All Features articles – Page 9
-
Features
IPE Quest Expectations Indicator: February 2023
Russian attacks against Ukrainian civilians are hampered by efficient air defence. With weapons for the Ukrainian military on the way, a new offensive seems imminent. US President Joe Biden’s troubles over classified documents are a relief for Republicans. The threat of a US-EU trade conflict over China is growing as both sides retreat into nationalistic behaviour. In the UK, Conservatives are under threat of predicted historic losses, while Prime Minister Rishi Sunak so far has done nothing to repair relations with the EU.
-
Features
PensionsEurope: Not all doom and gloom for 2022
After the bumper investment returns of 2021 – the best that many pension funds had ever experienced – last year’s results were disappointing.
-
Features
Research: Pension investing in an inflation fuelled world
Monica Defend and Amin Rajan highlight the big upheavals facing pension investors
-
Features
ESG: Germany’s energy options
The country’s reliance on Russian gas means its change of energy sources will carry a larger environmental cost
-
Features
Pension funds at risk from cyber security threats
Regulators are increasingly focusing on the vulnerabilities of pension funds to the threat of cyber attack, which can bring disruption and potentially large-scale reputational fallout for schemes and sponsors
-
Features
Fixed income, rates & currency: Inflation strengthens its grip
Whereas news of the hostilities in Ukraine may be losing their potential to shock and dislocate the world economic order, inflation news has maintained its powerful hold over financial markets across the world throughout 2022, with many economies recording their highest inflation levels for decades.
-
Features
Climate risks – pay now or later?
Climate change is an emergency that requires all hands on deck. What should be the role of investors when it is governments that have the most power to effect change?
-
Features
European Commission announcement brings some clarity to derivatives clearing
Many unanswered questions linger after the departure of the United Kingdom from the European Union. However, a recent announcement by the European Commission (EC) promises to bring some much-needed clarity to the derivatives market.
-
Features
Ahead of the curve: Is small cap the next mean reversion trade?
By now, most investors have noticed a rebound in value relative to growth in equity markets. After underperforming growth over the past decade, value stocks are experiencing strong mean reversion and outperforming significantly.
-
Features
Accounting: Long-haul climate change reporting
Shortly after the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) tentatively confirmed that companies using its climate-reporting standard must disclose their Scope 3 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, board chair Emmanuel Faber took to Twitter, making the bold claim that the board was “rewriting economics”.
-
-
Features
Qontigo Riskwatch - January 2023
*Data as of 30 November 2022. Forecast risk estimate for each index measured by the respective US, World and Emerging Markets Qontigo model variants
-
Features
IPE Quest Expectations Indicator - January 2023
Better air defence and the ground freezing over are steadily improving the outlook for Ukraine’s forces, now locked in stalemate. A series of blunders haunts US Republicans in general and Trump in particular. If Biden’s stimulus package is enacted, it will counteract Fed policy, possibly prolonging the series of interest rate increases. The EU seems to have bought too much gas. It has agreed to take border measures against some products from climate change laggard countries.
-
Features
UK fiduciary managers wrangle with LDI fallout
UK Gilt yields rose throughout 2022, even before September’s well-publicised spike caused by the unfunded mini budget. Fears of global inflation, exacerbated by the energy crisis and geopolitical uncertainty following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, took UK 10-year yields from around 1% in January to 3% in mid-September.
-
Features
US dollar strength and the issues facing institutional investors
Most central banks across the world are raising interest rates – some more aggressively than others – but it is proving hard for any of them to out-hike the US Federal Reserve. The resulting widening interest rate differentials have been an important factor in the appreciation of the US currency.
-
Features
Fixed income, rates & currency: Recessions - but when?
With the fourth consecutive 75bps hike in rates delivered in November, US Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell suggested that the pace of the hikes might be slowed in the coming months (so slightly dovish), but then said that the terminal rate and how long it would be held was more important than the speed of tightening (back to hawkish). The initial dollar sell-off was unwound by the end of the press conference.
-
Features
Sustainable tourism: consumers need direction
The end of COVID lockdowns in most places has led to a boom in tourism in 2022 and a return to normality that should persist. Before the COVID pandemic, tourism accounted for around 10% of global GDP and 8% of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, according to speakers at the Reset Sustainably conference on sustainable tourism held in London in September. The size of the industry means that moving towards more sustainable development can have a significant, positive impact on the world, both in terms of climate change and in the protection of natural resources, including biodiversity.
-
Features
European pension dashboard in the starting blocks
The European Tracking Service for pensions has been years in the making but is now set for a rollout, to be completed by 2027
-
Features
How SFDR became the impact benchmark star
Impact is often defined by intentionality and additionality.
-
Features
Ahead of the curve: Recalibrating alternative allocations for a new market
Geopolitics, inflation, and central bank policy have agitated financial markets in 2022, leaving returns and diversification in short supply. A comparison of global equities and bonds provides a sense of just how challenging the results have been.