he helps to oversee. “If you know exactly what it is that is worth owning, you can act in a direction which is contrary to what the market is doing.”
Indian banks were starting to win market share as more people sought financial services and opted for tech-savvy private firms over those run by the state, he said, pointing to HDFC Bank as “the single best bank in India”.
In China, the insurance business could double or triple in size within the next 15 years, benefiting companies such as AIA Group and Ping An Insurance Group, Eidelman said.
MercadoLibre in Argentina and PagSeguro Digital in Brazil, meantime, provided investors with opportunities to bet on growing demand for technology in an increasingly digitised region.
“The big theme we have in the portfolio is around the investment that businesses need to make in digital,” he said.