inflation

BlackRock calls the new status quo in the global economy ‘New Nominal’. “The ’New Nominal’ is the situation in which higher inflation no longer causes sharply rising interest rates, and dangers for corrections in the stock markets are lower,” said Lukas Daalder, chief investment strategist at BlackRock, in an interview with Investment Officer Luxembourg’s sister publication, Fondsnieuws.nl. The reason is the 2021 Mid-year Outlook that was published last week.  

Long-term interest rates will continue to rise, as will inflation. And the correlations between German government bonds and equities will become positive again. That’s a tough sell for the management of multi-asset portfolios. Fortunately, there are alternatives such as swaps and floating rate notes. And value stocks are preferred in an environment of rising interest rates and inflation.

The emergence of inflation is particularly hotly debated at the moment. Is the current uptick in commodity and other input prices sufficient to cause an inflation surge? Opinions differ widely, as is evident from the views of various asset managers.

The US asset manager expects inflation to be slightly below 2% for developed economies over the next 10-15 years, despite the unprecedented fiscal and monetary stimulus. ‘We expect a lot of volatility in the short term, with inflation possibly temporarily exceeding central bank targets. But in the medium term, we will return to the pre-pandemic structural trends,’ says Vincent Juvyns, macro strategist at JP Morgan AM. 

Bonds are among the best performing asset classes of the past 40 years. But it’s not unlikely the next 40 years will show a radically different picture. 2021 and 2022 could even yield negative returns as above-average economic growth and rising inflation could push bond yields up from their record-low levels.

The table below shows that bonds have done great over the past four decades. However, returns have fallen steadily from 222.7% in the period 1980-1989, to 109.9% in 1990-1999, to 84.7% in 2000-2009 and to 44.5% in the ten years from 2010-2019.

In the aftermath of the surprise Democrat win in the Georgia Senate run-offs earlier this month, 10-year Treasury yield surged above the 1%-mark. It seemed investors were anticipating a large fiscal stimulus by the incoming Biden administration. But Nick Maroutsos, head of global bonds at Janus Henderson Investors, does not believe rates will go up much further from here.

The world economy is set for strong growth next year, helped by a broad roll-out of the coronavirus vaccine which will restore confidence. But there is a downside to this development: it will be followed by a strong rise in inflation – of up to 5%.

Simon Ward (pictured), Janus Henderson’s chief economist, gives this forecast to clients in his macroeconomic outlook. He expects a long-term period of substantially higher inflation from 2021 onwards.

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.

As a result of the Covid-19 crisis, inflation expectations have fallen even more. From already very low levels. When, if ever, will inflation ever rise again?

Peter De Coensel, CIO Fixed Income at Degroof Petercam Asset Management (DPAM) and fund manager Sam Vereecke tried to answer this question, which has been haunting investors for the past 40 years, in a webinar.