We remain constructive on emerging small- and mid-cap stocks due to encouraging macro-economic indicators, particularly in Latin America and Southeast Asia, where the Fund is mainly positioned.
The vast emerging universe offers us numerous opportunities across all geographic zones and sectors.
India remains our main geographic weighting and an excellent local market for finding long-term growth stocks.
We maintain significant exposure to stocks linked to artificial intelligence, notably companies in the semiconductor value chain in Taiwan and Korea, such as Gold Circuit Electronics and Lotes.
Given the global economic slowdown, we are striving to reduce the risks in the portfolio by increasing diversification.
Over the month, we took advantage of the weakness of the Indian markets to strengthen our exposure to the country by initiating two new positions: FristCry, an online sales platform for newborn and children's products, and Nexus Select, a real estate investment trust company (REIT) specializing in the leasing of shopping malls, offices and hotel complexes.
Asia | 79.0 % |
Latin America | 10.7 % |
Middle East | 5.2 % |
Africa | 2.0 % |
Eastern Europe | 1.4 % |
North America | 1.1 % |
Europe | 0.6 % |
Total % Equities | 100.0 % |
Market environment
Emerging markets retreated in August, suffering from weakness in China, Korea and Mexico.
In China, domestic markets were down, in the wake of the publication of PMI Manufacturing index in contraction territory and subdued new bank loans data, underlining weak demand.
Rising trade tensions between Brussels and Beijing didn't help, with Chinese electric vehicle manufacturers seeing their export tariffs to the EU increase compared to those imposed on Tesla vehicles manufactured in China.
Indian markets also retreated after their solid rebound of the previous few weeks, on the back of profit-taking due to high valuations and a lacklustre earnings season.
In Latin America, markets were mixed: Brazil was up as fears of fiscal slippage eased, while Mexico was down due to the judicial reform that is increasing political uncertainty in the country, just one month before the new Congress takes office.