As the year 2020 comes to a close, the European Central Bank (ECB) and the European Parliament have put their respective programmes for the fight against the crisis on track for next year. The MEPs recently approved the approximately EUR 1.1tn Community budget for the next seven years, which includes EUR 750bn in Corona aid.
We are looking back on a turbulent investment year. After the slump in February and March, we saw a strong recovery on the markets almost across all asset classes. CEO Heinz Bednar and CIO Gerold Permoser give an outlook for the capital markets in 2021.
The eyes of the international business world are currently fixed on Vienna. At the OPEC headquarters in downtown Vienna, the oil cartel’s member states and its allies are currently haggling over production volumes, and thus the further development of oil prices, via video conference.
At a time when Covid-19 is ravaging the global economy, 15 Asia-Pacific countries signed the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) at a virtual Summit on November 15. The RCEP is a meaningful achievement for regional cooperation and a historic milestone in the globalization process.
Can investment companies contribute to making the world a better place? Walter Hatak, Head of Sustainable Investments with Erste Asset Management (Erste AM), responds with a resounding “Yes – but only with the help of our clients!” More and more client assets go towards climate-friendly companies, while at the same time Erste Asset Management uses its votes from the shares it has invested the clients’ funds in to elicit more sustainability from companies across the board.
After unexpected replacements of the head of the central bank and the finance minister, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan recently declared war on the inflation and currency depreciation in his country with a new economic programme. In doing so, Erdogan is radically turning away from his previous economic policy line by relying on foreign investment and monetary stability.
U.S. biotech company Moderna reported positive results from the first interim analysis of its Covid mRNA vaccine candidate. The IA found that of the 95 identified Covid cases in the study population 90 occurred in the placebo group, thus yielding a vaccine efficacy of 94,4%.
These days a fund that has drawn the attention of many investors is celebrating its first birthday: the megatrend fund ERSTE FUTURE INVEST. The performance to date is respectable. Despite the corona pandemic, the fund has recorded comfortable gains, outperforming important stock exchange indices.
In a press release on November 9, Pfizer gave a first taste of the results of the Phase 3 study of the Covid vaccine, which was jointly developed with German biotech company BioNTech. With an estimated efficacy of 90% and the start of the vaccination campaign possibly as early as January 2021, there is light at the end of the tunnel. But some hurdles still remain.
In the USA the fight for the White House is still raging. Meanwhile, in Copenhagen, 9,000 kilometers away, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen declared that all minks in the country would be killed to contain the spread of a new SARS CoV-2 variant. What is a Black Min Event?
