Giovanni Becchere
Head of Multi-Assets, ABN AMRO Investment Solutions. Based in: Paris, France
“The recent positive vaccine news has increased conviction in a strong and sustained acceleration in global economic growth. In our portfolio we keep our preference for equities versus bonds and we reposition the US equity bucket, increasing our exposure to sustainable oriented managers, by selling AAF Aristotle US Equities and adding AAF Boston Common US Equities — an active US sustainable value equity portfolio managed by Boston Common, with a very strong reputation in the ESG/SRI community.”
Luca Dal Mas
Senior fund analyst, Aviva Investors. Based in: London, UK
“November was an eventful month, with the positive news around the effectiveness of Covid vaccines. On the political front, the US elections saw Joe Biden defeat Donald Trump. Recent Covid restrictions have hit PMI service data, but not manufacturing output, which is still in expansionary mode. The overall economic impact is much less severe than what we observed in March. We have reflected this positive news in our portfolios, adopting a more constructive stance by adding to our equity exposure with a focus on Japan and UK, while reducing our allocation to gold.”
Kelly Prior
Investment Manager in the Multi-manager team, BMO Global Asset Management. Based in: London, UK
“The relief in the market was palpable in November as the results from the first vaccine trials were beyond the expectations of the most bullish of commentators. The Magallanes Value Investors European Equity fund was the best performer of the selection with the M&G (LUX) Global Macro Bond being the laggard. With light at the end of the Covid tunnel there are many predictions for how 2021 will play out. The tightrope walk of withdrawal of support into economies is going to be a difficult one, that’s for sure.”
Gayathri Devarakonda
Fund Research Analyst, Deutsche Bank Wealth Management. Based in: London, UK
“November was a great month for equities as global markets welcomed positive vaccine news. Value stocks did better than growth names with European banks recording strong performance in November. Similar to equities the riskier high yield segments performed strongly on the fixed income side. Gold and silver were among the worst performers of the month. At the portfolio level, all our underlying holdings performed well except for our exposure to gold. We made no changes to the portfolio.”
Silvia Tenconi
Multimanager Investments & Unit Linked, Eurizon Capital SGR. Based in: Milan, Italy
“In November, the performance of the portfolio was hugely positive, with Wellington US Research, Robeco US Opportunities and Vanguard US Opportunities being the biggest contributors. We changed our allocation, giving more emphasis to value plays: we bought Invesco Pan European Equity, added to JPM Europe Equity Plus and sold Fidelity European Dynamic Growth. We bought Kairos Bond Plus and Lord Abbett High Yield (Euro Hedged) while selling Eurizon Fund Absolute High Yield and our cash fund.”
Richard Troue
Fund Manager, Hargreaves Lansdown Fund Managers. Based in: Bristol, UK
“Positive news on vaccine development for Covid-19 has led to renewed hopes of economic recovery. The shares prices of companies that could benefit have responded accordingly. UK equity income, in particular, had a stellar November – JOHCM UK Equity Income was up more than 25 per cent. There have been a few false dawns for these funds and companies over the past few years. I don’t know if this is the ultimate turning point, but I do think there’s plenty of long-term performance potential stored up.”
Bernard Aybran
CIO Multi-management, Invesco. Based in: Paris, France
“The equity component of the portfolio was amended in November, as the European and US exposures have been slightly trimmed in order to fund an extra emerging Asia holding. European markets have enjoyed one of their best months in decades on the basis of a renewed optimism about the macro perspective, and over the global background of a style rotation favouring value stocks. If it were to go on, this rotation would mean significant changes in the rankings, in which the best performers have been growth funds for years.”
Paul Hookway,
Senior Fund Analyst, Kleinwort Hambros. Based in: London, UK
“The announcement of three vaccines drove our decision to further increase our equity allocation by 3 per cent, funded by reducing cash, increasing our exposure to Europe and emerging markets. We added a new holding of Federated Hermes Asia ex Japan to the portfolio, funded from cash and a reduction of Fidelity Emerging Markets. While being overweight growth has proved beneficial, we wanted to increase our exposure to value factors in the portfolio; we expect cyclical parts of the market to recover well into next year.”
Antti Saari
Chief Investment Strategist, Nordea investments. Based in: Copenhagen, Denmark
“Despite increasing infection numbers, investors have started to price in a normalisation of the global economy at the end of 2021.Even with some near-term uncertainty, we think earnings estimates for the following years are too low, and therefore valuations look more extended than they really are. Moreover, we continue to think that compressing risk premia will offset a significant part of the stockmarket impact from rising yields. We expect the continued recovery in 2021 to lift equities relative to bonds and we remain overweight in equities.”
