How boring is Fixed Income Analyst / PM in Emerging Market?

So i'm in emerging market and want to go for Fixed income path because better work life balance than equity

I'm initially expecting that FI AM also plays with HY Bond, but turns out here all PM allowed to buy is IG bond

The perception is IG bond is boring, but my thinking is but i'm in Emerging Market, so dealing with EM IG..

1) Does it boring as EM Fixed Income analyst? What's the score if say EM Equity analyst score for interesting job is 10

2) Does it boring as EM Fixed Income PM? What's the score if say EM Equity PM score for interesting job is 10

 
Most Helpful

It depends

  • I have seen many cases where those located in EMs (say Chile, Brazil, China, South Africa) run global IG mandates which mainly focus on US IG corporates. This is quite boring. The only people I have seen consider this more exciting than em equity are very risk averse folks (tough to blow up as a US IG analyst) and/or people who just like debt more than equity.
  • I have also seen the case where these same firms run em debt strategies focused on em IG and Hy debt, which is in my opinion very interesting. For many folks who may like macro or debt investing this is actually far more interesting than EM equity. If you were only doing IG EM debt this would probably subjectively be less interesting than EM equity but would depend on whether you like macro, prefer debt to equity etc. Still would be way more interesting than US IG
 

Ahh i see.

Interesting that FI analyst in EM countries also have exposure to US IG company.. Nice to know about it.

So if i may conclude, EM IG will be more interesting if the person is more interested in macro? But if the person is more bottom up, EM Equity will be more interesting for him, correct?

Regarding FI analysis, aren't FI analysis also typically bottom up and use 3 statement modelling too? Only the ratios FI analyst see is different than Equity analyst?

 

Ah i see.. so to parahpase, as FI analyst we’ll be dealing with:

1) mostly EM soverign = macro based

2) Some EM IG corporate = bottom up

3) Some other US IG corporate = bottom up -> most boring one

So 3 statement modelling will be relevant on bottom up

for EM sovereign, what kind of analysis do we usually perform?

 

sort of:

- typically a fixed income analyst would specialize in one of US IG, EM sovereigns, EM corporates in addition to other stuff. Kind of like you have US large cap equity analysts, US small cap, EM equity etc.

- just to clarify i meant the market for EM sovereigns is bigger than EM corporates so they have more bonds outstanding. Similarly US IG is actually way bigger than either of the others. It would be very unusual for one person to focus on all 3

- EM sovereign is balance of payments and debt sustainability analysis basically (mostly macroeconomics)

 

Ahh i see. Interesting.

Regarding sovereign do balance of payments and debt sustainability analysis, so FI analyst who specialise in Sovereign will be more like economist role?

Between Sovereign FI analyst and Economist, does their skillset is similar and interchangeable?

If so, which one of the 2 is seen as higher prestige and pay?

 

Yes, a lot of economists in the role. Not totally interchangeable, but pretty close i.e. kind of like equity and corporate credit analysts. In the economist role typically about forecasting key variables in extreme detail (growth, inflation) while in the sovereign analyst role you are doing high level econ forecasting and using those inputs to make investment recommendations.

I would say adjusted for equal level/seniority pay is probably better for sovereign fixed income analysts because it is a investment role where you are recommending positions vs. economists who don't typically do that. 

Prestige is tough to say, but I think economists probably have more as chief economists are very high profile on TV etc, but among those "in the know" I think you'd be more impressed by a sovereign fixed income portfolio manager

 

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