Make Money in Europe by Avoiding Emerging Markets

There is still money to be made in Europe says Silver Rated fund manager Nicolas Walewski of Alken. Just make sure you avoid those stocks with emerging market-sourced revenues

Emma Wall 29 September, 2015 | 4:43PM
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Emma Wall: Hello and welcome to the Morningstar Series "Why should I Invest with you?" I'm Emma Wall and I am joined today by Nicolas Walewski, Manager of the Alken European Opportunities Fund.

Hello, Nicolas.

Nicolas Walewski: Hello, Emma.

Wall: So this year has been quite a challenging year for Europe and indeed for your fund. Incredible year, last year, but this year performance has been about flat. What are the challenges that have held you back?

Walewski: I think this year we had a couple of stocks at the beginning of the year that didn’t perform. Thank God, we sold them very quickly but still that hurt us in January and February. Glencore which is in trouble now, we sold at the beginning of the year and RWE which also is in deep trouble. Both stocks have huge financial difficulties.

That was at the beginning of the year and then later on in Q2 we have a couple of tech names ASML, Micron, Seagate and Western Digital in particular. These four stocks have been hurt by some weakness in demand for the technological products and that has hurt us. We see actually a more balanced supply and demand since mid-August.

Wall: And fans of the fund, investors in the fund, will know actually that this sort of volatility is part of the nature of your investment style. You do take quite punchy bets and so with that in mind do you expect it to uptick again soon?

Walewski: We hope so. We find, we think there is lot of value in the market. We think there is lot of value in the fund. We are very excited actually by this correction and we think it creates plenty of upside for the future.

Wall: Thinking of those punchy bets. In 2013 you decided not to expose yourself to stocks that had emerging market revenues and that paid off well. Obviously now we are having ever more emerging market volatility. Have you decided to keep that, I mean have you been hurt by what's happened in China?

Walewski: I mean we've been hurt a little bit this summer through our auto stocks. We were not in the German manufacturers, so we thought we were more or less isolated but still our French auto stocks suffered somewhat. But apart from that we were largely out of emerging markets, I mean China, Brazil and others. And we view that correctly. We think it's still too early in general to be in countries, exposed to countries like Brazil or Russia or South Africa and so on. And even on China we would stay relatively cautious so far.

Wall: What would have to happen for you to change your mind?

Walewski: Good question. I mean there could be many things but we would need to see more sustainable growth rate in China which we see is not a case yet or a change in political leadership in Brazil which is not the case yet, you know things like that and all these triggers we don’t see them yet.

Wall: So they are the things that you are avoiding. What about the places that you are seeing opportunities. What is making you smile at the moment?

Walewski: Well, Europe, Europe is a good place to be as you know we have seen Europe out of sync with the rest of the world for many years. The credit cycle was booming in most places but not in Europe we had austerity measures, we had the sovereign crisis in 2011, which led to very low, very negative credit cycle.

The banks were asked for more capital for hundreds of billions of more capital and now this credit cycle is turning up. The commodity price correction which is very strong is fantastic for Europe. So we are very positive on European demand.

Wall: Nicolas, thank you very much.

Walewski: Thank you Emma.

Wall: This is Emma Wall from Morningstar. Thank you for watching.

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Securities Mentioned in Article

Security NamePriceChange (%)Morningstar
Rating
Alken European Opportunities R332.62 EUR1.38Rating

About Author

Emma Wall  is former Senior International Editor for Morningstar

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