Investing

 The prices of European banking stocks have fallen to their lowest level in more than 30 years. The banks are weighing on a further recovery of the European indices, which have too few ‘asset light’ business models.

Until 30 September, the return of the European banking index stood at -43.66%. Over the past three years, the return is -24.39% and over the past five years it’s -13.36%.

The weakening dollar has been a boon for emerging market debt in recent months. Spreads have narrowed and inflows quickly turned positive again. However, investors seem to already be looking for the exit again.

Investors should increase risk as some traditional safe havens are losing their shine, Robeco says in its five-year outlook titled ‘A Brave Real World’. Investment Officer spoke with Peter van der Welle, strategist in Robeco’s Global Macro team, about the asset manager’s outlook.

Global equities can rise by up to 75% over the next five years driven by profit growth, according to Knut Gezelius, lead manager of the Skagen Global fund.

Skagen is known for its active, value-based investment philosophy. But if you look at the largest positions of the global equity fund, you’ll mostly see prominent growth stocks such as Microsoft, Adobe, Alphabet and Mastercard. What happened?

It’s less than six weeks to the US presidential elections. Capital Group has made a few rules of thumb for investors to give some guidance.

Solid growth companies will continue to live up to high expectations by showing strong profit growth. This offers the prospect of an attractive total return after inflation of 7-10% per annum on average over the long term, according to manager George Dent of the BNY Mellon Long-Term Global Equity Fund. 

The high-yield market has recovered nicely from the corona-induced market crash, but further price appreciation is becoming increasingly unlikely, says manager Ulrich Gerhard of the BNY Mellon Global Short-Dated High Yield Bond Fund in an interview with Investment Officer.

After the relaxation of the inflation target by the Fed, investment experts are rushing to predict a sustained rise in inflation. But for now, there’s no sign of inflation at all. Last week it even turned out that, for the first time since 2016, price levels in the eurozone had actually fallen.

The Fed’s announcement last Thursday that it will now target an ‘average’ inflation rate of 2% is a huge game changer for investors and asset allocators, says Philippe Gijsels, head strategist at BNP Paribas Fortis.

Dividend payments fell by a record 22% in the second quarter, hitting their lowest level in eight years, according to the latest Global Dividend Index from Janus Henderson Investors. Europe and the UK were the worst affected regions.

Back in May, the asset manager had already predicted a decline in dividend payments between 15% and 35%. Global dividend fell by $108.1 billion (€91.3 billion) to $382.2 billion in the second quarter.