The stock market’s impressive gains in recent years have masked a less encouraging trend—the number of public companies has been cut by more than half over the past two decades. This incredibly shrinking stock market poses challenges for investors, particularly those investing in small-cap stocks.The number of public companies in… Read More »
Asset allocators are increasingly blending concentrated active strategies to achieve greater alpha within portfolios –but can focused portfolios also help cushion capital losses? Concentrated portfolios not only deliver outperformance but also help to navigate volatility over the long term. From an academic point of view, fund managers need 20 stocks… Read More »
President Trump’s unclear commitment to pro-growth policies weaken the US dollar. We saw US$107mn of outflows from our gold ETPs as geopolitical tensions eased. US July retail sales and the Empire Manufacturing Index for August surprised to the upside and resulted in a strengthening of the US dollar and rising… Read More »
Nicolas Delrue -
Certain market environments give convertible bond investors even better deals than others. Traditionally known as “all-weather” assets thanks to their dual nature, a bond instrument, providing the downside protection, with an embedded call option, allowing for equity upside potential. In today’s macro context, we believe conditions are ripe for convertible… Read More »
The current bull run being seen in US equities is missing the hallmarks of previous market bubbles. Since the beginning of 2009, the S&P 500 has returned about 12.5% on an annualized basis before dividends, which pales in comparison to the returns experienced in the 1980s and 1990s: from the… Read More »
The Brexit Secretary, David Davis has stated that a new customs system will be in place by 2019. Companies which rely on high-traffic routes on the Irish border and channel ports such as Dover are worried that new bureaucratic measures will cost both time and money as they continue to… Read More »
It has been a remarkable past three years for the Asian fixed income market in terms of both investment performance and market growth. Particularly for the Asian dollar credit market, total return over the period, according to JPMorgan Asian Credit Index (JACI), was 17.49%. At the same time, the Asian… Read More »
Gold ETPs receive largest inflows since May 2017, while silver ETPs see largest outflows since July 2016. With gold holding its gains last week, investors increased their holding of the metal by US$64.7mn. A small miss in US ISM manufacturing figures and continued political volatility in the Trump Administration following… Read More »
Jasper Sagoo -
Emerging Market (EM) corporates are as varied as the language, climate and cuisines of their home countries. We outline why we believe investors should consider a structural allocation to EM corporate debt, while also shedding light on why an allocation to this dynamic asset class makes sense in the current… Read More »
We are mindful that investment grade and high yield bonds have been on a strong run from a risk/reward perspective, and in that context we have been looking at our weighting in this area. We have decided to clip back our exposure to European high yield across asset allocation portfolios.… Read More »
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