

Emerging market bond ETFs are drawing increased institutional interest, prompting asset managers to staff up with specialized teams. Allspring Global Investments became the latest firm to make such a move this month, acquiring a team from GIA Partners to manage $1.1 billion in emerging market assets, according to Pensions & Investments reporting.

CEMB is an ETF that tracks the performance of US dollar-denominated bonds issued by emerging market corporate entities. Emerging market corporate bonds have had superior risk-adjusted returns compared to US corporate bonds and emerging market sovereign bonds over the past 10 years. Higher economic growth in emerging markets in 2024 is expected to benefit companies with outstanding debt, leading to increased profits and lower default probabilities.

Bull vs. Bear is a weekly feature where the VettaFi writers' room takes opposite sides for a debate on controversial stocks, strategies, or market ideas — with plenty of discussion of ETF ideas to play either angle. For this edition of Bull vs.

In emerging markets valuations look attractive today after the losses across financial markets early this year. PIMCO's investment process is founded upon our macroeconomic outlook and our in-house country and credit research.

Performance of emerging markets local currency bonds has been negatively impacted by the U.S. dollar's strength since mid-year, despite the higher real yields and upside growth surprises in many emerging markets. Currency returns can be volatile, and external factors can have a bigger short-term impact on an emerging markets currency (EMFX) even if relatively attractive fundamentals may provide longer-term support.

We have seen a sharp growth in the issuance of not only green bonds but also sustainability bonds and social bonds, which are closely related. When thinking about issuance outside of the corporate space, sovereigns and state-owned enterprises in Latin America are leading in that respect, with Asia closely following.

Emerging markets offer attractive alternatives to fixed income investors searching for yield amid the trillions of dollars of negative-, zero-, and low-yielding debt globally. Within emerging market hard currency investment grade bonds, we think it is prudent to be shorter duration or at least hedge the Treasury risk component, given the low yield per unit of duration today.
