Dear Readers,
Throughout the year, the health crisis caused by the Covid-19 pandemic has paralysed economies around the world and put all other catalysts for the financial markets aside. After a drawdown of unprecedented velocity, markets recovered sharply to end the year globally at all-time highs, driven by extraordinary measures taken by the authorities. Our portfolio management teams invite you to read the following pages which sum-up the highlights of this exceptional year and provide their views for the upcoming year.
Our Chief Economist, Marc-Antoine Collard, takes into consideration the impact of this health crisis and addresses debt and economic recovery. The sharp recession that occurred early in the year has affected various sectors of activity on a global scale.
The international markets specialists from our Valor expertise present the main pillars of their investment strategy as we may expect better visibility following not only encouraging results from COVID-19 vaccine analysis, but also a known outcome from the US presidential elections.
The European markets’ specialists from our Conviction expertise review the performance of equities and fixed income with a focus on the diverging performance between “value” and “growth”, as well as the arguments for a potential catch-up as the ECB is expected to remain accommodating for some time.
This particular context has shown that the major themes in which we are investing, although impacted very differently by the crisis, have real value in terms of diversification. Our Thematic expertise’s team provides an update on this situation.
While a direct link between global warming and the COVID-19 pandemic cannot be directly established, this concern remains predominant. We launched our “4Change” range more than a year ago to tackle this challenge and sustainability issues more generally. We invite you to discover our solutions and their underlying objectives.
Finally, our Managing Partner & CIO Didier Bouvignies summarises the lessons of this economic and financial crisis and invites us to look “beyond the valley” for the year to come.
We wish you a pleasant read.
Kind regards,
Rothschild & Co Asset Management Europe Teams
