Opinion

Opinion Headlines that might surprise investors in 2020

The outlook for the UK stock market remains incredibly foggy in the run-up to this year’s general election. Most global investors continue to regard the UK as an uninvestible market, as they have since the EU referendum in (...)

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Opinion Are Private Equity Blowouts Good for Stock Investors?

There’s growing evidence that private equity markets are beginning to overheat after several high-profile IPO flops. Investors in stocks should pay attention because private funding troubles are also a very public market (...)

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Opinion Is Turkey’s recovery threatened by its Syrian incursion?

Until just a week ago, Turkey (against all the odds) seemed to be doing well again, said Reza Karim, assistant fund manager, Fixed Income. Inflation had come down from 25% last year to 9%. The central bank had managed to cut rates by 750bps, which restarted the debt-fuelled (...)

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Opinion The art of the deal

The UK takes a big step towards Brexit, with today’s key announcement. Parliamentary ratification is the next major hurdle to clear. With the DUP reportedly uncomfortable with the deal, the parliamentary arithmetic for Saturday’s vote is very hard to (...)

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Opinion Is the Eurozone headed for two decades of japanstyle slow growth?

Despite it being more than 10 years since the global financial crisis (GFC), the world remains heavily indebted and there is no realistic prospect of that debt reducing in the short or medium term. Barring glaring historical exceptions, sovereign debt levels in many (...)

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Opinion German fiscal stimulus, can we believe it?

It appears that a German fiscal stimulus is not imminent and that these effects would take time to materialize. Maintaining a budget surplus target while the Eurosystem will start buying German bonds again from November will maintain downward pressure on German long-term (...)

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Opinion Treading a more tenuous path

The duration rally over the month of August was eye-watering. The whole German sovereign bond curve, out to 30 years, now trades with a negative yield, with half the European investment grade bond universe also yielding below (...)

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Opinion Draghi’s leaving message for euro area banks: learn to live with negative rates

The ECB’s new stimulus package adds to top-line challenges for European banks though the measures should support loan quality and asset valuations, says Scope Ratings.

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Opinion Review of the chinese economy at the end of the summer of 2019

The monthly data published at the start of the second quarter are fairly mixed and show no tangible signs of growth momentum improving in China. The GDP published for the second quarter has recently confirmed this sentiment. The slowdown at work since the start of the decade (...)

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Opinion Europe’s overlooked technology sector is thriving

While Europe’s fragmentation has hindered development of a mass-market giant to rival those from the US and China, its distinctive technology businesses are competing successfully in global markets.

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Opinion Climate disasters are more and more frequent in the United States

According to the European Space Agency, never a month of June had been as hot on the surface of the Earth as in 2019. It is now clear that climate disasters have intensified in recent years. This has been clear in the United States in recent (...)

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Opinion ESG 2.0

Interlinking climate change with investments is critical today and it will become even more important in the future as climate change is one of the biggest issues facing humanity today.

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Opinion European equities have room to rally

The strong rally in markets during the first three months of 2019 reversed the trend seen at the end of last year. The US Federal Open Market Committee’s March meeting confirmed that the Fed has moved from mobilising against an inflation overshoot to trying to correct the (...)

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Opinion ECB worries have receded, but Fed policy doubts have some pundits on the defensive

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Opinion The G20, where the world’s two largest economies will go head to head

The G20 summit in Japan on the 28-29 June will take the center stage this weekend as the world’s two largest economies remain locked in an ongoing trade war.

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Opinion Despite fears about the Bitcoin ’bubble’ bursting, the price of the new digital coins is going through the roof

According to Daniele Bianchi, of Warwick Business School, is Assistant Professor of Finance and he researches crypto-currencies incluing Bitcoin, despite fears about the Bitcoin ’bubble’ bursting, the price of the new digital coins is going through the (...)

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Opinion Review of the chinese economy at the end of the summer of 2019

The monthly data published at the start of the second quarter are fairly mixed and show no tangible signs of growth momentum improving in China. The GDP published for the second quarter has recently confirmed this sentiment. The slowdown at work since the start of the decade (...)

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Opinion Total Return Futures set for further growth as buy-side adoption increases

Eurex launched Total Return Futures (TRFs) in 2016 in response to growing demand for listed alternatives to total return swaps. Since then, the product has evolved into an instrument used by a wide variety of firms for multiple purposes, enabling firms to lock in financing (...)

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Opinion Silver squeeze: What’s behind the surge in silver?

Silver is in the spotlight this week, after the popular r/WallStreetBets community on Reddit highlighted the fundamental value in acquiring silver at current levels. The online posting was the catalyst for increased retail flows and awareness. Last Thursday 28 January, the (...)

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Opinion Accidental Americans Create Headache for French, European Banks

Boris Johnson, who was born in New York but left when he was five, found it outrageous that he was obliged to pay US taxes. The easy solution was to pay to renounce his US citizenship, which he did in 2016. Hundreds of other accidental Americans don’t have the luxury of such (...)

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Opinion China: a health warning

“China is battling slowing economic growth with a host of stimulus measures, but a US policy of containment, the rise of rival low-cost manufacturing hubs and a dwindling current account surplus call for caution,” says Jason Pidcock, Head of Strategy, Asian (...)

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Opinion Post-Covid recovery packages must quicken the pace to net-zero carbon emissions

Government recovery plans must lay the foundations for an irreversible shift to a resilient, net-zero and inclusive world economy.

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Opinion Greece rescue - Behind the scenes

Debt rescheduling, monetary policies questioning and EFSF bond purchases in the secondary market. These are the key steps of a plan that should not significantly affect banks’ net income but rather spread economic losses over (...)

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Opinion Time for crypto investors to look beyond bitcoin for returns

New analysis by London-based Nickel Digital Asset Management (Nickel), Europe’s award-winning, regulated digital assets hedge fund manager is highlighting the need for crypto investors to start to look beyond Bitcoin for potential (...)

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Opinion Investors pay a high price for emotional decisions

New European research from behavioural finance experts Oxford Risk reveals that over 73% of wealth managers believe emotional decision-making costs investors investment returns.

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Opinion Don’t cry for Argentina

In accordance with the Right Upon Future Offers or RUFO clause (similar to a conventional clause requiring creditors to be treated pari passu) contained in the 2005 agreement on the restructuring of the debt of the exchange bondholders (preventing Argentina from making more (...)

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Opinion Equities in 2013: boring would be best

Past results do not guarantee future performance. However, they certainly set the tone for predictions of it. A year ago, the outlook statements for this year’s equity performance were rather cautious, with forecasters extrapolating the poor trend of 2011. However, 2012 (...)

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Opinion The European Credit Strategist: The year that QE failed?

According to BofA Merrill Lynch Global Research report, Month-to-date, investment-grade cash bond spreads are 21bp wider and high-yield cash bond spreads are 73bp wider. September is shaping up to be the worst month of the year for performance, and the year-to-date picture (...)

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Opinion Coronavirus: research, research, research…

In terms of data, the impact of the economic freeze is seen first on jobs; unemployment will rise dramatically, with the peak expected in the second quarter numbers. GDP contraction will follow – for example, the recent eurozone PMI (Purchasing Managers Index) was very weak (...)

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Opinion Sustainable investing: sector rotations may prove short-lived

Hamish Chamberlayne, portfolio manager within Henderson’s global equity sustainable investment team, discusses the significant sector rotations seen in 2016. He explains why the reversals in the energy and healthcare sectors may prove short-lived, given the longer-term themes (...)

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