Investment Officer Luxembourg

Russia’s attack on Ukraine on 24 February this year is a “turning point and a milestone in European history. Its impact is enormous. No policy area remains unaffected.” So said Steven Van Hecke, professor of international relations at the KU Leuven university on Thursday at Investment Officer’s Portfolio Day in Brussels. 

Mutual funds saw net outflows last month at a rate of more than one billion euro per day, while firms selling Exchange Traded Funds experienced a small level of net inflows, according to new data from Refinitiv Lipper. 

Mutual funds experienced net outflows of 32.3 billion euro last month, compared to net inflows of 2.5 billion for Exchange Traded Funds.

Increasing variations in interest rates on government bonds the Eurozone have reawakened fears of bankruptcy in the periphery of the eurozone. The ECB says it will do everything it can to contain this threat of fragmentation. It remains uncertain though whether financial markets will continue to swallow the ECB’s narrative. These are painful times for bond investors, but there are opportunities.

In an interview with Investment Officer, Nobel Economics Prize winner Daniel Kahneman, speaks about making decisions. His theory, which also holds value for the financial sector, has demonstrated that our decisions are often flawed, biassed and inaccurate. “If people made better decisions, the world would be a better place.”

Quintet Private Bank sees “significant long-term opportunities” in a world that has experienced multiple ‘black-swan’ type events – Covid-19, the invasion of Ukraine and a miniature version in China’s decision to lock down Shanghai in late March. Presenting the firm’s outlook, Ilario Attasi, group head of investment advisors, and Nicolas Sopel, senior macro strategist, said investors can still find opportunities in tech stocks, among others.

The Federal Reserve is doing something else than what it says it is doing. At last week’s FOMC meeting, Fed chief Jerome Powell said that “the committee is not trying to cause a recession”. Yet it is clear that the Fed is directly linking a recession to lower inflation risks and that the Fed does want to fight inflation.

Luxembourg has witnessed that European integration still has its limits, even when war rages on Europe’s doorstep.

As world markets digested the Federal Reserve’s rate hike and the ECB’s emergency meeting, finance ministers of the 19 eurozone countries met at the EU conference centre on the Kirchberg plateau in Luxembourg and passed on an opportunity to further integrate financial services. Plans to complete Banking Union, first agreed in 2013, are now sent back to the drawing board.