“I don’t think rating agencies are corrupt, I believe they are incompetent,” Healey continued. Their analysts are often inexperienced as they are often quickly poached by investment banks, he explains. “They have a very opaque structure as well. All their decisions have to be reviewed by investment committees, which are populated by business people, not […]
Category: Analysis
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 […]
Will Greece leave the euro? It looks increasingly likely, say fund selectors
When we asked a crowd of Belgian fund selectors back in January about the possibility of a Greek exit from the euro, only 13% deemed that likely to happen. At our Pan-European Congress in Rome last month, the share of Grexit-believers had almost tripled to 37%. At Expert Investor Denmark earlier this week, it exceeded 50% […]
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 […]
High yield fund flows emerge from the ground
The spike in net inflows coincides with renewed appetite among fund selectors for the asset class.The share of fund buyers telling us they will increase allocation to high yield bonds in the next 12 months almost doubled from 12% in December to 23% in late March. There seem to be several reasons for the uptick in interest. […]
Spanish fund buyers move up risk ladder in search for yield
Appetite for high yield bonds is at its strongest for almost three years: some 40% of the fund selectors our researcher met on his trip to Madrid earlier this spring will up their exposure while only 10% are going to sell. The comeback of high yield is all the remarkable considering appetite was at an […]
Fund managers expect negative return from US equities
Return expectations for US equities have plummeted at record speed this year. In December, more than two thirds of asset management companies expected US stocks to deliver a return of more than 5% in the next 12 months. Now, this has come down to less than a fifth. The fund manager […]
Investment constraints bite for optimistic Spaniards
As Spain is now the fastest-growing eurozone country, with year-on-year GDP growth of 2% in the final quarter of 2014, fund selectors in the capital Madrid are now Europe’s biggest optimists when it comes to the economic prospects. A record 80% of fund selectors have a positive macroeconomic outlook, while bears are nowhere to be seen. […]
Which equities will fare best in the next 5 years? Joachim Klement knows, part 1 of 2
Financial consultancy Wellershoff & Partners recently analysed the return prospects for equity markets in Asia, Europe and the US, The outcome? Europe will outperform the US by about five times.
Fund selectors either like Europe or EM
For European fund buyers, it’s either European or emerging market equities, never both. Equity market returns only partially explain the phenomenon.
