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Emerging Markets Q1 investment update

April 2026 / 6 min

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Investment manager Will Sutcliffe gives an update on the Emerging Markets Strategy for Q1 2026.

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<p><strong>Your capital is at risk. Past performance is not a guide to future returns. The following update is based on a representative portfolio. As such, stock examples may not be held in every client portfolio, and performance may differ.</strong></p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><strong>Will Sutcliffe</strong>: My colleague Mike started the last of these update videos by saying that, even when it's going well, investing almost never feels comfortable.&nbsp;</p> <p>And the first quarter certainly hasn’t felt comfortable. We're running a deliberately pro-growth portfolio on your behalf, and so we do need to think hard about events that are unfolding in the Middle East and, of course, the range of possible outcomes is wide. And we don't claim insight into those. But clearly, the longer this goes on, the more alluring a move towards safety will feel.</p> <p>And as always, we place very little weight on short-term attribution. But it may be interesting to note that, so far this year, relative performance appears to have held up well given the strong contribution from the Asian tech hardware companies alongside holdings in commodity-heavy economies like Brazil, as well as that underweight to Indian equities.</p> <p>And while we haven’t made any significant changes to the portfolio, that doesn’t mean we haven't been challenging ourselves deeply. So at what point does the combination of an Indian underweight and a Latin American overweight become consensual, for example? And should we be increasing your portfolio’s exposure to China, which is arguably emerging as one of the big winners from the war in both economic and geopolitical terms?</p> <p>And most importantly, what are likely to be the lasting impacts from the war? To what extent does it accelerate that shift towards resilience and towards self-sufficiency in energy security that we've already positioned your portfolio for, and has already been benefiting several holdings.</p> <p>So, CATL in China, the battery giant is one example here. Profits are currently growing at over 40 percent a year, and energy storage is becoming a more important part of the business, which we still feel is underappreciated.</p> <p>And we’ve also been struck by recent strong financial results from Petrobras. To us, this looks like one of the cheapest and one of the growthiest E&amp;P majors in the world, as they continue to deliver on the solid production base that they've established over the last five years. And beyond. Energy, the pace of the AI build out is unrelenting.</p> <p>Your Korean holdings in Samsung and SK Hynix are breaking their own profitability records and are producing memory chips that few others can. TSMC remains another core holding. A shift in bargaining power here may also mean structurally higher margins and standard contracts with their customers that are longer. Eight out of the ten largest companies in the world, by market cap, depend in large part on TSMC supply.</p> <p>It is the only company in the world that can spend over $50 billion for 30 percent-plus returns on capital. Now you might think that, for a company like this, it would be hard to point to any real difference in view versus the dozens of analysts that formerly buy rate it. But, as you can see, this is a company that has massively overdelivered on expectations.</p> <p>For much of the last five years, actual earnings have been well ahead of where the analysts thought they would be, when they forecast them a couple of years earlier. So understanding where we differ from other market participants is what we expect to drive our outperformance over the long term.</p> <p>Nearly half of all emerging market companies do not have even a single five-year sell-side earnings forecast on Bloomberg.&nbsp;In developed markets, it's only 10 percent. So there is a clear inefficiency here for us to exploit.</p> <p>Now, as always, there is much more to say on all of these topics and we look forward to discussing it with you. But for now, let's sum this up. The world is becoming more fragmented, more resource constrained, and more compute intensive. That favours several parts of EM much more than we think investors currently appreciate.</p> <p>It feels to us as if EM expectations are still anchored to an old narrative at the same time as a wider range of businesses have quietly become better managed, more disciplined and more dependable in recent years. So we expect perceptions to continue to shift from emerging markets being tactical and scary to emerging markets being strategic and necessary.</p> <p>And that gap between perception and reality is where the opportunity sits.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <h3 class="TABLEHEADER1212pt">Emerging Markets</h3> <p><strong>Annual past performance to 31 March each year (%)</strong></p> <table border="1" style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 100%; border-width: 0px; height: 112px;"> <tbody> <tr style="height: 18.6667px;"> <td style="border-width: 1px 1px 2px; border-style: solid; border-color: rgb(204, 204, 204) rgb(204, 204, 204) rgb(0, 0, 0); border-image: initial; padding: 10px; height: 18.6667px; width: 60.3913%;">&nbsp;</td> <td style="border-width: 1px 1px 2px; border-style: solid; border-color: rgb(204, 204, 204) rgb(204, 204, 204) rgb(0, 0, 0); border-image: initial; padding: 10px; height: 18.6667px; text-align: right; width: 7.95652%;"><strong>2022</strong></td> <td style="border-width: 1px 1px 2px; border-style: solid; border-color: rgb(204, 204, 204) rgb(204, 204, 204) rgb(0, 0, 0); border-image: initial; padding: 10px; height: 18.6667px; text-align: right; width: 7.95652%;"><strong>2023</strong></td> <td style="border-width: 1px 1px 2px; border-style: solid; border-color: rgb(204, 204, 204) rgb(204, 204, 204) rgb(0, 0, 0); border-image: initial; padding: 10px; height: 18.6667px; text-align: right; width: 7.82609%;"><strong>2024</strong></td> <td style="border-width: 1px 1px 2px; border-style: solid; border-color: rgb(204, 204, 204) rgb(204, 204, 204) rgb(0, 0, 0); border-image: initial; padding: 10px; height: 18.6667px; text-align: right; width: 7.82609%;"><strong>2025</strong></td> <td style="border-width: 1px 1px 2px; border-style: solid; border-color: rgb(204, 204, 204) rgb(204, 204, 204) rgb(0, 0, 0); border-image: initial; padding: 10px; height: 18.6667px; text-align: right; width: 7.82609%;"><strong>2026</strong></td> </tr> <tr style="height: 18.6667px;"> <td style="border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding: 10px; height: 18.6667px; width: 60.3913%;">Emerging Markets All Cap Composite (gross)</td> <td style="border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding: 10px; height: 18.6667px; text-align: right; width: 7.95652%;">-19.9</td> <td style="border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding: 10px; height: 18.6667px; text-align: right; width: 7.95652%;">-10.0</td> <td style="border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding: 10px; height: 18.6667px; text-align: right; width: 7.82609%;">11.5</td> <td style="border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding: 10px; height: 18.6667px; text-align: right; width: 7.82609%;">6.7</td> <td style="border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding: 10px; height: 18.6667px; text-align: right; width: 7.82609%;">37.3</td> </tr> <tr style="height: 18.6667px;"> <td style="border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding: 10px; height: 18.6667px; width: 60.3913%;">Emerging Markets All Cap Composite (net)</td> <td style="border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding: 10px; height: 18.6667px; text-align: right; width: 7.95652%;">-20.5</td> <td style="border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding: 10px; height: 18.6667px; text-align: right; width: 7.95652%;">-10.7</td> <td style="border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding: 10px; height: 18.6667px; text-align: right; width: 7.82609%;">10.6</td> <td style="border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding: 10px; height: 18.6667px; text-align: right; width: 7.82609%;">5.9</td> <td style="border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding: 10px; height: 18.6667px; text-align: right; width: 7.82609%;">36.2</td> </tr> <tr style="height: 18.6667px;"> <td style="border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding: 10px; height: 18.6667px; width: 60.3913%;">Emerging Markets Leading Companies Composite (gross)</td> <td style="border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding: 10px; text-align: right; height: 18.6667px; width: 7.95652%;">-19.8</td> <td style="border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding: 10px; text-align: right; height: 18.6667px; width: 7.95652%;">-7.9</td> <td style="border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding: 10px; text-align: right; height: 18.6667px; width: 7.82609%;">7.8</td> <td style="border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding: 10px; text-align: right; height: 18.6667px; width: 7.82609%;">7.1</td> <td style="border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding: 10px; text-align: right; height: 18.6667px; width: 7.82609%;">34.6</td> </tr> <tr style="height: 18.6667px;"> <td style="border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding: 10px; height: 18.6667px; width: 60.3913%;">Emerging Markets Leading Companies Composite (net)</td> <td style="border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding: 10px; text-align: right; height: 18.6667px; width: 7.95652%;">-20.5</td> <td style="border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding: 10px; text-align: right; height: 18.6667px; width: 7.95652%;">-8.6</td> <td style="border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding: 10px; text-align: right; height: 18.6667px; width: 7.82609%;">6.9</td> <td style="border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding: 10px; text-align: right; height: 18.6667px; width: 7.82609%;">6.2</td> <td style="border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding: 10px; text-align: right; height: 18.6667px; width: 7.82609%;">33.6</td> </tr> <tr style="height: 18.6667px;"> <td style="border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding: 10px; height: 18.6667px; width: 60.3913%;">MSCI Emerging Markets index</td> <td style="border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding: 10px; height: 18.6667px; text-align: right; width: 7.95652%;">-11.1</td> <td style="border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding: 10px; height: 18.6667px; text-align: right; width: 7.95652%;">-10.3</td> <td style="border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding: 10px; height: 18.6667px; text-align: right; width: 7.82609%;">8.6</td> <td style="border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding: 10px; height: 18.6667px; text-align: right; width: 7.82609%;">8.6</td> <td style="border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding: 10px; height: 18.6667px; text-align: right; width: 7.82609%;">30.3</td> </tr> </tbody> </table> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><strong>Annualised returns to 31 March 2026 (%)</strong></p> <table border="1" style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 100%; border-width: 0px; height: 93.0001px;"> <tbody> <tr style="height: 37px;"> <td style="border-width: 1px 1px 2px; border-style: solid; border-color: rgb(204, 204, 204) rgb(204, 204, 204) rgb(0, 0, 0); border-image: initial; padding: 10px; height: 37px; width: 61.3043%;">&nbsp;</td> <td style="border-width: 1px 1px 2px; border-style: solid; border-color: rgb(204, 204, 204) rgb(204, 204, 204) rgb(0, 0, 0); border-image: initial; padding: 10px; height: 37px; width: 13.0435%; text-align: right;"><strong>1 year</strong></td> <td style="border-width: 1px 1px 2px; border-style: solid; border-color: rgb(204, 204, 204) rgb(204, 204, 204) rgb(0, 0, 0); border-image: initial; padding: 10px; height: 37px; width: 12.6522%; text-align: right;"><strong>5 years</strong></td> <td style="border-width: 1px 1px 2px; border-style: solid; border-color: rgb(204, 204, 204) rgb(204, 204, 204) rgb(0, 0, 0); border-image: initial; padding: 10px; height: 37px; width: 12.7826%; text-align: right;"><strong>10 years</strong></td> </tr> <tr style="height: 18.6667px;"> <td style="border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding: 10px; height: 18.6667px; width: 61.3043%;">Emerging Markets All Cap Composite (gross)</td> <td style="border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding: 10px; height: 18.6667px; width: 13.0435%; text-align: right;">37.3</td> <td style="border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding: 10px; height: 18.6667px; width: 12.6522%; text-align: right;">3.3</td> <td style="border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding: 10px; height: 18.6667px; width: 12.7826%; text-align: right;">10.9</td> </tr> <tr style="height: 18.6667px;"> <td style="border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding: 10px; height: 18.6667px; width: 61.3043%;">Emerging Markets All Cap Composite (net)</td> <td style="border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding: 10px; height: 18.6667px; width: 13.0435%; text-align: right;">36.2</td> <td style="border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding: 10px; height: 18.6667px; width: 12.6522%; text-align: right;">2.5</td> <td style="border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding: 10px; height: 18.6667px; width: 12.7826%; text-align: right;">10.0</td> </tr> <tr> <td style="border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding: 10px; height: 18.6667px; width: 61.3043%;">Emerging Markets Leading Companies Composite (gross)</td> <td style="border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding: 10px; width: 13.0435%; text-align: right;">34.6</td> <td style="border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding: 10px; width: 12.6522%; text-align: right;">2.8</td> <td style="border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding: 10px; width: 12.7826%; text-align: right;">11.1</td> </tr> <tr> <td style="border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding: 10px; height: 18.6667px; width: 61.3043%;">Emerging Markets Leading Companies Composite (net)</td> <td style="border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding: 10px; width: 13.0435%; text-align: right;">33.6</td> <td style="border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding: 10px; width: 12.6522%; text-align: right;">2.0</td> <td style="border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding: 10px; width: 12.7826%; text-align: right;">10.1</td> </tr> <tr style="height: 18.6667px;"> <td style="border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding: 10px; height: 18.6667px; width: 61.3043%;">MSCI Emerging Market index</td> <td style="border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding: 10px; height: 18.6667px; width: 13.0435%; text-align: right;">30.3</td> <td style="border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding: 10px; height: 18.6667px; width: 12.6522%; text-align: right;">4.2</td> <td style="border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding: 10px; height: 18.6667px; width: 12.7826%; text-align: right;">8.2</td> </tr> </tbody> </table> <p><strong>Source:</strong> Revolution, MSCI. US dollars. Net returns have been calculated by reducing the gross return by the highest annual management fee for the composite. 1 year figures are not annualised.<br><br></p> <p><strong>Past performance is not a guide to future returns.</strong></p> <p>Legal notice: MSCI makes no express or implied warranties or representations and shall have no liability whatsoever with respect to any MSCI data contained herein. The MSCI data may not be further redistributed or used as a basis for other indexes or any securities or financial products. This report is not approved, endorsed, reviewed or produced by MSCI. None of the MSCI data is intended to constitute investment advice or a recommendation to make (or refrain from making) any kind of investment decision and may not be relied on as such.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <h2 data-gtm-vis-recent-on-screen934959_1669="233" data-gtm-vis-first-on-screen934959_1669="233" data-gtm-vis-total-visible-time934959_1669="100" data-gtm-vis-has-fired934959_1669="1">Risk factors&nbsp;</h2> <p>The views expressed should not be considered as&nbsp;advice or a recommendation to buy, sell or hold a particular investment. They reflect opinion and should not be taken as statements of fact nor should any reliance be placed on them when making investment decisions.</p> <p>This communication was produced and approved in April 2026 and has not been updated subsequently. It represents views held at the time of writing and may not reflect current thinking.</p> <p><strong>Potential for Profit and Loss&nbsp;</strong></p> <p>All investment strategies have the potential for profit and loss, your or your clients’ capital may be at risk. Past performance is not a guide to future returns.</p> <p>This communication contains information on investments which does not constitute independent research. Accordingly, it is not subject to the protections afforded to independent research, but is classified as advertising under Art 68 of the Financial Services Act (‘FinSA’) and Baillie Gifford and its staff may have dealt in the investments concerned.</p> <p>All information is sourced from Baillie Gifford &amp; Co and is current unless otherwise stated.&nbsp;</p> <p>The images used in this communication are for illustrative purposes only.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p>

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