Top Fund Manager Talks Strategy

While investors have been pouring cash into emerging market stocks and shunning European and U.S. shares, top fund manager N. David Samra is doing just the opposite.

Forbes reports that Samra has more than two-thirds of his fund’s assets invested in Europe and 20% in the U.S., and has just one small emerging markets holding. The reason: value.

Samra views bargains as stocks he can by at a 30% bargain to “fair value”, which he determines using the average risk-free rate of 6% on ten-year U.S. Treasurys over the past quarter-century, according to Forbes. A 6% yield’s inverse of 16.7 “is essentially the P/E [price-to-earnings ratio] you pay for a Treasury bond,” he says. Samra then tries to find firms with good growth prospects whose shares are trading at a significant value to that Treasury bond “P/E”.

Of course, some stocks are cheap for good reason, so Samra keys on firms that have robust cash flows, strong balance sheets, inflation-resistant businesses, and managers who have long records of creating value, Forbes reports.

That approach is leading Samra mostly to the U.S. and Europe. He’s particularly high on European firms, including BAE Systems and Experian.

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