growth

Negative surprises put a cap on the upside potential, especially for equities. As a rule, investors react strongly to surprises, often shaped as economic data. After all, the consensus expectation should already be incorporated in the prices. 

It is therefore no coincidence that there are indices that mathematically determine the degree of surprises. A good example are the Citi Economic Surprise indices. 

In the run-up to the Japanese elections later this month, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has promised to discontinue “Abenomics”. According to him, the economic programme has not led to broader growth. Lodewijk van der Kroft, managing director at Comgest, said investors need not worry about such statements. “This is election rhetoric for the stage, Abenomics will not be thrown out with the rubbish.”

According to traditional valuation metrics, US equities are expensive. In this analysis, we provide two arguments for continued outperformance of US equities, and two in favour of better performance of non-US equities.

Expensive US growth stocks need not suffer from reflation and rising interest rates. On the contrary, they will thrive thanks to their pricing power, says Ton Wijsman, senior portfolio manager at AllianceBernstein and former director at W.P. Stewart.

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?

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. 

La qualité, et pas la croissance, est le vrai facteur de différentation dans les marchés, déclare Adrien Bommelaer, gestionnaire de portefeuille chez le boutique asset manager français, La Financière de L’Echiquier (LFDE), dans un podcast.

The Echiquier Agenor SRI Mid Cap Europe fund managed to limit its losses year-to-date to only -0.47%, even as its net asset value had risen by 34% in 2019. The secret? A strong focus on ‘structural winners’ and strict valuation discipline, resulting in an exceptionally high cash position at the start of the coronavirus crisis.