Gaffney, manager of the Eaton Vance Bond Fund, said global market present "a great opportunity for bond investors" in light of stretched valuation in U.S. fixed-income markets. She sees a number of positive developments in the global economy.
"German inflation is touching two percent [and] China is slowing but still growing," Gaffney told attendees. Foreign strength should take pressure off the dollar, which the Trump administration will need to realize its agenda.
A value-oriented equity manager, Winters said he too was looking abroad. More than half of Wintergreen's assets are invested outside the U.S., where the indexing phenomenon is more prevalent and is producing distortions that never existed in the past. So far in 2017, his fund is managing to beat the S&P 500 with more than 35 percent of its assets in tobacco stocks. Maybe beating the index isn't impossible.