Why so glum?
Despite some recent volatility, markets are starting to look optimistically at the potential for a soft landing in the US – inflation is falling towards a normalized level, unemployment is up, but still at historically low levels, and the Federal Reserve looks set to embark on a rate-cut cycle. Yet with all this positive data, […]
The road ahead for US equities
How might the US election impact small- and mid-cap companies? Video transcript 2024 has again shown us that anything can happen. In July alone, we experienced the world’s largest computer meltdown, an assassination attempt on Donald Trump and a change of the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee. The historic decision by President Joe Biden to withdraw […]
Equitorial: A practical pathway to net zero
Fast reading There is no silver bullet for investing in the climate transition, however, common to all approaches is the need to understand the challenges and address a range of obstacles. We believe the best solution combines strong historical data with forward-looking tools including scenario analysis, sector decarbonisation pathways, technology curves and projected emissions. Qualitative […]
Frontier markets: Tapping into untapped potential
What defines a ‘frontier’ country and why do you think investors could benefit by overweighting EM frontier credits? The emerging market (EM) world has evolved from being a large homogenous asset class into a much more complex one where we need new definitions to describe and define market segments. Core EM is often thought of […]
Why investors should take another look at China (through a contrarian lens)
Fast reading Chinese equities have begun to rise from multi-decade lows, perhaps presenting an attractive entry point with potential for long-term outperformance. The multi-year sell-off has created an abundance of opportunities across a wide range of attractively-valued companies. Our approach is well-suited for a dynamic and volatile market which provides opportunities to generate alpha by […]
What’s up with the yellow metal?
Gold is currently trading around $2,375 per ounce, just below its recent all-time high of $2,450 per ounce. Gold prices historically rise when inflation is increasing, when investors are looking for a safe investment in anticipation of a recession or because they fear the dollar is weakening. Yet none of these conditions seems to hold. […]
The case for bonds (as rates inch towards normalisation)
Chartology
Trade finance made simple
What is trade finance? Trade finance can best be viewed of as a sub-set of the loan market. It is relatively short-term loans used to finance the physical flow of goods, using those goods as the primary source of collateral within the loan. How is our approach to trade finance different? The Federated Hermes approach […]
10 questions for 10 years: The Global Equity ESG Fund
Fast reading The Global Equity ESG Fund offers a hybrid quantitative and fundamental investment approach which has been successful not only in identifying global outperformers across sectors, but has grown to become one of the largest ESG funds available in the market. The quant model identifies the best companies to evaluate in greater detail. Our […]
The curious case of Korea’s preference stock discount
Fast reading The small price differentials at which stock classes with differing voting rights trade at on US stock markets shows that investors don’t place a high value on greater voting power even in a market where greater voting power might result in better treatment in the event of a takeover. Korean preference shares are […]
