BNP Paribas Asset Management

Main takeaways from the presentations at the recent Inquire seminar in Liverpool.

Equity markets extended their rally in May. Not only did the old market saying (which, by the way, is a little simplistic and rather poorly backed) “sell in May and go away” not prove true, but equities gained 1.9% (MSCI AC World index in US dollars) over the month of May.

Sustainable development, or the concept of economic development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the needs of future generations, came into being following an initiative taken by the United Nations (UN) in the 1980s.

A sign of the times: major newspapers are reporting on the growing concerns in official circles over the environmental threats to the planet. Such was the case following the UN’s annual World Water Day on 22 March.

John Maynard Keynes made and lost a small fortune investing in European currencies in the inter-war years.

The Federal Open Markets Committee (FOMC) raised its target range for the federal funds rate in March for the third time since December 2015. Here we consider how the Fed may go about ‘normalising’ its balance sheet.

The global economy is producing an unsustainable level of CO2 emissions. However, 194 countries signed the Paris Climate Agreement at COP21 in December 2015, with the objective of limiting the rise in global temperature to 2°C above pre-industrial levels.

The financing of the energy transition by issuing green bonds has reached a fresh milestone now that France, a prominent proponent of climate change mitigation and environmental protection efforts, has issued the largest and longest green bond to date.

President Trump recently passed his first 100 days in office. They were anything but quiet, with not only a series of high-profile political rows, but a number of failed attempts to deliver on his priority election promises. The topsy-turvy character of this period has had financial market observers watching closely as to what might happen next, and what the economic implications might be.

Environmental degradation and industrial and real-estate development are among the factors reducing the space available for conventional agriculture and encouraging the emergence of new methods that are better suited to these changes including aquaponics.