The outlook for Chinese stocks may be risky given the uncertain state of U.S.-China trade relations. But Lewis Kaufman, a portfolio manager at Artisan Partners, thinks investors should buy them anyway.
“Regardless of what ultimately happens with the China trade tensions, there is a robustness to China that doesn’t exist anywhere else in the emerging markets,” Kaufman told CNBC in a phone interview. “We want to be leveraged to that.”
“There’s an ecosystem for capital formation. It’s very difficult to access domestic demand through the vehicles we would wish to use in so many emerging-market countries,” Kaufman said. “But in China, if I want to buy into a health-care company, I have 10 choices. If I want to buy into an internet company, there are lots of choices.”
Kaufman’s fund, the Artisan Developing World (ARTYX), has benefited greatly from his bullishness on China. The five-star rated fund has outperformed 98% of its peers over the past three years, returning more than 15%…