Ronald van Genderen

Pharmaceutical companies were once known for their strong growth potential, but slowing revenue growth, lower valuations, and higher dividend yields have given them a more mixed profile in recent years. However, over the past three years, Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly have stood out by reclaiming their growth status.

US growth stocks had an excellent year in 2023. Although the Magnificent Seven pulled the cart, they were certainly not the only stocks to record a strong performance. And yet, despite the magnificent returns, investors seem wary and are now withdrawing money from funds investing in this market segment.

Leading up to 2020, Chinese equities dominated emerging markets, reaching nearly 40 percent of the index. However, the pandemic, government crackdowns, and economic slowdown have since halved their share.

Emerging markets excelled in the second quarter, driven by Taiwanese and Indian equities, despite Mexican setbacks. Ronald van Genderen concludes this edition of the Morningstar Fund Radar with insights on promising strategies like Robeco QI Emerging Conservative Equities.

In the US, a select group of seven stocks have garnered much attention since last year for their impact on stock market performance. This illustrious group, known as the Magnificent Seven, includes Microsoft, Apple, Alphabet, Amazon, Nvidia, Meta, and Tesla. Collectively, these tech giants accounted for 32.5 percent of the S&P 500 index as of the end of April 2024.

Ecology funds, which invest in companies addressing environmental challenges, peaked in 2020 and 2021 but later saw declines in returns and assets under management.

Emerging markets continued last year’s trend in Q1 2024. And that is not good news for emerging market investors, as it meant another significant underperformance versus developed countries. Although the return of the MSCI EM index was 4.71 per cent in euros, making it positive in absolute terms, it is a considerably worse result than the 11.37 per cent achieved by the MSCI World index.

In a turbulent year like 2022, investors needed refuge, which was almost nowhere to find. Investments in oil showed outstanding performance, as one of the few areas in the financial markets. And then there were precious metals. Not all metals performed equally well though, and positive returns were mostly measured in euros.

Investment themes come and go, but investing in water has stood the test of time. Water can be central to many of the sustainability challenges facing the world. Investors seem to increasingly recognise this in recent years, creating a strong inflow of new investor money.

The Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation marks its second anniversary next month. Although it was quickly adopted as a sustainability label, its actual purpose was to provide a framework for communicating the extent to which sustainability plays a role within an investment fund. Adjusted rules that took effect in January 2023 caused a stir in the sustainable fund landscape.