Insights

Editor of Hub News, Cherry Reynard, interviews Fund Manager John William Olsen on the launch of the new M&G Positive Impact Fund. This interview first appeared in Hub News Issue 40.

Investors, large and small, are increasingly expanding their objectives, placing responsible and sustainable investment and behaviour alongside the achievement of attractive returns. Here, M&G’s Maria Municchi, discusses how sustainable investing has developed over time and explains how she incorporates it into the team’s long-standing multi-asset approach.

A good memory can colour your perspective of prevailing conditions so that appreciation of current valuations may be clouded by the extremes of the credit and sovereign debt crises of the last decade. We believe that prospective returns from credit have improved and Richard Ryan explains why we have been adding risk to our multi-asset credit strategies.

The key concepts of responsible investment are complementary to private debt with its core focus on analysing and managing risk through relationships with investee entities.

John Mayhew, head of infrastructure debt, explains why it is important to maintain investment discipline at this point in the cycle, in Q&A with Infrastructure Investor.

Uncertainty, in its many guises, looks set to prevail in 2019. Nevertheless, high running coupons – and trading opportunities – bode well for a year of higher returns from the European loan market.

Despite external headwinds to developed economies, we believe domestic drivers should sustain the Asia Pacific region’s economic growth in 2019.

Despite ongoing Brexit uncertainty, healthy economic activity in the UK is underpinned by consumer sector and continuing labour market strength.

In this month’s video, Investment Director, Ritu Vohora, looks at the Fed’s dramatic shift to a more dovish stance, with an emphasis on patience. The Fed’s pause was welcomed by investors in January and is positive for risk assets. But risks remain and we are likely to see continued volatility in the coming months.

We believe the European high yield market appears to be well-placed to perform well relative to government bonds. David Fancourt explains what we are seeing and why we have been adding risk in the high yield strategy.

As celebrations for the Lunar New Year get under way, could the Year of the Pig bring investors good fortune or will stockmarket returns be lean?