Relentless easy monetary policies and short term rates at virtually have kept market volatilities at remarkably low levels. Preparing for the next spike may not be such a bad idea as the effects of central banking measures start to wane.
Category: Europe
Americans like it stupid, Europeans prefer smart
While virtually all American investors have an allocation to standard index-trackers, only one in five are invested in smart beta funds. In Europe, this percentage is twice as high, and among large institutional investors with more than $10bn in assets under management, more than two thirds use smart beta products. These large institutional managers use […]
How to beat the heat in the bond pressure cooker
While this decompression will have been welcomed by investors looking to buy into the market, it was the opposite for those at the long end of the curve, with10-year bond holders losing around 5% of their capital. Though the price shift made the headlines, rather than coming as a great surprise it has merely served […]
Investors get foretaste of bond market plunge
While government bond yields and, in particular, gilt, bund and treasury yields have all been rising in recent weeks (German 10 year yields doubled last week) the last few days have seen sudden, sharp moves that have seen investors lose significant amounts of capital. As one investor put it to Portfolio Adviser on Thursday, if […]
UK investors flee to the continent amid election worries
£963m (€1.3bn) flowed out of UK equity funds on a net level over the month, compared to an average of £238m in inflows across the previous 12 months, while Europe ex-UK funds topped the best-sellers list with £663m in inflows compared to an average of £11m per month for the previous 12. “The last time […]
Absolute return inflows keep breaking records
Inflows into alternative Ucits funds broke an all-time record for the second consecutive month in March. According to Morningstar’s European fund flows data, investors poured in €8.7bn over the month. Total net inflows in the first three months of the year now total € 19.8bn. Multistrategy funds remain the most popular category, with €3.3bn in […]
Index trackers – The Dutch are leading the way
Nearly all fund selectors in the country are active and sophisticated users of passives. The share of the portfolio reserved for passive strategies varies greatly, from 7% up to 70%, but is generally on the rise. None of the interviewees will decrease their allocation to index-trackers, and four in ten will increase it in the […]
Fund selectors buy Europe ditch US
The ECBs QE announcement combined with accelerating economic growth in the eurozone has propelled European equity sentiment to a record high. At the same time, appetite for US equities among Europes fund buyers is at an all-time low.
Investors sell US equities buy Europe
February 2015 was the month of the Great Rotation: it was not the long-awaited shift from bonds to equities though, but rather the move from US equities to European equities.
