Investment Officer Luxembourg

While slowly getting back to normal, the priority of the country’s fund industry should be to review their operating models and reassess their risk, KPMG partners Ravi Beegun (pictured) and Alan Picone suggest. Meanwhile, asset managers should focus on cutting costs in response to the drop in revenues caused by the recession.

Alfi has asked the European Commission to delay the implementation of new rules on the disclosure of the sustainability of investments by 9 months to 1 January 2022.

According to the regulation on sustainability-related disclosures, which is supposed to come into force in March 2021, investors are required to publish information about the sustainability and climate risks of all their investments.

The Fed’s announcement last Thursday that it will now target an ‘average’ inflation rate of 2% is a huge game changer for investors and asset allocators, says Philippe Gijsels, head strategist at BNP Paribas Fortis.

The Nordea Emerging Starts Fund has managed to achieve a year-to-date return of more than 12% this year. This contrasts strongly with the -5% return of the MSCI Emerging Markets Net Return Index (USD), the fund’s reference index. The fund’s manager Juliana Hansveden explains how the fund managed to achieve this remarkable performance.

Financial market bubbles are quite concentrated, we noted recently. But more and more market segments seem to be overheating. Government bonds, on the other hand, strongly disagree with the stock markets.

An anecdotal example of this bubble-forming is the price of wood (lumber), which has risen even faster than the Nasdaq since the beginning of this year. Just take a look at the graph below:

Dividend payments fell by a record 22% in the second quarter, hitting their lowest level in eight years, according to the latest Global Dividend Index from Janus Henderson Investors. Europe and the UK were the worst affected regions.

Back in May, the asset manager had already predicted a decline in dividend payments between 15% and 35%. Global dividend fell by $108.1 billion (€91.3 billion) to $382.2 billion in the second quarter.

Despite a global pandemic that has mainly affected the older and more fragile parts of the population, Rothschild Asset Management continues to believe in its R-co Thematic Silver Plus strategy, which has just celebrated its 10th anniversary.