Emerging markets have rebounded strongly despite global uncertainty. John Citron, co-manager of JPMorgan Emerging Markets Trust, talks to the FundCalibre team about what’s behind that strength: from currency cycles and interest rate shifts to transformative themes like AI, semiconductors, and infrastructure. John shares insights into how disciplined, quality-focused investing and low portfolio turnover can unlock compounding returns across regions such as China, India, and Latin America. This episode also explores valuation discipline, long-term forecasting and how volatility can create opportunities.
Why you should listen to the interview: If you want to understand what’s really driving emerging markets, this episode delivers answers beyond the headlines. Learn how long-term compounding, quality investing and structural trends like AI and domestic demand are creating durable opportunities, even amid currency swings and political uncertainty.
This interview was recorded on 13 October 2025. Please note, answers are edited and condensed for clarity. To gain a fuller understanding and clearer context, please listen to the full interview.
Interview highlights:
The dollar cycle and emerging markets
“I think you can think of the global financial system as having a core, which is the US and the US dollar, and then a periphery, which is kind of everything else and includes emerging markets. And when the core is doing well and there’s strong growth, a lot of confidence, money gets sucked into the core, and that creates problems for assets, which are more of the periphery, like emerging market equities.
“And right now we are seeing the beginning, we think of the end of that strong dollar cycle. And the clearest, I think, way to see it, or one way was when you had the liberation day tariff. Usually when you have a big uncertainty, you would’ve seen the dollar strengthen…the dollar weakened. And I think that was a sign that you’re starting to see this weakening of US exceptionalism and this start of a flow of money from the core to the periphery. And so that is very powerful for emerging markets because these dollar cycles can be quite long.”
Long-term quality investing
“We believe in compounding and we believe in quality. And as you say, if you believe in quality, then ideally you find moats that are so deep, they last a very long time. And Austin Forey has run this portfolio for 30 years. I’ve joined him in the more recent years. And for out those 30 years, there has been a low turnover. It’s been very consistent.
“If you look over the last decade or so, I would say the average turnover’s been around 10% or lower, meaning the average holding period is 10 years. And there are four holdings in the trust that have been there continuously since the 1990s, another five or six that have been held for 20 years plus.
“And we haven’t just held onto those investments for the sake of it, we’ve held onto them because those businesses keep performing. They’ve adapted to the world around them, and the earnings growth story has remained intact.”
The India opportunity
“India is a broad market, and that’s one of the kind of pleasures of investing there and visiting there is that there’s lots of interesting parts in the domestic economy. But obviously infrastructure is key…we own a business called Supreme Industries, one of those amazing family-run operations with strong growth that you really do only find in India.
“India is actually a market where we are on the lookout and have added some names again, but a market where there’s a long list of names we would like to own, but we think the valuation has been a bit high and we are laser focused on those names to see if an opportunity emerges to act if it does.”
AI, semiconductors, and Asia’s role
“None of what’s happening in the world at the moment, this whole AI revolution, would be happening without the supply chains in Korea and Taiwan. If you think of what Nvidia actually sells, it designs semiconductor chips and really what it’s selling is compute power and compute requires logic and memory. Logic is a chip designed by Nvidia, but manufactured by TSMC in Taiwan. And compute requires memory, which is basically really only made in Korea. And then of course, if you have memory and logic, while you still need a power supply to connect it to the grid, and that’s what Delta Electronics does, every single piece of kit you see is made in Asia. And the level of innovation, the pace of innovation, has been very positive for the gross margins and pricing power of these suppliers.”
Conclusion: Emerging markets are entering what could be a defining period of opportunity. As the dollar weakens and domestic economies strengthen, high-quality businesses are poised to thrive. This conversation highlights why patience, selectivity and a focus on enduring quality matter more than ever.
