The ongoing war in Ukraine has exerted a material impact on both global economies and markets, primarily via a steep increase in commodity prices, especially energy. Europe has been particularly affected due to its geographical proximity and the resultant dependence of many of its nations on Russian fossil fuels. This chart book reviews the hit to European growth associated with the war in Ukraine.
This publication presents manager performance for 37 asset classes and substrategies, showing the median, mean, and key percentiles of return. Relevant indexes for each asset class are also included to provide market context.
Global inflation has been higher and more persistent than most economists anticipated. In this edition of VantagePoint, we evaluate current inflationary and deflationary crosscurrents and the implications for investors. We continue to believe that predicting the future path of inflation is difficult to do well and that the best protection is a well-constructed diversified portfolio designed to meet the asset owner’s risk tolerance, portfolio objectives, and spending needs.
Investors found little respite in April, with most asset classes suffering steep losses.
Continuing the trend seen in second half 2021, global equity markets remained volatile during first quarter 2022, as global indexes declined. Despite the market drawdown, broader indexes mask the relative performance among index constituents. Underlying volatility across sectors was more pronounced. As a result, within long/short equity hedge fund strategies, manager returns had wide dispersion driven primarily by net exposure to growth names and recent IPOs within the technology, healthcare, and consumer sectors.
The Federal Reserve is poised to continue lifting interest rates this year. Many investors tend to view tightening Fed policy as a headwind for emerging markets (EM) equity performance and may be tempted to dial back exposure to the bloc, but market history is an inconsistent guide when gauging how EM equities will perform when the Fed raises rates. In this paper, we outline several reasons EM exposures could prove to be diversifying as the current cycle plays out.
For the eighth straight year, the majority of active mid- to large-cap equity managers underperformed in 2021.
Most global assets declined in first quarter.
The 2021 Emerging Markets edition of our annual report on the history of financial markets provides context for the range of returns investors can expect from equities, bonds, and cash; reveals the importance of various components of equity returns; examines the evidence for equity mean reversion; and reviews the relationship between initial valuations and subsequent returns for equities and bonds.
The 2021 Europe ex UK edition of our annual report on the history of financial markets provides context for the range of returns investors can expect from equities, bonds, and cash; reveals the importance of various components of equity returns; examines the evidence for equity mean reversion; and reviews the relationship between initial valuations and subsequent returns for equities and bonds.