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Markets closed 2020 on strong footing and the recent Democratic sweep in the US makes a greater fiscal push more likely, leading us to lift our 2021 GDP growth forecast for the US to 5.2-5.7%, 1% above previous estimates. This marks a great divergence between the US and the rest of Developed markets, where we have been lowering our forecasts.  - DISCLAIMER: This podcast is only for the attention o...

2020 has been an unprecedented year in modern history, with the Covid-19 pandemic leading to the deepest global recession post World War II that has affected the most countries simultaneously since the 1870s (World Bank). This big shock is not going to reverse completely, and the old normal will not return as it used to be. Hopes for a fast vaccine distribution, a further fiscal push, and for decr...

In light of the current pandemic, Europe is progressively strengthening its geopolitical role on certain topics like climate change. But the EU has also to deal with big challenges: Brexit, coming soon, new relationships with the USA and China, digital transformation, immigration policy, and above all a huge social crisis. These issues are discussed today by Jean-Jacques Barbéris, Head of the Inst...

The distribution of share of national income to labour versus capital has fallen to historically low levels in several advanced economies, such as the United States and the United Kingdom. Amundi believes that the Covid-19 crisis – together with other factors – will trigger a rebalancing in favour of labour over the next two decades. Listen to Jean-Jacques Barbéris -- Head of the Institutional an...

   Marked by the most severe recession in modern history, 2020 was an unprecedented year. With the global pandemic continuing, we enter 2021 with a mildly positive outlook for the upcoming recovery, but with the assumption that the path to pre-crisis growth levels will be long and uncertain. Against this backdrop, investors should be ready to play rotations in their portfolios, favouring cyclical...

 As the election of Joe Biden unfolds in legal challenges, Greg Valliere, Barron’s columnist, veteran non-partisan commentator on Washington developments, has provided his insights and analysis on the current outcome. Ken Taubes US CIO, head of the Amundi investment platform, Pascal Blanque Amundi global CIO, Jean-Jacques Barberis head of Institutional Clients and Corporate Coverage supervision of...

Few days left before the most divisive US presidential elections. If the polls in the US are accurate, Joe Biden will be elected the next president of the US. But as experienced in the last election, the polls could be wrong, and maybe Trump will win again. As the election grows closer, Covid-19 cases are rising in many parts of the world and is reemerging as a threat to the global economy. Invest...

Developments on the virus and vaccine front and the US election are hot topics. Markets are pricing in a glass-half-full scenario, despite the still-alarming infection numbers on the virus front (second wave in Europe and record new cases globally). The interconnection of the three cycles — virus, real economy and financial — continues, but the virus transmission mechanism is changing.  - DISCLAIM...

The US Presidential election takes place in 25 days and holds enormous implications for global financial markets. Last Friday, Trump announced that he has contracted the coronavirus, and his handling of his own illness has become a major development in the dynamics of the race. In  addition, last week the two candidates held their first presidential debate, which was another important event in the...

Markets are pricing a lasting deflationary and low discount rate environment, and the ability of monetary and fiscal policies to continue to feed the “financial multiplier,” hence keeping a positive momentum of policy support. This support generates a certain dispersion of returns that offers opportunities for relative value play. This is the game investors should play as long as the policy mix ke...

The unprecedented transition associated to achieving the goals of the Paris Agreement generates a transition risk for the financial system. Identifying the exposure of investment portfolios to such risks faces various challenges. Théo Le Guenedal, one of Amundi's quantitative researcher explains for Outerblue the results of his study "Credit Risk Sensitivity to Carbon Price", a paper which wins GR...

The summer season has seen both the confirmation of existing themes and the emergence of new ones wich will likely drive economic and market trends in the coming months.  On one hand, the decoupling between the real economy and financial markets has proved persistent but on the other hand as the holiday season going on the way the rising level of Covid-19 infections across Europe and in part of th...

Crises create disruption and Covid-19 is no exception, bringing new complexities, new opportunities and new risks to the investment landscape. Covid-19 accelerated markets’ entropy and risk takers will evolve their investment approaches. From our research angle, the pandemic triggered a new macro financial ecosystem. Discover our GREAT framework to monitor investment in this new ecosystem in this...

Trade dynamics have definitely shown an accentuated inversion of the globalisation trend, since 10 years. The Great Financial Crisis is a turning point in the degree of global economic integration, with protectionist policies being adopted in many countries and a decelerating growth in trade-intensive sectors. What are the financial globalisation and financial contagion phenomena? Which consequenc...

June has been a month of consolidation for equities values in a context of positive economic data, showing a “faster than expected recovery” in all major economies. This impulse, led by the massive and coordinated central banks’ action, translated into a very strong rebound of equities indexes, especially in Europe.  Listen to Amundi’s experts who share their convictions: Kasper Elmgreen, Head of...

The EU is suffering from a risk of fragmentation along several lines. The Union acted to overcome these risks, setting up powerful tools: the asset purchase program, the emergency package and the Next Generation fund. In the last 30 years, the EU encountered many crisis. The current crisis has an unprecedented size and magnitude, with all countries affected: therefore, it is a catalyst for change...

The Covid-19 crisis drove the global economy into an unprecedented deep freeze in the first half of 2020. The combination of monetary and fiscal stimulus will help the global economy de-freeze in H2. As was the case with the virus cycle, the recovery will be sequential and involve different regions at different times - on a ‘first in, first out’ basis - and will depend on the size of the policy re...

2020 was supposed to be the year when policy makers, corporates, and investors charged ahead in the fight against climate change. Instead, it is the year of the coronavirus pandemic. The COP26 has been postponed, climate strikes are cancelled, and the European Commission’s ability to push through the Green Deal has yet to be proven. However, while the global lockdowns are sure to make a dent in gl...

Remaining active, selecting the assets and preserving liquidity are the key points of this new Blue Convictions episode on Amundi’s global investment views. Central Banks are still game changers, but the risk of default for fixed income and the need of earnings growth check for equities have to be considered in the medium term. On the currency market, what about the recent appetite for the euro ve...

In the short term, the coronavirus pandemic is clearly likely to mean volatility in inflation figures, given factors pulling in opposite directions. In the longer term, and after four decades of low inflation across most economies, a new high-inflation regime may happen. In light of this, investors will need to reassess their strategic asset allocation to include investments that could help mitiga...

A lot is coming from the fiscal side in Europe to fight the economic consequences of the crisis: French supplementary budget just released, Germany abandoning the black zero policy, and the debate on recovery plan taking center stage, with some adjustments in countries’ positions. How to assess these recent evolutions? What to expect from central banks now? Which consequences to foresee in the fix...

Central Banks (CBs) are by nature more flexible than governments. Thus, they have been the most proactive in this crisis, reintroducing large-scale asset-purchase programmes financed by money creation (QE policies). With this pandemic, a spectacular change in economic policy has taken place in just a few months: fiscal and monetary policies have become intertwined, and this is probably not reversi...

Social inequality has become a major issue for investors. Over the 2016-2019 period, the ‘S’ criteria in company selection (via a ‘best in class’ ESG approach) had a real impact on the prices of listed companies, particularly in Europe (Roncalli et al, 2019). A priori , the more a country was mired in inequality before a crisis and especially this one, the more the response could be massive at the...

Amundi’s teams have been studying the evolution of ESG investing across asset classes and geographies for the past several years. Since the beginning of the coronavirus crisis and the subsequent global lockdown, a lot of market turmoil put corporates’ sustainability under tremendous scrutiny. In this context, discussions happen around a possible reinforcement of the materiality of ESG criteria on...

Monica Defend, Global Head of Research, gives the global investment views of the month and the asset allocation convictions of Amundi. Led by Tom Burges-Watson, this new episode of Blue Convictions confirm the big picture to come: a contraction phase in 2020, a recovery phase in 2021 and a late cycle or asset reflation, depending on central banks policies, in 2022. Healthcare policies, monetary an...