Every year at the beginning of May, investors are faced with the question of whether they should leave the stock exchanges and take the profits generated up to that point, and return at a later date in autumn. But is the old stock market adage “Sell in May” still valid?
On 3 April, we held our monthly Investment Committee meeting. Only three weeks after the previous one – three weeks that were tightly packed with issues, as we can see in the performance data of the most important asset classes. Equities and high-yield bonds have lost value, whereas Eurozone government bonds and emerging markets bonds have recorded gains. An upside-down scenario, compared to previous months.
On 14 March our Investment Committee met, and as always, we started out on a discussion of our risk stance, i.e. our risk assessment. From my point of view, four findings of the discussion are worth bringing up here:
Fears of rising interest rates are back. Was the recent 9% correction in global equities just a market blip, amplified by technical factors related to the trading of volatility products? Or something more serious – a regime shift signalling the end of the equity bull market as many have argued?
The year 2018 had started on such a promising note – is what we all were thinking. But at the beginning of February, the market taught us a lesson. As a result, the discussions at our first Investment Committee of the year at the beginning of February were interesting ones.
Equity indices have undergone a global correction in the past days. The Dow Jones index has shed more than 10% from its January high. What is the macro-economic reason for the correction?
2017 is drawing to an end, and the bottom line is positive. The outcome is significantly better than we had expected. Since the financial crisis in 2008, the global economy has never expanded more quickly and especially concertedly than in 2017. Also, inflation has surprised on the downside, falling short yet again of the expectations held by central banks and analysts.
The Trump administration should be keeping the financial markets on their toes in the coming weeks. Yet again, the issue is the government debt which will soon reach its statutory maximum.
The IFO business climate index calculated by the Munich-based IFO Institute is regarded as the most important German economic indicator. At 115.1, the value released for June last week was the highest since the launch in January 1991. It was also clearly above the value that had been expected by the financial analysts on average. The signs for substantial economic growth in Germany seem favourable.
Author: Christin Bahr, Product Management Securities Erste Group It has been half a year since the launch of the new hybrid bond fund. Reason enough for us to talk to Roman Swaton, Senior Fundmanager.
