Investment Insights

Listen to this Talking heads podcast with Anaïs Boussie, our senior European economist as she discusses the outlook and perspectives for 2023 and 2024. She outlines the policy measures she expects the ECB and national governments to employ in coping with the consequences of the energy crisis and weak economic growth.

As a broad asset class underlying the full spectrum of economic activity and a non-cyclical slant, infrastructure debt has attributes that stand out for investors. One key point is that many of the services financed with these bonds are indexed, protecting cash flows from rising inflation. Also, the debt typically has floating rate coupons that are adjusted when interest rates rise.

Senior investment specialist for global equities Ramon Esteruelas briefs chief market strategist Daniel Morris on four books he has read on climate change. The books discuss the relevance of climate change science and the reliability of projections, the availability of adaptive and mitigating solutions and breakthroughs, the long road to net zero, and the need for a rethink on growth.

Until recently, humanity has relied on chemical solutions to address its biggest challenges. For example, our ability to grow food, to defend livestock against disease and to safeguard human health, all depend in part on chemical solutions. Today is no different. Yet resistance to chemicals is rising rapidly, exacerbated by climate change and ecosystem degradation. In the second of this series, Ulrik Fugmann and Edward Lees, co-heads of our Environmental Strategies Group, talk to Andrey Zarur, CEO and co-founder of GreenLight Biosciences, about how his company is using RNA technology to create a new generation of chemical free pest control methods. They consider the benefits of such innovations including enhanced food and biodiversity security, as well as the growing role investors can play in this area. The uncapped impact series brings you up close and personal with our Environmental Strategies Group and businesses that, regardless of their size, are making a big impact.

Listen to this Talking heads podcast with senior equities portfolio manager Jonathan Barnett and chief market strategist Daniel Morris as they discuss the prospects for secular growth in an industry that enables users to save on costs, access real-time business data, tailor their customer experience and generally improve efficiency. As Jonathan points out, for a company to be best-in-class these days, it needs to have best-in-class IT systems and that includes cloud computing.

Listen to this Talking heads podcast with Christophe Montcerisier, head of real estate debt, and chief market strategist Daniel Morris. They discuss the absence of a direct and immediate link between higher interest rates and the performance of real estate debt and the defensive characteristics of the asset class. Among other things, its solidity derives from some of the pandemic-induced structural changes, including a shift in office use and greater demand for suburban properties.

Listen to this Talking heads podcast with senior portfolio managers David Favier and Olivier Boutoille and Daniel Morris, chief market strategist. They firstly discuss the current market environment before focusing on the advantages of investing in these floating rate instruments that offer varied risk/returns profiles for investors.

Listen to this Talking heads podcast with portfolio manager Agne Rackauskaite as she discusses the challenges with Andrew Craig, co-head Investment Insights Centre. Beyond the war in Ukraine, the challenges ahead range from population growth to climate change. Agne highlights the benefits of a shift to more resource-efficient plant-based foods, better packaging and sophisticated irrigation and harvest technologies – and the related investment opportunities.

In this Talking heads podcast, Pierre Moulin, global head of products and strategic marketing, discusses the upcoming “positive revolution in the way investment products are distributed” with chief market strategist Daniel Morris.

Listen to this Talking heads podcast with portfolio managers Claire Mehu and Anne Froideval as they discuss the merits of this asset class with chief market strategist Daniel Morris. Listed real estate has a relatively low correlation with broad market equities over the longer term. Other important attributes are the prospect of limited supply in an already tight market and the value-enhancing effects of regulations targeting the sustainability of buildings.

Listen to this edition of Talking heads as Delphine discusses the growing appreciation of these social factors with chief market strategist Daniel Morris. Rather than a focus on solutions, she highlights the relevance of assessing company practices, i.e. how a company interacts with stakeholders such as employees, consumers, suppliers and society. She argues that doing well in areas such as workforce relations and worker education benefits a company’s long-run financial performance.

Listen to this Talking heads podcast with Pam as she talks to chief market strategist Daniel Morris about the secular drivers of demand and the prospects for technological companies.

Private equity impact investing offers investors access to an attractive asset class that can help diversify a portfolio and earn attractive returns. In addition, it offers an extra-financial component by enabling them to contribute – and help finance – solutions to pressing social and environmental problems from access to healthcare to promoting a circular economy.

US small-cap stocks are trading near 10-year lows on various metrics, which disregards their typical resilience in periods of rising interest rates and slower economic growth.

Talking heads - China to deliver on growth in 2022 by BNP Paribas Asset Management

Foreign exchange (FX) markets can be viewed as a derivative asset in that they tend to be driven by volatility in other asset markets. Since 2015, most of the leading currencies have traded in relatively confined ranges. With volatility rising in equity, bond and commodity markets, there are good reasons to expect a new regime in currency markets.

Value investing remains a worthwhile approach, even after an extended period of underperformance. A rebound has now set in that looks sustainable. Rising interest rates should be supportive of the value style and value still looks cheap relative to growth.

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.