Investors cut emerging market bond positions by most in five years: survey

[LONDON] Investors in a closely followed JPMorgan survey this month made their biggest cut to "hard currency" emerging market sovereign bond positions in five years, the bank said on Friday.

The survey captures positioning in over 200 EM fixed income assets and this month had 221 participants with a combined US$1.4 trillion of assets under management.

"Bullish EM sovereign positioning drops to lowest level since March 2020 after largest month-on-month reduction in five years," a summary of the survey's results published on Friday showed.

Half of the investors who took part were now worried about higher-than-expected inflation taking hold in emerging markets and were wary, or underweight, on countries with lower interest rates.

The survey also showed that 70 per cent of participants thought the financial market risks from India's devastating Covid-19 situation would be contained to India, while 60 per cent expected oil prices to average US$65-75 a barrel in the second half of the year.

REUTERS