Investing

Despite volatility sparked by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine at the end of the month, global inflows into equity funds and exchange traded products increased in February to 99.6 billion dollars from 74.4 billion in January, BlackRock said on Thursday in a note to investors.

Fixed income products again saw a resumption of inflows, of 16 billion dollars, compared to net outflows in February. 

Russia’s invasion makes it more difficult for central banks to keep inflationary pressures at bay. Rising commodity prices weigh on the cost of living in the US and Europe. Restrictive effects of the Ukraine war on economic recovery are also increasing, but a full-fledged stagflation scenario so far appears premature, one investment strategist told InvestmentOfficer.

Conventional stock market wisdom says investors should buy when the cannons roar and sell when the stock market hears the clarion call. The cannons are literally roaring today. But does this reasoning hold true?

Author Ben Carlson has written extensively on the relationship between war and stock market performance. However, the relationship between geopolitical crises and market performance is not as obvious as you might think, he argues.

The difference between US 10-year and 2-year yields has fallen to around 45 basis points. That is a flattening of the US yield curve of almost a full percentage point in the last four months. It raises the question of whether a new recession is imminent.

Long duration trades are fading into the background because of tighter monetary policy. Markets have adjusted swiftly and find themselves in the middle of the cycle. The volatility that accompanies this is not necessarily disastrous, said Steven Vandepitte (pictured), asset allocation strategist at ING Private Banking. 

Vandepitte believes that the US faces three to four interest rate hikes at most. 

Queen Máxima of the Netherlands has called on European financial supervisors to review financial services for their health impact and urged the banking, payments and investment industries to do more to make sure that their clients make well-informed decisions.

As the year of the tiger starts, it is time to get excited about Chinese equities, writes InvestmentOfficer/FondsNieuws columnist Han Dieperink.

Today, the year of the tiger starts. A year ago at the start of the year of the ox, it was time to swap Chinese stocks for Chinese bonds. Economic growth had peaked and so did the earnings cycle. Moreover, Chinese stocks had risen sharply during the first year of the corona crisis.

It may be only 8 years away, but many representatives of Luxembourg’s financial centre have clear visions of a 2030 of higher technology but also a commitment to ESG values, but which may be a challenge to bring about.

Investors are watching the recovering raw materials market with suspicion. There is even a commodities supercycle on the way, according to Jeffrey Currie, the global head of the commodities research department at investment bank Goldman Sachs.

Currie  is not alone in this expectation. According to the Dutch research bureau Alpha Research, which carried out a survey among 58 asset managers, 46 per cent gave a buy recommendation.

In periods of low interest rates, high stock market prices and persistent inflation, the usually volatile commodity markets are once again in the sights of investors. This is also the case now, but this time there is another complicating factor: 100,000 Russian soldiers on the border with Ukraine, which the US president expects to invade the neighbouring country.