Fixed Income and Currency Strategist

Gautam Jain, PhD, CFA

Gautam Jain has over 25 years of experience covering global emerging fixed income and currency markets, both as a strategist and a portfolio manager. He has worked in buy-side and sell-side firms, including The Rohatyn Group (TRG Management), Barclays Capital, and Millennium Partners. He has helped manage emerging markets local-currency and hard-currency debt funds. The assets that he covers include currencies, interest rates, sovereign credits, and related derivatives. He specializes in portfolio construction, smart-beta index creation, and asset allocation. Mr. Jain holds a Ph.D. in Operations Research from Columbia University and is a CFA charter holder.

FX Dashboard: South African Rand’s Recent Underperformance to Continue

Alpha Bites: Long Chilean Peso Vs Short South African Rand

FX Dashboard: Is Monetary Policy Still Driving FX Returns?

Alpha Bites: Long South Africa 2s10s Flattener

Alpha Bites: Monthly Trade Ideas Recap – Jun 2021

FX Dashboard: South African Rand’s Outperformance Continues

Alpha Bites: Take Profits on Two Rates Recommendations

Rates 10y Dashboard: Mexico – Delaying the Inevitable Monetary Tightening

FX & Rates

<p>We expect South Africa's rate curve to steepen as recent riots have slowed the economic recovery, likely pushing monetary tightening further out. Meanwhile, the worsening fiscal balance and outflows should pressure the long end higher. Instead of positioning for steepening now, we would wait for the curve to steepen to enter a flattener.</p><p>Separately, the attached file is a snapshot of the EM 10y rates market in which we seek to identify the leaders and laggards among countries by comparing the performance of each to its history as well as to other countries based on their respective betas to an EM rates index.</p>

We expect South Africa's rate curve to steepen as recent riots have slowed the economic recovery, likely pushing monetary tightening further out. Meanwhile, the worsening fiscal balance and outflows should pressure the long end higher. Instead of positioning for steepening now, we would wait for the curve to steepen to enter a flattener.Separately, the attached file is a snapshot of the EM 10y rates market in which we seek to identify the leaders and laggards among countries by comparing the performance of each to its history as well as to other countries based on their respective betas to an EM rates index.

Rates 10y Dashboard: South Africa’s Rate Curve Set to Steepen

ZAR 2Y

Rates 10y Dashboard: South Africa’s Rate Curve Set to Steepen