Interest rates aren’t simply the price of borrowing money. They are also information, providing signals telling economic players what to do. Interest rates are in fact the price of time. Low interest rates don’t value time very much. Bad signals produce bad outcomes… and that’s where we are now.
Investors in China can positively influence the behavior of Chinese companies and generate attractive risk-adjusted returns in the long run.
A number of key technical, sentiment and flow based indicators are suggesting we could see a relief in selling pressure over the coming weeks, and perhaps a countertrend rally in risk assets.
West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures fell below $102 a barrel Wednesday, which represents a 22% drop over the past two weeks and meeting the technical definition of a bear market.
Why would I work to increase the profile of an active fund manager? My reasons reflect the increasing pressure on advisors to differentiate themselves and demonstrate value.
Headquartered in Melbourne, Australia, Incitec Pivot is a global leader in the materials sector with an unrelenting focus on Zero Harm, the expectation that its operations should never expose staff to harm or cause environmental incidents.
The terminology ‘Frontier Markets’ inspires images of exotic geographies, colourful politics and investor adventurism.
The rising popularity of ESG investing has driven asset flows to green stocks. But new research confirms that the resulting higher valuations forebode lower returns for climate-conscious investors.
Japan has been stuck in a low growth, low inflation (and at times, deflationary) environment.
Since the start of 2019, investors have plowed more than $300 billion into environmental, social and governance (ESG)-themed exchange traded funds.
I often say that it is a market of stocks and not a stock market.
Over the last year, we’ve experienced heightened macroeconomic uncertainty with several events impacting society and financial markets.
Recent experience shows that a third mandate – preventing financial instability – trumps the Fed’s two congressional mandates of full employment and low inflation.
In our new piece from the Franklin Templeton Institute, we examine the challenge of feeding a growing global population in the midst of climate change, geopolitical shocks and uncertainty.
As proxy season comes to a close, investors and advisors have grappled with company stewardship on a wide variety of issues. But what’s the best way to get a company to listen? Is divestment the way to go? Or must you engage with a company? And how do investors in ETFs and mutual funds make sure their voices are heard at the asset managers they invest with?
Engine No. 1 focuses on engaging with companies constructively to make sure they are taking the costs they impose on society and other stakeholders into account. It operates on the belief that climate and social concerns are economic issues and companies that fail to address them will underperform for the long term.
New research shows that positive returns to ESG portfolios from 2018-2020 were attributed to increased demand for “green“ stocks, raising the question of whether that outperformance will be sustained.
What will be the Fed's next steps after a rapid course correction?
Hedge funds eager to prove that short-selling is a legitimate ESG strategy just got some fresh material to back their case.
With National 529 Day last month and graduation season underway, the cost of education is at the top of many people’s minds.
It started with bonds. Now even collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) come in green.
The ESG investment industry may be headed for a reckoning and many companies won’t survive this period of higher interest rates.
Strong employment and spending will help the economy grow through current shocks.
It’s not all doom and gloom, though. Due to stratospheric oil and gas prices, energy stocks have been the one bright spot in an otherwise dour market this year. Through the end of May, the S&P Oil & Gas Exploration & Production Index gained an incredible 60%, compared to the S&P 500, which fell about 13%.
The chance that all the necessary pieces will line up that way? Somewhere between slim and none, and as my dad used to say, “Slim left town.” And while my memory isn’t perfect, I don’t believe any speaker at the conference believed in the possibility of a soft landing. And even if we get one, we have serious problems that predate this inflation. They haven’t gone anywhere.
Sharp, countertrend rallies may continue this year, but aggressive Fed policy, the turning of the liquidity tide, and slower economic growth will likely keep pressure on stocks.
This commentary provides a look at what we covered in the latest Weekly Insights report. The Weekly Insights Report is part of our entry-level service: presenting some of the key findings from our institutional research service.
Virtual reality is not reality!
The world is struggling with simultaneous energy and climate crises. To solve the first could require undoing all the progress made toward greener power and cleaner air. But it doesn’t have to be that way.
There are costs to living a virtuous life; It requires going without.
The US Securities and Exchange Commission is concerned that retail investors are being duped by “greenwashing.”
Growth stocks are under acute pressure as rising interest rates change the dynamics that drive equity valuations.
Linde is the largest industrial gas company worldwide and an innovator in the highly engineered technologies used to deliver gas to customers.
Our fiscal deficit, as measured by the debt-to-GDP ratio, has grown to levels that could impede growth, as predicted by financial theory and confirmed by empirical evidence. Moreover, new research shows that our burgeoning deficit could increase risk premiums for both stocks and bonds.
Summer is right around the corner, and traditionally that’s when families pack their bags and get away for a well-deserved vacation. Since this is the first summer travel season in three years that feels like the before times, airlines and airports are bracing for what is expected to be a particularly busy three months.
It looks like the economy will grow for a while, just not very fast. And we simply don’t know what will happen when the Federal Reserve tightens in the face of a slowing economy.
Let’s look at two overlooked activities you should be tracking to ensure referral sustainability.
The war in Ukraine will pour more gasoline on the already raging inflationary fire, threatening to send the global economy into stagflation. Stagflation is a slowdown of economic activity caused by inflation.
The Franklin Templeton Institute hosted the Global Investor Forum last week in New York featuring internal and external speakers with expertise across economics, history, foreign policy, sustainability and investment management.
The US Securities and Exchange Commission is taking its biggest step yet to stop money managers from misleading investors when they claim their funds are focused on environmental, social or governance issues.
There is increasing awareness among investors of the important role that responsible investing plays in a well-diversified portfolio.
For several years, the largest US technology and new media companies were widely seen a cluster of similar stocks.
The US economy is starting to show signs of strain under the weight of decades-high inflation and climbing interest rates -- raising the risk of a downturn.
This week has seen a series of rapid contractions across the digital asset ecosystem. In a space that is well-known for volatility, even this week has stood out to observers.
The recent surge in interest rates and inflation has put the record strength in housing under a microscope.
Soaring commodity prices have helped drive inflation to 8.5%, by far the highest level in the last few decades.
Tesla has grown into a $735 billion company on the back of its breakthrough electric-vehicle engineering. Its own carbon footprint is a small fraction of its peers, and its success in the market has pushed the industry overall away from gas-powered vehicles.
John Paul Lech, Lead Manager of the Matthews Emerging Markets Equity Fund, explains the potential value that unique real estate equities can offer emerging market-growth portfolios.
Plan for long-term Inflation that will be fought aggressively by the Fed, higher policy rates, and slower economic growth, according to Raghuram Rajan.
Elon Musk has a suggestion for entrepreneurs: Get into lithium mining for juicy margins. It’s a pithy recommendation, but it fails to grasp the complicated challenges for producing more of the metal.
Three powerful forces have unleashed a volatility storm in stock markets this year.
Some big-name investors forecast that Bitcoin will eventually hit $100,000, $1 million or more. It could very well do that, but for now, its price is closer to $0. That’s both a risk and an opportunity.
The launch of the S&P 500 ESG Index in April 2019 signaled an evolution in sustainable investing. The S&P 500 ESG Index was built to underlie strategic, long-term mainstream investment products. Intentionally broad, the index seeks to maintain similar overall industry group weights as the benchmark, while providing an improved sustainability profile.This paper outlines the following index characteristics:
Tax Day has come and gone.
With the world facing inflationary and geopolitical hurdles, economic growth is poised to slow. In this environment, investors in growth stocks must identify companies with the right features to overcome headwinds to earnings.
Yesterday was another bad down day in the markets.
Problems occur when a market shift reduces investment opportunities after a period when investor capital has been scaled up. The current climate portends such a shift.
I don’t care how many PhDs are going to argue against me; direct indexing is Wall Street’s attempt at squeezing more fees out of the America public using advisors as the pawns.
When Aoifinn Devitt created The Fiftyfaces Podcast in 2020, she wanted to showcase the diversity of the world’s investors by telling their stories. Now, she tells Hugo her own story—from her start as a lawyer to her current role as the first female chief investment officer at Moneta, an investment advisor with $27 billion of assets under management. In this wide-ranging discussion, Aoifinn explains how the Russia-Ukraine conflict could change how we think about ESG, whether we’re in a new investing regime, and what she’s learned from podcasting.
Larry Swedroe and Sam Adams’ new book, Your Essential Guide to Sustainable Investing, resolves the confusion in sustainable investing.
The ocean shipping industry, among the world’s biggest polluters, is asking a key regulator to overhaul its emissions directives so that all carriers are working off the same rulebook as they make the expensive changes needed to cut output of harmful carbons.
In the first quarter of 2022, financial markets abruptly reversed course and volatility increased significantly.
Dutch power company TenneT Holding BV sold 3.85 billion euros ($4.06 billion) of green debt across four maturities Tuesday, to fund greener electricity grids across Europe. It’s the largest deal for the environmental debt from a company, topping previous efforts from Honda Motor Co. and Engie SA, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
The Milken Institute Global Conference continues in Beverly Hills, California, bringing together investors, dealmakers, power brokers and celebrities to discuss markets and megatrends. Academics, sports stars, entrepreneurs and politicians among the thousands coming to the Beverly Hilton for the event, which runs through Wednesday.
Franklin Mutual Series’ Katrina Dudley sees President Emmanuel Macron’s re-election as a positive for the French economy and regional equity markets over the longer term.
Trillions of dollars of deficit spending financed by money creation over the past two years caused today’s soaring inflation.
Regular readers of WisdomTree blogs know that we are firm believers in both asset class and risk factor diversification when building our Model Portfolios.
Even though the medium-to-long term US Dollar fundamentals remain unimpressive, due to a combination of large external imbalances, a continuous dependence on foreign investors’ inflows and the weaponisation of the currency, the Dollar became the least bad currency in G4 since the beginning of the Ukraine war
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell is likely to slow the pace of interest-rate increases after front-loading policy with half-point hikes next week and in June, economists surveyed by Bloomberg say.
The environmental group that authored a key proposal against fossil-fuel financing said pushback from the banks it targeted helped ensure the resolution failed.
Russia’s tragic invasion of Ukraine has layered on existing supply imbalances, causing geopolitical uncertainty and a global energy shock.
Environmental, social and governance (ESG) ratings are a popular way to search for companies that meet specific criteria in a responsible investing agenda.
Sanctions on Russia’s foreign currency reserves will likely stymie the rise of the Chinese renminbi as a competitor to the U.S. dollar.
Few corners of the financial universe have been surrounded by as much marketing froth as ESG, which by some estimates represents more than $40 trillion in assets. According to Morningstar, genuine ESG funds held about $2.7 trillion in managed assets at the end of the fourth quarter.
As chief architect of the finance industry’s biggest climate coalition, Mark Carney said banks and asset managers are doing a better job at steering capital away from fossil fuels than is implied by what he described as “clickbait” headlines.
It might seem at first that everything is against emerging markets.
Jerome Powell wants to quell inflation without sinking the labor market. Success or failure will be a defining part of the Federal Reserve chair’s legacy and the pro-employment policy he’s championed.
Together, 30 of the biggest asset managers have at least $550 billion invested in oil, gas and coal companies that have expansion plans, and even more alarmingly, they continue to provide “fresh cash to companies that are ignoring climate science,” said Lara Cuvelier, sustainable investment campaigner at Reclaim Finance, a nonprofit which published a scorecard Wednesday grading investment firms on their environmental commitments.
As we have noted in this space in the past, there is a lot of the world that cannot be captured by the most elegant and detailed of spreadsheets.
The countries’ weight in global trade is relatively small, but outsize exports of raw and semi-finished goods may portend price hikes across a variety of industries.
At least 20 ESG-focused exchange-traded funds have launched in the U.S. this year through Wednesday, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. While comparisons are difficult to make because of evolving classifications, that’s roughly double a tally of nine from the same period in 2021, and compares with two in 2020 and just one in 2019.
Cryptocurrencies and digital finance will catalyze an economic transformation on a par with the Industrial Revolution, according to Pippa Malmgren.
An unusually strong tug of war between economic forces is playing out in global markets, with a booming economy and low unemployment offset by the effects of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and expanded inflation. Expectations over the timing and magnitude of Fed interest rate increases rapidly evolved as clarity began to emerge around central bank responses to inflation.
While Beijing has set an ambitious growth target this year with a generous fiscal stimulus plan, new COVID-19 waves are adding to mounting headwinds amid a slowing global economy.
People tend to associate environmental, social and governance investing with stock-picking, a way to sort through companies based on their ESG practices. But not every investor can be choosy about the companies they own. Big pension, endowment and sovereign wealth funds oversee tens of billions and even trillions of dollars, which means they have to own practically everything.
As a firm, we refrain from delving into politics and political debates.
Easter 2022 arrives this week with its usual egg-hunting and chocolate-bunny traditions, but also with some bitter new realities. Major candy makers such as Hershey Co., Mars Inc. and Nestlé SA need to overhaul their production practices if they want to continue feeding the world’s chocolate habit.
An estimated 30,000 people attended this week’s Bitcoin 2022 conference in Miami, which is rapidly becoming a major global crypto-finance hub.
What role do financial statements play in climate change?
Supply-chain disruptions are testing companies around the world.
Banks earned record first-quarter fees from arranging green bond deals, while oil, gas and coal companies issued the lowest amount of debt in a decade.
Sustainable Investing
Inflation Reaches Unicorns
Interest rates aren’t simply the price of borrowing money. They are also information, providing signals telling economic players what to do. Interest rates are in fact the price of time. Low interest rates don’t value time very much. Bad signals produce bad outcomes… and that’s where we are now.
How to Invest in China Responsibly
Investors in China can positively influence the behavior of Chinese companies and generate attractive risk-adjusted returns in the long run.
Stocks Sniffing A Bear Market Rally
A number of key technical, sentiment and flow based indicators are suggesting we could see a relief in selling pressure over the coming weeks, and perhaps a countertrend rally in risk assets.
Oil Is in Another Bear Market - and for Good Reason
West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures fell below $102 a barrel Wednesday, which represents a 22% drop over the past two weeks and meeting the technical definition of a bear market.
Why I Consulted with an Active Fund Manager
Why would I work to increase the profile of an active fund manager? My reasons reflect the increasing pressure on advisors to differentiate themselves and demonstrate value.
Zero Harm Farming and Mining
Headquartered in Melbourne, Australia, Incitec Pivot is a global leader in the materials sector with an unrelenting focus on Zero Harm, the expectation that its operations should never expose staff to harm or cause environmental incidents.
An Established Case and Emerging Trends for Frontier Markets Equity Investing
The terminology ‘Frontier Markets’ inspires images of exotic geographies, colourful politics and investor adventurism.
Why ESG Funds Have Outperformed
The rising popularity of ESG investing has driven asset flows to green stocks. But new research confirms that the resulting higher valuations forebode lower returns for climate-conscious investors.
Inflation in Japan Should Be Cheered, Not Feared
Japan has been stuck in a low growth, low inflation (and at times, deflationary) environment.
ESG Investment Cools as the Sector’s Notoriety Grows
Since the start of 2019, investors have plowed more than $300 billion into environmental, social and governance (ESG)-themed exchange traded funds.
15 Stocks You Asked To See
I often say that it is a market of stocks and not a stock market.
The State of Sustainable Investing
Over the last year, we’ve experienced heightened macroeconomic uncertainty with several events impacting society and financial markets.
Will the Fed’s Third Mandate Derail Markets?
Recent experience shows that a third mandate – preventing financial instability – trumps the Fed’s two congressional mandates of full employment and low inflation.
The Future of Food is Technology
In our new piece from the Franklin Templeton Institute, we examine the challenge of feeding a growing global population in the midst of climate change, geopolitical shocks and uncertainty.
Engine No. 1 and Its Compelling Approach to ESG Investing
As proxy season comes to a close, investors and advisors have grappled with company stewardship on a wide variety of issues. But what’s the best way to get a company to listen? Is divestment the way to go? Or must you engage with a company? And how do investors in ETFs and mutual funds make sure their voices are heard at the asset managers they invest with?
Engine No. 1 focuses on engaging with companies constructively to make sure they are taking the costs they impose on society and other stakeholders into account. It operates on the belief that climate and social concerns are economic issues and companies that fail to address them will underperform for the long term.
Sobering News for ESG Investors
New research shows that positive returns to ESG portfolios from 2018-2020 were attributed to increased demand for “green“ stocks, raising the question of whether that outperformance will be sustained.
FOMC Preview
What will be the Fed's next steps after a rapid course correction?
Hedge Funds Chasing ESG Billions Get Help From Researchers
Hedge funds eager to prove that short-selling is a legitimate ESG strategy just got some fresh material to back their case.
Saving For College: Start Small, But Start Now
With National 529 Day last month and graduation season underway, the cost of education is at the top of many people’s minds.
Does This CDO Come in Green? With ESG Everywhere, Buyers Beware
It started with bonds. Now even collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) come in green.
ESG Investing Is Heading for a Reckoning, Says One Veteran Manager
The ESG investment industry may be headed for a reckoning and many companies won’t survive this period of higher interest rates.
Recession Talk Is Exaggerated
Strong employment and spending will help the economy grow through current shocks.
The Upside to Record High Gas Prices
It’s not all doom and gloom, though. Due to stratospheric oil and gas prices, energy stocks have been the one bright spot in an otherwise dour market this year. Through the end of May, the S&P Oil & Gas Exploration & Production Index gained an incredible 60%, compared to the S&P 500, which fell about 13%.
No Soft Landings
The chance that all the necessary pieces will line up that way? Somewhere between slim and none, and as my dad used to say, “Slim left town.” And while my memory isn’t perfect, I don’t believe any speaker at the conference believed in the possibility of a soft landing. And even if we get one, we have serious problems that predate this inflation. They haven’t gone anywhere.
2022 Mid-Year Outlook: U.S. Stocks and Economy
Sharp, countertrend rallies may continue this year, but aggressive Fed policy, the turning of the liquidity tide, and slower economic growth will likely keep pressure on stocks.
Chart of the Week - Green Boom & Bust
This commentary provides a look at what we covered in the latest Weekly Insights report. The Weekly Insights Report is part of our entry-level service: presenting some of the key findings from our institutional research service.
Stock Market Metaverse
Virtual reality is not reality!
These Are the Batteries We Need to Ease the Power Crunch
The world is struggling with simultaneous energy and climate crises. To solve the first could require undoing all the progress made toward greener power and cleaner air. But it doesn’t have to be that way.
The Virtue Bubble Is About to Burst. Good Riddance.
There are costs to living a virtuous life; It requires going without.
SEC Proposals for ESG Ignore 80 Years of Financial Science
The US Securities and Exchange Commission is concerned that retail investors are being duped by “greenwashing.”
Capturing Persistent Growth in Volatile Equity Markets
Growth stocks are under acute pressure as rising interest rates change the dynamics that drive equity valuations.
Spotlight Linde: Enabling the Transition to Clean Energy
Linde is the largest industrial gas company worldwide and an innovator in the highly engineered technologies used to deliver gas to customers.
The Growing Threat Posed by the Federal Deficit
Our fiscal deficit, as measured by the debt-to-GDP ratio, has grown to levels that could impede growth, as predicted by financial theory and confirmed by empirical evidence. Moreover, new research shows that our burgeoning deficit could increase risk premiums for both stocks and bonds.
3 Airline Stocks to Consider as We Head into the Busy Summer Travel Season
Summer is right around the corner, and traditionally that’s when families pack their bags and get away for a well-deserved vacation. Since this is the first summer travel season in three years that feels like the before times, airlines and airports are bracing for what is expected to be a particularly busy three months.
Rock and a Hard Place
It looks like the economy will grow for a while, just not very fast. And we simply don’t know what will happen when the Federal Reserve tightens in the face of a slowing economy.
The Two Overlooked Activities that Drive Referrals
Let’s look at two overlooked activities you should be tracking to ensure referral sustainability.
Six Reasons Inflation is So High
The war in Ukraine will pour more gasoline on the already raging inflationary fire, threatening to send the global economy into stagflation. Stagflation is a slowdown of economic activity caused by inflation.
Quick Thoughts: Global Investor Forum 2022
The Franklin Templeton Institute hosted the Global Investor Forum last week in New York featuring internal and external speakers with expertise across economics, history, foreign policy, sustainability and investment management.
SEC to Crack Down on Misleading ESG Claims With Fund Rules
The US Securities and Exchange Commission is taking its biggest step yet to stop money managers from misleading investors when they claim their funds are focused on environmental, social or governance issues.
Responsible Investing Roadmap: Part 1
There is increasing awareness among investors of the important role that responsible investing plays in a well-diversified portfolio.
FAANG Is Dead: A Timeless Lesson for Equity Investors
For several years, the largest US technology and new media companies were widely seen a cluster of similar stocks.
Cracks in US Economy Start to Show as Recession Warnings Mount
The US economy is starting to show signs of strain under the weight of decades-high inflation and climbing interest rates -- raising the risk of a downturn.
Digital Asset Market Note: A “De-pegging” Soros Would Be Proud Of
This week has seen a series of rapid contractions across the digital asset ecosystem. In a space that is well-known for volatility, even this week has stood out to observers.
Don’t Discount Structural Housing Trends
The recent surge in interest rates and inflation has put the record strength in housing under a microscope.
Who Needs Tips When You’ve Got Friends Like This?
Soaring commodity prices have helped drive inflation to 8.5%, by far the highest level in the last few decades.
Tesla’s Removal From S&P Index Sparks Debate About ESG Ratings
Tesla has grown into a $735 billion company on the back of its breakthrough electric-vehicle engineering. Its own carbon footprint is a small fraction of its peers, and its success in the market has pushed the industry overall away from gas-powered vehicles.
Elevate Your Portfolio
John Paul Lech, Lead Manager of the Matthews Emerging Markets Equity Fund, explains the potential value that unique real estate equities can offer emerging market-growth portfolios.
Raghuram Rajan: Inflation, Higher Rates and Slower Growth to Come
Plan for long-term Inflation that will be fought aggressively by the Fed, higher policy rates, and slower economic growth, according to Raghuram Rajan.
Elon Musk Misses the Big Picture on Lithium Mining
Elon Musk has a suggestion for entrepreneurs: Get into lithium mining for juicy margins. It’s a pithy recommendation, but it fails to grasp the complicated challenges for producing more of the metal.
Defensive Equities: Finding Stability in an Unhinged World
Three powerful forces have unleashed a volatility storm in stock markets this year.
Crypto Winters Have Been Great Times to Buy. Today, Bitcoin Is Half Off
Some big-name investors forecast that Bitcoin will eventually hit $100,000, $1 million or more. It could very well do that, but for now, its price is closer to $0. That’s both a risk and an opportunity.
The S&P 500 ESG Index: Defining the Sustainable Core
The launch of the S&P 500 ESG Index in April 2019 signaled an evolution in sustainable investing. The S&P 500 ESG Index was built to underlie strategic, long-term mainstream investment products. Intentionally broad, the index seeks to maintain similar overall industry group weights as the benchmark, while providing an improved sustainability profile.
This paper outlines the following index characteristics:
Top 10 Things Tax-Smart Advisors Do After Tax Day
Tax Day has come and gone.
Investing for Growth in a Decelerating World Economy
With the world facing inflationary and geopolitical hurdles, economic growth is poised to slow. In this environment, investors in growth stocks must identify companies with the right features to overcome headwinds to earnings.
Worries Rise as Markets Drop
Yesterday was another bad down day in the markets.
Cathie Wood and the Sound of a Changing Market
Problems occur when a market shift reduces investment opportunities after a period when investor capital has been scaled up. The current climate portends such a shift.
19 Reasons to Run Like the Wind from Direct Indexing!
I don’t care how many PhDs are going to argue against me; direct indexing is Wall Street’s attempt at squeezing more fees out of the America public using advisors as the pawns.
Investing in People
When Aoifinn Devitt created The Fiftyfaces Podcast in 2020, she wanted to showcase the diversity of the world’s investors by telling their stories. Now, she tells Hugo her own story—from her start as a lawyer to her current role as the first female chief investment officer at Moneta, an investment advisor with $27 billion of assets under management. In this wide-ranging discussion, Aoifinn explains how the Russia-Ukraine conflict could change how we think about ESG, whether we’re in a new investing regime, and what she’s learned from podcasting.
Book Review: Your Essential Guide to Sustainable Investing
Larry Swedroe and Sam Adams’ new book, Your Essential Guide to Sustainable Investing, resolves the confusion in sustainable investing.
Top Sea Polluters Beg for Climate Rules That No Rival Can Avoid
The ocean shipping industry, among the world’s biggest polluters, is asking a key regulator to overhaul its emissions directives so that all carriers are working off the same rulebook as they make the expensive changes needed to cut output of harmful carbons.
Grey Owl Capital's Q1 Letter
In the first quarter of 2022, financial markets abruptly reversed course and volatility increased significantly.
Jumbo Green Deal Wakes Up ESG Market
Dutch power company TenneT Holding BV sold 3.85 billion euros ($4.06 billion) of green debt across four maturities Tuesday, to fund greener electricity grids across Europe. It’s the largest deal for the environmental debt from a company, topping previous efforts from Honda Motor Co. and Engie SA, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Fed ‘Not Out of Bullets’ Yet to Control Inflation: Milken Update
The Milken Institute Global Conference continues in Beverly Hills, California, bringing together investors, dealmakers, power brokers and celebrities to discuss markets and megatrends. Academics, sports stars, entrepreneurs and politicians among the thousands coming to the Beverly Hilton for the event, which runs through Wednesday.
Europe Outlook: A French Economic Evolution
Franklin Mutual Series’ Katrina Dudley sees President Emmanuel Macron’s re-election as a positive for the French economy and regional equity markets over the longer term.
Rising Risk of Stagflation
Trillions of dollars of deficit spending financed by money creation over the past two years caused today’s soaring inflation.
The WisdomTree Q2 2022 Asset Class and Risk Factor Review and Outlook
Regular readers of WisdomTree blogs know that we are firm believers in both asset class and risk factor diversification when building our Model Portfolios.
The USD Bear Trap and EM USD Debt
Even though the medium-to-long term US Dollar fundamentals remain unimpressive, due to a combination of large external imbalances, a continuous dependence on foreign investors’ inflows and the weaponisation of the currency, the Dollar became the least bad currency in G4 since the beginning of the Ukraine war
Powell Seen Slowing Rate Hikes After May and June Front-Loading
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell is likely to slow the pace of interest-rate increases after front-loading policy with half-point hikes next week and in June, economists surveyed by Bloomberg say.
Wall Street Climate Semantics Skew Fossil-Fuel Financing Votes
The environmental group that authored a key proposal against fossil-fuel financing said pushback from the banks it targeted helped ensure the resolution failed.
The Transition To a Low Carbon Economy
Russia’s tragic invasion of Ukraine has layered on existing supply imbalances, causing geopolitical uncertainty and a global energy shock.
ESG Ratings: Solution or Starting Point?
Environmental, social and governance (ESG) ratings are a popular way to search for companies that meet specific criteria in a responsible investing agenda.
The Big Freeze: Sanctioning Russia Raises Questions on Other Currencies
Sanctions on Russia’s foreign currency reserves will likely stymie the rise of the Chinese renminbi as a competitor to the U.S. dollar.
Fund Managers Doing Bogus ESG ‘Engagement’ Are Put on Notice
Few corners of the financial universe have been surrounded by as much marketing froth as ESG, which by some estimates represents more than $40 trillion in assets. According to Morningstar, genuine ESG funds held about $2.7 trillion in managed assets at the end of the fourth quarter.
Mark Carney Questions the Critics of Bankers' Climate Record
As chief architect of the finance industry’s biggest climate coalition, Mark Carney said banks and asset managers are doing a better job at steering capital away from fossil fuels than is implied by what he described as “clickbait” headlines.
Q1 2022 CIO Review and Outlook
It might seem at first that everything is against emerging markets.
Fed Risks Shattering Pro-Jobs Policy by Taking Hammer to Prices
Jerome Powell wants to quell inflation without sinking the labor market. Success or failure will be a defining part of the Federal Reserve chair’s legacy and the pro-employment policy he’s championed.
Climate Crisis? Fund Managers Are Sticking With Fossil Fuel
Together, 30 of the biggest asset managers have at least $550 billion invested in oil, gas and coal companies that have expansion plans, and even more alarmingly, they continue to provide “fresh cash to companies that are ignoring climate science,” said Lara Cuvelier, sustainable investment campaigner at Reclaim Finance, a nonprofit which published a scorecard Wednesday grading investment firms on their environmental commitments.
Herding the Gray Rhinos
As we have noted in this space in the past, there is a lot of the world that cannot be captured by the most elegant and detailed of spreadsheets.
Russia‑Ukraine Ramifications: Not All Trade Is Created Equal
The countries’ weight in global trade is relatively small, but outsize exports of raw and semi-finished goods may portend price hikes across a variety of industries.
Do-Good Funds Are Booming as ETF Launches Double From Last Year
At least 20 ESG-focused exchange-traded funds have launched in the U.S. this year through Wednesday, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. While comparisons are difficult to make because of evolving classifications, that’s roughly double a tally of nine from the same period in 2021, and compares with two in 2020 and just one in 2019.
Pippa Malmgren – Digital Currencies Will Drive the Next Industrial Revolution
Cryptocurrencies and digital finance will catalyze an economic transformation on a par with the Industrial Revolution, according to Pippa Malmgren.
Q1 2022: Tug of War
An unusually strong tug of war between economic forces is playing out in global markets, with a booming economy and low unemployment offset by the effects of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and expanded inflation. Expectations over the timing and magnitude of Fed interest rate increases rapidly evolved as clarity began to emerge around central bank responses to inflation.
China Growth Outlook: Counting the Cost of Lockdowns
While Beijing has set an ambitious growth target this year with a generous fiscal stimulus plan, new COVID-19 waves are adding to mounting headwinds amid a slowing global economy.
Institutional Investors Are Flexing Their ESG Muscles
People tend to associate environmental, social and governance investing with stock-picking, a way to sort through companies based on their ESG practices. But not every investor can be choosy about the companies they own. Big pension, endowment and sovereign wealth funds oversee tens of billions and even trillions of dollars, which means they have to own practically everything.
Energy Desperados
As a firm, we refrain from delving into politics and political debates.
Chocolate Bunnies Can Teach Us to Save Our Food Supply
Easter 2022 arrives this week with its usual egg-hunting and chocolate-bunny traditions, but also with some bitter new realities. Major candy makers such as Hershey Co., Mars Inc. and Nestlé SA need to overhaul their production practices if they want to continue feeding the world’s chocolate habit.
Bitcoin 2022: We’re Still So Early
An estimated 30,000 people attended this week’s Bitcoin 2022 conference in Miami, which is rapidly becoming a major global crypto-finance hub.
Emission Disclosures: Sunlight on Climate Risks
What role do financial statements play in climate change?
How Synthetic Biology Can Help Fix the Supply Chain Crisis
Supply-chain disruptions are testing companies around the world.
Cash Flood, Not Green Dreams, Behind Slump in Oil Bond Sales
Banks earned record first-quarter fees from arranging green bond deals, while oil, gas and coal companies issued the lowest amount of debt in a decade.