Max Severijns

The eurozone looks increasingly weak. The euro slipped to parity with the dollar last week and a peripheral debt crisis threatens if interest rates rise sharply. With Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi’s departure announced on Thursday, the stability of the euro is anything but certain.

This year is a tough one for tech stocks. Even companies like Dutch-based ASML, Europe’s leading high-tech company and the world’s main supplier of machines for the semiconductor industry, have seen their share prices fall by more than 45 percent this year, despite record profits. For investors, these are not the times to be very courageous, because the really big risks have not yet been discounted. 

Germany has unexpectedly reported its first trade deficit since 1991. The reversal of the trade balance in Europe’s largest economy shows how difficult it is for German companies to handle rising costs of oil and gas. Economists at ABN Amro and Nomura meanwhile expect Europe will enter into a recession.

The global macro environment will continue to be anything but normal over the next five years. Investors will have to tread a volatile and challenging path. “Our expectations for a more volatile macroeconomic and market environment call for low and realistic expectations for asset market returns over the secular horizon.”

While most asset classes are recording double-digit losses this year, one corner of the market is holding its own: European emission rights. Global ETF provider KraneShares sees its carbon allowance ETF stand year-to-date at a positive 0.26 percent. 

Increasing variations in interest rates on government bonds the Eurozone have reawakened fears of bankruptcy in the periphery of the eurozone. The ECB says it will do everything it can to contain this threat of fragmentation. It remains uncertain though whether financial markets will continue to swallow the ECB’s narrative. These are painful times for bond investors, but there are opportunities.

The ECB has decided to raise interest rates for the first time in eleven years in an attempt to tackle persistent inflation. Asset purchases will also be halted from 1 July. The decision made in Amsterdam on Thursday marks the end of a long-standing period of monetary easing and negative interest rate policy.

With macroeconomic factors and market sentiment dragging down yields, investors are wondering what to do with their real estate investments. For one of the most capital-intensive asset classes, isn’t rising interest generally a bad sign? “Conventional wisdom saying that real estate would always be a good inflation hedge is nonsense.”

The Japanese yen is rapidly losing its value against the dollar, increasing pressure  on the Japanese economy as well as the yen’s status as a safe haven. We investigated the Japanese enigma.

For the first time in twenty years, a dollar is worth 130 yen. Some currency specialists believe that in the short term 135 yen will have to be paid for a dollar. Mazen Issa, currency strategist at TD Securities, even sees an upward trend to 150.

The fact that most active investors do not succeed in beating the market does not mean that the market cannot be beaten. “It is not that complicated at all,” said alpha investor Jens Peers, CEO and CIO at Mirova Asset Management, part of the Natixis group. 

Of all actively managed investment funds, some 85%, after expenses, perform worse than the market. It’s a statistic that fuels the eternal debate between active and passive investors.