Investment Officer Belgium

The United Kingdom’s new ESG fund labels have struggled to gain traction. As Brussels prepares an overhaul of the Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR), a senior Morningstar expert warns Europe not to copy London’s model.

Government bonds from countries that score high on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals have outperformed the global market-weighted bond index over the past three years.

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.

Tokenized funds will overtake traditional structures within five years, says Keyrock CEO Kevin de Patoul, citing cheaper, transparent, inevitable on-chain vehicles.

The Federal Reserve last week cut interest rates from 4.25–4.50 percent to 4.00–4.25 percent and will lower rates further at the remaining meetings of the FOMC, the Fed’s policy body. This comes even as financial conditions have already improved and there is still an extraordinary amount of liquidity on the sidelines.

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.

Frédéric Degembe, Chief Investment Officer of ING Belgium, is enthusiastic about the unified Investment Centre announced by parent group ING. “It’s a growth story in which Brussels can play a key role,” he said.

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.