Investing

Franklin Templeton, one of the world’s ten largest asset managers, this week outlined its views on investing at a time that inflation threatens to undermine economic growth. Investors who haven’t already done so need to adapt their portfolios to take account of the new inflation-fighting interest rate environment, at least in the short term. Underpinning its investment outlook is the expectation of more balanced monetary policy risks later this year.

Net assets of worldwide investment funds decreased by 2.5 percent in the first quarter as the decline in the United States and Europe was only partly offset by net inflows in the Asia-Pacific region, according to the latest International Statistical Release published by the European Fund and Asset Management Association, known as Efama. Bond and money market saw strong net outflows during the first three months, although China bucked the with rising inflows for money market funds.

It’s not difficult to compare today’s era to the 1970s. An energy crisis, a hot war, a cold war, persistent inflation, soaring interest rates, rising house prices. Even Abba, with its flared trousers, is performing again, albeit as a hologram. For investors, a rerun of the 1970s would require a profound rethink. 

Firms promoting Exchange Traded Funds in Europe have reported 2.5 billion euro in net inflows for last month, despite a persistently difficult market environment, market research firm Refinitiv Lipper said on Tuesday. The inflows remain “far below” the 12-month rolling average of 11.5 billion euro per month.

Firms selling Ucits and alternative investment funds are experiencing a downturn linked to the dire international economic situation, the war in Ukraine and the lockdown in China. Investor demand for these types of funds has dropped sharply, according to the European Fund and Asset Management Association (Efama), who released figures showing that net assets of Ucits and AIFs have declined by 4.5% this past quarter.

Since 1926, the S&P 500 index has fallen by more than 20 percent fifteen times. On average, the index fell 34 percent in seventeen months during such a period. As many as eleven of the fifteen times the market paused somewhere between 15 and 20 percent price decline, just as it is doing now.

Then some of the earlier losses were made up for. On that basis alone, there is a good chance that the fall will continue.  

The World Bank on Tuesday warned that the global economy is facing a 1970s-style stagflation with a protracted period of feeble growth and elevated inflation.

“For many countries, recession will be hard to avoid,” World Bank President David Malpass said at the presentation of the bank’s latest Global Economic Prospects report, which noted an increased risk of stagflation ”with potentially harmful consequences for middle- and low-income economies alike”.

When it comes to equity valuations, most investors are concerned with the price/earnings ratio. And while that P/E ratio has fallen to just below the average of the past decade, the picture painted by another valuation measure is much less attractive.

Amid lingering fears of stagflation and a possible recession, investors are hard pressed to find opportunities in today’s markets, if any. Market experts at JP Morgan Asset Management believe that those willing to look at fundamental factors underpinning equities, also in Europe, can find ways to enrich their portfolios with some specific quality growth stocks if they know where to look.

The long-term financing of the storage of German commercial radioactive waste is being provided in part through a Luxembourg Raif that was established earlier this year. Kenfo, the German sovereign wealth fund that established the fund, has given InvestmentOfficer.lu some more details about its investment purpose.