Investment Officer Luxembourg

Emerging countries often appeal to investors’ imagination. Fast-growing economies, demographic attractiveness and a wide variety of investment opportunities make them attractive. In this week’s Top 5, we look at the best equity funds for emerging Europe.

The vibrant economies of South-East Asia are prominently on investors’ radar, partly due to China’s spectacular economic rise, which has given the entire region a major economic boost. As a result, the emerging countries that lie less far to the east, the Central and Eastern European region, have been forgotten.

The US national debt recently passed the 30,000 billion dollar mark. Since March 2020, the US national debt has increased by 7,000 billion dollars. All those “Treasuries” are ultimately part of one’s portfolio. Certainly now that some major buyers have dropped out this year, it remains to be seen whether enough buyers will remain.

Fund administrators active in Luxembourg will be required to produce an annual report on their governance and internal organisation from next year onwards as part of a long-awaited effort by financial supervisor CSSF to modernise a 30-year old supervisory framework in this field.

Investment funds that invest in health and wellness already existed, but DNCA Finance is now launching a thematic equity fund that invests in the sports sector. DNCA managers Boris Radondy and Simon de Franssu spoke to Investment Officer Belgium. “There are 340 listed companies in the world whose activities are closely related to sport. They represent a market capitalisation of $3,000 billion, which has increased sixfold in the last decade.”’

After two rounds of voting three candidates remained in the race on Monday night for the position of director-general of the European Stability Mechanism. Luxembourg’s candidate Pierre Gramegna, a former finance minister, will have to win the support from southern European countries if he is to succeed Klaus Regling in October. A decision now is expected at the 16 June Eurogroup meeting in the Grand Duchy.

The European Central Bank now is convinced that it will raise its benchmark eurozone interest rate at its 21 July monetary policy meeting and said it expects that its interest rates will no longer be negative by September. Its latest statement also indicates that the ECB is hedging its bets for upcoming medium-term policy moves in order to to add to its flexibility to act. 

As yields increase, several fund houses have recently bought European government bonds, following the ‘huge sell-off’ in this market. In the meantime, commodities should ease the pain of high inflation.