This Wednesday, May 19th RankiaPro Europe hosted its third Conference Call of 2021. It was pretty exciting to hear about the strategies and insights of our three panelists while discussing the market and the effects of the inflation, vaccinations and other current affairs in the market.
To discuss on the topic Investment Funds for Uncertain Times we had the honour of hosting three investment professionals whose expertise gave us an overview of the funds and investment market, what they are looking for their strategies at the moment, and what they expect in the future.
Austen Robilliard, Investment Director at Murdoch Asset Management Ltd, Arnaud Bergeot, Fund Analyst Manager Research at ABN AMRO Investment Solutions and Patrick Volkart, Senior Investment Advisor at Bank Avera touched on a broad range of factors that are likely to shape the investment landscape during these uncertain times, ranging from important macro issues like the stimulus and the raise of the inflation, and their effects in their portfolios.
“The figures were seeing of being whatever manipulated but it’s almost just a timing effect and there’s pushing it higher in the short term and our concern on inflation would more be if it became persistent the Federal Reserve that central banks have already said that they are quite happy, well, not happy but they are prepared to let inflation run a little bit hotter for longer as we’re coming into this recovery after the pandemic and so that’s probably the bit we would be more focused on yes we’re expecting inflation in the short term”
“Every time is uncertain we don’t pretend to know what’s around the corner and sometimes some times feel more uncertain than others, but nonetheless we still believe that the ability to forecast future events is not a faulty so with that in mind is how we go about running client portfolios”
“As a fund selector I want to spend my time pointing managers who I believe control that objective so that’s why we support experienced managers and we’re not looking for somebody who can help form every single year, in every single time period, forever, I’m rather looking for consistency, we’re looking for persistent performance”
Austen Robilliard, Investment Director at Murdoch Asset Management Ltd
Austen Robilliard joined Murdoch Asset Management in July 2007 as a trainee investment analyst focusing on collective investment schemes, having previously worked on central operations at Towry Law. He has spent his (near) 14-year tenure at MAM as a fund selector, taking charge of the model portfolios in 2009 and worked his way up to Investment Director. Austen is a former Top 30 Under 30 with Citywire and he is the reigning European Fund Selector of the Year with International Investment.
“The US markets sees now a 40% probability that inflation will be about 3% for the next five years. Market based inflation expectations currently trade at 3%. should we worry about the future inflation based on search expectations? we don’t think so, because measured inflations do not signal future inflation”
“We can identify some potential headwinds such as potential higher inflation, rising yield environment, volatility, but we can also add the pretty high valuation in the market crowded trades on ESG best-in-class stocks, etc. So, investors need something different than the market both in their valuation and ESG style and with a flexibility in this environment.”
“The philosophy is important and have to be clear. We have selected a sustainable US Value strategy. The investment team seeks is high quality, sustainable, and undervalued stock from companies that are making positive changes. They seek to invest in companies that provide solutions towards environmental and social challenges, and that thus have defined sustainable themes in which they invests Climate change & Earth Renewal, Inclusion & Human Rights and Heath & Community wellbeing. They use engagement as an alpha source to improve business practices.”
Arnaud Bergeot, Fund Analyst – Manager Research at ABN AMRO Investment Solutions
Arnaud Bergeot is an Analyst dedicated to US equities strategies in the Manager Selection team of ABN AMRO Investment Solutions (AAIS). His responsibilities include the selection of funds. Between 2016 and the beginning of 2019, he covered Fixed Income managers. Before joining ABN AMRO INVESTMENT SOLUTIONS in February 2016, Arnaud was a Fund Analyst on various asset classes at FundQuest Advisor – BNP Paribas. Previously, he also worked as an assistant Portfolio Manager/ Fund Analyst at Banque Leonardo. Arnaud holds a Master’s degree in Financial Markets from the Clermont-Ferrand Business Administration Institute (University Clermont Auvergne).
“Inflation is the hot topic these days, however, we think that this is just as we reached the top of the year on year base effect”
“Apart from this cyclical move we don’t see structurally higher inflation in the medium term because there are strong disinflationary forces which are still in place and were in place before the pandemic”
“if you have uncertain times we think two things are important, one is obviously risk management which is essential on an overall portfolio level and the other one we think that diversification, this is very important because as we heard before, you never know what’s coming around the corner next and if you have a concentrated portfolio there is more risk that you’re on the wrong leg”
“If we select actively managed funds we are also trying to get a good mix of different strategies which then provides a kind of a protective and diversifying feature within the overall portfolio in addition to its general diversification which is the most obvious solution”
Patrick Volkart, Senior Investment Advisor at Bank Avera
Patrick is a senior investment advisor in the investment solutions team at Bank Avera since May 2020. In this role, he is also responsible for the fund selection and monitoring within all asset classes and strategies. Prior to joining Bank Avera, Patrick was working for 4 years at Raiffeisen Switzerland where he had multiple roles and sat on various investment committees. Before joining Raiffeisen he was working in the investment area of different Private Banks and held also managerial positions as Head of Asset Management or Head of Treasury and Fund Research.
