In Depth – Page 25
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FeaturesIPE Quest Expectations Indicator: December 2019
With the shift to a strong negative bond sentiment in the UK, markets have again split. For the UK and EU, the figures are more negative and trending down.
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FeaturesBriefing: There is still room for growth
Equity investors putting faith in growth stocks – stocks that are priced expensively relative to fundamentals because they are expected to grow fast – received a shock in early September when they sold off sharply.
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FeaturesBriefing: Alternatives to large-cap buyouts
Large buyout funds are a staple ingredient in many institutional pension funds’ private-equity portfolios. Focusing on more diversified private-market strategies could be a better way to achieve return objectives
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FeaturesAhead of the curve: The duration bubble
Has the world entered a new paradigm in which growth, inflation and value investing are dead? Various indicators might have us believe this is the case.
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FeaturesIPE Quest Expectations Indicator: November 2019
Bond sentiment has been trending upwards for a year, approaching a net value of zero everywhere, except in the EU. Analysts contend that central banks have secured a soft landing.
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InterviewsStrategically speaking: Generali Investments
A year into Generali’s ambitious growth plan, it looks set to meet its promises
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FeaturesBriefing: Draghi’s parting gift on ECB stance
If anyone in Europe was left in any doubt on 11 September about the dovishness of the European Central Bank (ECB) under Mario Draghi’s leadership, by close of business on the next day their doubts were surely dispelled. On that day the outgoing president of the ECB unleashed a bout of monetary easing, in an attempt to boost euro-zone inflation from 1% to its target of “below, but close to, 2% over the medium term”.
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FeaturesBriefing: US makes rapid turnaround
Father Christmas delivered a sack of coal to equity markets last Christmas Eve, with the S&P 500 index losing 1.8%, following a three-day slide. Forecasters had previously been expecting two or three rate hikes in December, as Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell steered that discussion. He had mistakenly assumed that the economy had not yet reached a normal, neutral level but it already had, forcing him to backtrack.
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FeaturesBriefing: Deep tensions threaten EU vision
This is not a commentary on the UK within or without Europe. Brexit has been a compelling distraction but it is one macroeconomic strand in a complex world. The overwhelming coverage has also moved attention away from key internal tensions within the European project.
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FeaturesBriefing: Coping with lower for much longer
German institutional investors have shifted their asset allocation due to low bond yields
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FeaturesGerman Spezialfonds show modest asset growth
Germany’s Spezialfonds market showed modest positive growth in 2018 in the face of challenging market conditions, with total assets approaching €1.5trn.
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InterviewsStrategically speaking: Wells Fargo Asset Management
By his own account Nico Marais is an extraordinarily lucky man. The CEO of Wells Fargo Asset Management (WFAM) is keen to use every opportunity to emphasise his good fortune. In Marais’s modest telling of his own story, his success is thanks to the qualities of others, rather than to his own merits. “It’s the story of my life. I’ve just always worked for amazing people,” he says.
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FeaturesAhead of the curve: New economy, same old returns?
“You can see the computer age everywhere but in the productivity statistics.”
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FeaturesIPE Quest Expectations Indicator: October 2019
There has been a widening of the equity sentiment gap between the euro-zone and the US, and the UK and Japan.
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FeaturesBriefing: The cliff-hanger of European banks
It has been a bad decade for European financials, with share prices still a fraction of their pre-crisis highs
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Features
Briefing: Give credit to CDS indices
DB pension funds could benefit from synthetic credit exposures provided by credit default swap indices
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FeaturesBriefing: Sri Lanka after the bombings
The tragic Easter Sunday bombings have devastated tourism, a key plank of the economy
