Bank of America said markets continue to misprice monetary cycles in emerging markets and recommended a simple positioning guideline: pay short-term rates during tightening cycles and receive them when central banks ease.
The bank evaluated a trading rule across a range of emerging market jurisdictions and concluded that taking the front-end during hikes and receiving during cuts has been profitable in the majority of cycles tested. According to the research, the strategy failed only in a limited number of episodes.
Methodology and implementation details were important to the findings. Bank of America reported that a one-year trade typically outperformed other tenors in its backtests. The rule it tested involves entering a 1-year swap position once that swap crosses the prevailing interbank rate, then switching the position only when the swap crosses the interbank rate again from the opposite direction. The analysis explicitly assumes zero transaction costs.
In several cases the tenor choice mattered. The bank highlighted the recent Czech easing cycle as an example where receiving on 1-year swaps delivered better results than either 2-year swaps or 1-year-1-year forward positions, because the terminal policy rate remained anchored by the central bank.
Bank of America identified three drivers behind the persistent mispricing it observed. First, monetary cycles in emerging markets tend to be long, which reduces the accuracy of forecasts over extended time horizons. Second, markets require a risk premium that tends to rise with the length of the forecast window to compensate for potential errors. Third, carry and roll can become increasingly negative when markets price in anticipated rate moves before central banks actually act.
Looking across regions, the bank said post-COVID performance improved materially in most emerging Europe, Middle East and Africa (EEMEA), Asia and Latin America markets. The hiking cycles in 2021 were singled out as particularly profitable in the backtest because inflation surprises boosted returns unexpectedly.
Regional outcomes were mixed. Latin America produced the strongest backtested results, with Brazil performing especially well when the simple 1-year rule was applied. Asia delivered the weakest performance in the tests, with 1-year-1-year trades in Taiwan cited as an example of weaker outcomes. EEMEA sat between the two extremes. Bank of America attributed these differences in part to more open capital accounts in EEMEA and Latin America, which the bank said facilitate deeper and longer rate cycles.
Applying its framework to current conditions, the bank reported that its rules generally point to a bias toward paying rates across most emerging markets. Exceptions to that guidance included Hungary and Israel, where the rules did not indicate paying. In addition, some country-specific rules suggested taking no action in Poland, India, Singapore, Brazil and Chile.
The research offers a concise tactical rule that, in the bank's backtests, captures much of the directionality of monetary cycles in emerging markets. The analysis highlights that execution choices - tenor and timing relative to interbank rates - matter materially, and that structural features such as capital account openness can influence how profitable the rule is across regions.