Washington is rewinding the clock on investor protection
Washington is rewinding the clock on investor protection. Under chair Paul Atkins, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has rolled back a series of rules, scaled back enforcement and curtailed shareholder rights. According to former senior counsel Benjamin Schiffrin, who spent nearly two decades at the agency, the regulator is now siding more with Wall Street than with investors.
Morningstar: Blackrock vs Pimco in global diversified bond strategies
Over the 12 months to February 2026, the US dollar weakened by 12.6 percent against the euro, a move mirrored across several emerging-markets currencies, including the Brazilian real, South African rand, Mexican peso and Malaysian ringgit. This currency shift has pushed managers in the Morningstar Global Bond – Diversified category toward local-currency emerging-markets debt to capture both rate differentials and currency appreciation.
The biggest threat to the euro is the ECB
On the eve of the recent meeting of EU leaders on how to make the European economy more innovative, more competitive, and less dependent on foreign countries, participants were sent a note from the European Central Bank (ECB). In it, the bank outlined what it considers desirable policy to achieve those goals.
Software selloff drives repricing in Europe’s loan markets
Artificial intelligence has unsettled software stocks for months. Now it is testing European credit markets and exposing fault lines in parts of private credit that were sold to investors as stable and uncorrelated. “If the software issue remains isolated, markets can cope. If it bleeds into the real economy, then all bets are off.”
Candriam lowers ESG standards to allow defense companies
Candriam is lowering the ESG bar for two major funds. This is intended to make investments in “selected defense companies” possible.
Clarity around ‘Sanaenomics’ makes Japan investable again
Prime Minister Takaichi’s clear reflation policy is making Japan attractive to investors once more, even though the policy rate, at 0.75 percent, stands at its highest level in thirty years. The panic surrounding the unwinding of the yen carry trade, which caused global turmoil two years ago, now appears to have definitively faded into the background.
The great rotation
The S&P500 is virtually unchanged this year, but beneath the surface the US equity market is moving more than it has in years. More than one fifth of all stocks in the index have already risen or fallen by more than 20 percent this year. The gainers are clearly in the majority: about two out of three. Yet you do not see that reflected in the index itself. How is that possible?
The wind of change for equity investors
Over the past decade, ESG has moved from the periphery to the mainstream. Luc Plouvier, senior portfolio manager for our Global Dividend strategy explains that the tide has turned.
Fed is not keen on cutting rates, feeding speculation of a rate hike
The Federal Reserve has little appetite to cut interest rates in the near term. Minutes of the January meeting show policymakers are increasingly concerned that inflation could stay above the 2 percent target for longer than expected. Markets might have to reprice their expectations, economists say.
Chart of the week: if the euro falls
Since Trump’s reelection as president of the United States, the world has been on edge. Geopolitical tensions are dominating the markets, and the role of the dollar is once again under discussion. Still, I find it difficult to translate that into the idea that this is the moment for the euro to step out of the greenback’s shadow. There are simply too many loose ends.