Kames' Roberts eyes EMD as valuations improve

David Roberts has hiked exposure to emerging market debt in the £663m Kames Strategic Bond fund on the back of improving valuations.

He holds 2% of the fund in emerging market bonds, but plans to increase this allocation further to 5%-10%. “Despite the rally, pricing is better than it has been for several months,” he said. “At index level, prices rose 3%, which is impressive given half the market is comprised of investment grade debt. “Both good and bad quality assets rose, and we used that as an opportunity to buy some alpha specific positions and covered those with a sale of index level credit derivatives.” However, Roberts remains cautious given current high levels of correlation in the asset class, so is not...