Esma faces uphill battle to emerge as European SEC
In an interview with Investment Officer, Esma chair Verena Ross outlined her vision and the significant challenges ahead as the regulatory body aims to become Europe’s equivalent to the US SEC.
Luxembourg renews Claude Marx’s mandate as CSSF chief
Luxembourg has renewed the mandate of Claude Marx as director general of its financial regulator, extending his leadership of the Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier for another five years as the authority marks a decade of profound institutional change.
Amundi’s ETF machine keeps humming, but active pays the bills
Amundi’s full-year results underscore how Europe’s largest asset manager has become a formidable ETF machine. Yet behind the record passive inflows, profits still rely heavily on traditional active management and a deliberate push into higher-margin activities.
Fragmented capital markets cost Europe 150 billion euro a year
Europe’s failure to complete its capital markets integration carries a measurable economic cost of around 150 billion euro per year in lost investment, according to a new report from the Citi Institute. Over a ten-year period, the drag on economic growth could amount to roughly 1.5 percent of GDP.
Silver breaks with tradition as structural shortages take hold
The silver price appears to be breaking with its traditional pattern. Where the metal has historically followed gold with a delay, silver is now moving more independently and at a faster pace. According to market participants, the recent rally is less a reaction to geopolitical tensions than the result of structural changes in the balance between supply and demand.
Trump forces Europe into strategic rethink
Donald Trump’s return to the Davos stage on Wednesday has sharpened investor focus on Europe’s exposure to a world in which geopolitics is once again shaping trade, security and capital allocation. “Everything has changed,” said Sabrina Khanniche, senior economist at Pictet.
Trump's return to Davos heralds new age of deglobalization
As global leaders and investors arrive in Davos this week, the central question for markets is no longer whether geopolitics matters, but how quickly political risk is being priced into assets. Donald Trump’s return to the World Economic Forum, where he is due to speak on Wednesday, comes at a moment when institutional credibility, fiscal discipline and capital concentration have become investment variables rather than background noise.
CIOs caution investors against headline-driven decisions
Anyone following geopolitical tensions, the noise around China and the ongoing turmoil coming out of Washington might expect investors to turn defensive. The opposite emerged at the CIO panel during the Investment Officer New Year’s Perspectives 2026 in Amsterdam on Thursday. Chief investment officers from ING, Van Lanschot Kempen, ABN Amro and Rabobank are not retreating, but positioning with intent. Their shared view was that the greatest risk is not geopolitics itself, but investment decisions driven by fear. That perspective ran through the discussion.
Protectionist reflexes still stand in the way of Europe’s champions
The failed partnership between Italy’s Generali and France’s BPCE is more than a collapsed deal in European asset management. It exposes how challenging it remains for Europe to build financial scale once a project becomes truly cross-border, and how protectionist reflexes, legal uncertainty and unfinished integration can combine to smother a transaction.
Venezuela, Greenland and the return of spheres of influence
When United States forces seized President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela, the political shock was immediate. The market reaction was not. Oil prices barely moved, investors stayed largely on the sidelines and attention quickly shifted from what had happened in Caracas to what it might reveal about how Washington now intends to wield power beyond its borders.