Susanne Bolin-Gärtner has overhauled the selection philosophy at Stockholm’s Folksam Fondforsäkring, shifting the focus from ‘exotic’ to flexible funds with a wide mandate while improving ESG standards.
Multi-strategy absolute return funds have been a blockbuster seller with investors for the past few years. But these funds have so far not done what they promise. With one exception.
European investors are sitting on large cash piles, and are waiting for volatility to ease a bit before hunting for opportunities.
Companies in the Nordic countries continue to hold the majority of their liquidity in bank accounts. And they don’t have plans to diversify, despite the threat of negative central bank interest rates being passed on to them.
The decision by the ECB to include investment-grade corporate bonds in its asset purchasing programme has led to a spike in issuance and to yields edging even lower. While this market response was anticipated by the central bank, its stimulus efforts threaten the viability of the asset class in the longer term .
The Swedish central bank’s surprise announcement that it has pushed interest rates further into negative territory is the latest piece in what is an increasingly worrying puzzle.
In a big vote of no-confidence in the euro the Swedish investor community collectively dismissed the possibility of pegging the Swedish currency, the krona, to the euro.
Equities and high yield bonds follow each other wherever they go, both when it comes to fund flows and returns, as we discussed last week on this site. The Barclays Global High Yield Index even followed stocks down on Monday in the aftermath of the breakdown of talks between Greece and its creditors. So, if…
With QE over in the US and interest rate rises on the horizon, we asked the EIE editorial panel how investors should protect themselves.
Jarl Åkerlund, head of savings products at Nordea Bank in Sweden, contemplates about how to change his asset allocation in response to the low interest rate environment.
Fredrik Otter feels too many investors have turned their back to fixed income
Expert Investor Europe’s latest research trip to Frankfurt revealed that fund selectors from Europe’s biggest market are stepping up their allocation to Asian equities again, signalling the bearish sentiment towards the asset class among European investors is changing. Earlier research this year in Norway, Sweden and Switzerland pointed in the same direction. Awarded by the…
