Investment Officer France

Exceptional investment strategies are rare, as reflected in Morningstar’s qualitative fund ratings. Fewer than 6 percent of actively managed funds qualitatively assessed by Morningstar analysts in Europe achieve a High score on both the People and Process pillars, placing them in the highest conviction category.

The long-assumed stability of Europe is over. Wars on the periphery, a crumbling system of free world trade, and great powers using economic interdependence as a weapon: the continent is under pressure. “The world in which investors must navigate has become more unpredictable.”

Once seen as compliance or ideology, ESG is becoming part of ordinary risk management. Interviews with asset owners, managers and analysts in Amsterdam, the UK and the Netherlands show how sustainability is increasingly embedded in long term investment strategies.

Amundi and BNP Paribas pursue scale and expertise through mergers, but integration challenges create uncertainty over long-term benefits for investors.

It is March 2020 and Italy is in serious trouble. Italian long-term interest rates are rising rapidly, and the spreads with other eurozone countries are widening.

For decades, it was an iron law for investors: in the long run, the stock market follows economic growth. A thriving economy translated into rising corporate profits and thus higher share prices. But anyone who has watched the past thirty years closely senses a growing friction with this old wisdom.

With the euro expected to strengthen further, portfolio strategies are increasingly being shaped by how much, not whether, to hedge U.S. exposures.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced a multibillion-dollar deal last week with the US for the construction of a series of Small Modular Reactors (SMRs). Although the so-called “nuclear renaissance” is also taking shape in Europe according to investors, they see American companies as the main beneficiaries.

Eurozone corporate bonds delivered a return of 4.2 percent over the past twelve months (as measured by the Morningstar Eurozone Corporate Bond Index), while their US counterpart, the Morningstar US Corporate Bond Index, lost 1.8 percent in euro terms. The currency effect was crucial here.