(Bloomberg) --
Europe's biggest fund manager says now's not the time to dip toes back into global bonds, which have stabilized since their sudden slump earlier this month.
Pascal Blanque, group chief investment officer at Amundi Asset Management, says that markets are pricing in too much monetary easing. The Paris-based firm, which oversees 1.5 trillion euros ($1.6 trillion), has cut its exposure to long-dated U.S. Treasuries, which had climbed between May and August.
“Following the huge bond rally we've seen in the last three months or so, we took the view that too much was expected from central banks,” Blanque said in an interview in Singapore. “This should translate globally into more bond volatility and less support for risky assets in the short term, until the end of the year.”
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The Bloomberg Barclays Global Aggregate Bond Index, which tracks investment-grade debt worldwide, has fallen almost 1% since the end of August and is on track for its worst month since last October.
A possible re-acceleration in global growth in the fourth quarter, spurred by monetary loosening over the past 12 months, poses a risk to bonds, Blanque said.
With so much global debt having negative yields, emerging markets may be a bright spot for investors, he said. Blanque likes dollar-denominated debt from Brazil, Mexico, Ukraine, Russia, Bahrain, Serbia and Indonesia. Those countries may be more insulated from the U.S.-China trade war and in some cases are attractive thanks to fiscal credibility, according to him.
“What we're doing now is to manage tactically,” he said. “We are moving into a phase where there is more dispersion of possible outcomes: recession, no recession, central banks easing, less easing.”
--With assistance from Tomoko Yamazaki.
To contact the reporter on this story: Lilian Karunungan in Singapore at lkarunungan@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Christopher Anstey at canstey@bloomberg.net, ;Tomoko Yamazaki at tyamazaki@bloomberg.net, Paul Wallace
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