Investment Insights

Inflation has bounced back vigorously from its pandemic-era lows: The headline rate for the US consumer price index has reached a 40-year high, while in the eurozone, the headline rate for the harmonised index of consumer prices is at its highest in 20 years. What does this mean for investors?

To help multi-asset portfolios cope with the geopolitical shock of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a move into cash can be useful. At BNP Paribas Asset Management, we have implemented such an approach to ride the recent market volatility and use bounces to sell assets whose fortunes have now changed and build or expand other, more defensive positions at attractive prices.

Global bond markets already faced challenging times before the conflict in Ukraine, but they at least had a clear expectation to work with: the prospect of firm central bank action to tackle rising inflation. Geopolitical developments have upended the calculus, undermining inflation and growth forecasts and weakening the fundamentals across the board for the foreseeable future.

Global markets have seen wide swings as concerns over tighter supplies and crimped trade in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine caused investors to head for safe havens away from risk assets. However, Guy Davies, chief investment officer for fundamental active equities, advises against impulsive action and argues for a focus on cash flows when picking promising stocks.

Heightened market volatility and uncertainty over the pace at which the ECB will unwind its bond purchases are the main tests investors in European corporate bonds have to contend with currently. Mitigating factors such as robust earnings, strong cash positions and low defaults could be negated by concerns the central bank might need to take tougher action to contain inflation.

Investing in water-related stocks means tapping into a multi-decade opportunity for growth and innovation. Demand in this segment stretches across the breadth of the economy – from tackling ageing water infrastructure to ensuring healthy drinking water and efficient waste water treatment.

Our Environmental Strategies Group talk to businesses that, regardless of their size, are making a big impact. In the first of this series we speak to John Berger, CEO of Sunnova Energy International, a residential solar and energy storage company, about the energy transition and the role investors can play in fighting climate change.

Chinese equities look well set to confront the challenges that Omicron, stricter regulation and moderating growth will bring. Revised earnings expectations and valuations mean their second-half prospects are brighter. Looser fiscal and monetary policies have the potential to provide a further uplift for sentiment.

In a contrarian call, our emerging market debt team sees appealing opportunities in EM bonds. Specifically in those markets where inflation is likely to peak ahead of developed markets in which investors are having to adjust to the prospect of higher real yields. EM segments that were oversold late last year also represent areas worth investor attention as a recovery takes hold.

The prospect of a momentous pivot in US monetary policy with gradual withdrawal of the generous provision of liquidity has left markets pondering over valuations. Investors face a challenging year in which they will need to search for assets suited to a new inflationary regime. On our Talking heads podcast, Daniel Morris, chief market strategist, and Andrew Craig, co-head of the Investment Insights centre, discuss the outlook for fixed income, the promise of emerging market debt (and currencies), the prospects for corporate bonds, and the areas of – longer-term – interest once equity valuations have normalised.

To tackle poverty, climate change and improved access to, for example, education, central banks and governments need to rethink fiscal policy and the impact of deficit spending. Trillions of US dollars are required to achieve these goals. Alex Bernhardt, global head of sustainability research, talks about how it could be done.

At first sight, tighter US monetary policy and stubbornly high US inflation does not seem an ideal mix for bonds. There’s a lot more to it than that, argues James McAlevey, head of multi-sector fixed income. By embracing a broad opportunity set, investors can benefit from the potential for attractive risk-adjusted returns offered via active allocation.

The set-up for financial markets is more challenging in 2022, especially for core government bonds and fully valued equities, given the prospect of higher interest rates. In our new Talking heads podcast, Maya Bhandari gives her analysis of what this means for asset allocation.

Stronger economic fundamentals and vaccination progress mean the 2022 outlook for Asian equities, and more broadly global emerging market equities, is rosier now than it was at this time a year ago, argues Zhikai Chen, head of Asian equities.

Leaving behind a momentous year marked by new phases of the pandemic and by sputtering efforts to re-start the global economy, we look ahead to 2022. Can we overcome the effects of issues such as disrupted supply chains and shifts in consumer demand? How can investors navigate the ‘rapids’ that will characterise the next stages of the economic recovery?

The recent UN climate change conference in Glasgow has if anything brought a broader focus on environmental issues and added to the growing awareness and momentum behind the need for positive change, argue Edward Lees and Ulrik Fugmann of the Environmental Strategies Group. Here they identify promising sectors and present their approach to sustainable investing.

The results of the recent COP26 climate change conference fall into the glass half full, glass half empty category. The onus now is on greater efforts to adapt to higher global temperatures as work on mitigating the temperature rise continues, says Alex Bernhardt, global head of sustainability research.

Confronted with low, but rising rates and frothy equity valuations, large investors are having to look elsewhere for investments offering both attractive long-run returns and modest to low volatility. Julien Halfon, head of pensions and corporate solutions, discusses the appeal of investing in private markets and harvesting the illiquidity premium while incorporating ESG selection criteria.

It has been a challenging year for investors in emerging markets – equities have lagged their developed market counterparts, EM debt has delivered a mixed performance. Covid outbreaks have hampered the economic recovery, while questions have arisen over China’s role as the engine of growth for EM exporters.

Globalisation, regulation and deregulation, digitalisation and innovation are playing an important role in reshaping economies, sectors and industries and these megatrends are creating thematic investment opportunities for investors. Koye Somefun, head of multi-asset solutions, sets out the characteristics of this approach and discusses the criteria investors should look at.