A contrarian investor is an independent thinker who cares about the price they pay for an investment. They don’t mind going against the market trends and sentiments, and typically buy assets that are currently out of favour, while selling those that are popular.
“When you buy businesses or industries that are currently facing temporary challenges, you increase the odds of buying them for much less than they’re worth,” says Fiona Yang, a fund manager for Asian and Emerging Markets Equities at Invesco. “You can mitigate downside risks by ensuring corporate balance sheets are healthy, but the upside risk of capturing emerging trends or turnaround stories before others do can be very rewarding.”
Having successfully invested in Asia and emerging markets for decades, her team believe the region to have some of the most exciting investment opportunities in the world. While some names have become familiar, like Samsung Electronics, Alibaba and Tencent, there are myriad of lesser known but compelling businesses to choose from in the region.