Barings multi-asset team adds emerging Asia for first time in years

Cut Japan holdings

Baring Asset Management's multi-asset team has boosted its weighting to emerging Asia for the first time in years, at the expense of Japanese equities, encouraged by China engaging in monetary and fiscal stimulus and a weakening US dollar.

Marino Valensise (pictured), head of the Barings' multi-asset group that manages £5.7bn in global multi-asset strategies, said emerging Asia has been upgraded from a neutral to preferred asset class, but exposure remains "modest" as they believe the cyclical recovery will be temporary. "We believe the scale of the credit boom unleashed in China over the past few months is significant and should benefit emerging Asia," he said. "We are viewing this as a temporary cyclical recovery, while the secular story remains more downcast. For this reason, our allocation has been modest so far." ...