When we make our analyses of the financial markets, the departure point is always the same. We always start from the anchor point for all markets: the risk-free interest rate. It determines the valuation of shares and bonds. Let us look first at the European Central Bank (ECB). At the end of last year, there […]
Corona is gridlocking economies and societies, but the fixed income investor is doing amazingly well. 1. Government bonds The main driver in these special times for a fixed income investor is the steep drop in risk free rates. Especially the US Treasuries yield curve has dropped significantly. Earlier this year the Fed, the US […]
For most investors, 2019 turned out to be a great year. Interest rates, which once again dropped sharply during the year, were the driving force behind these excellent results. The most important reference points in 2019 were: · The German 10 year Bund dropped from +0,2% to -0,3% · The US 10 year Treasury Bills […]
Fixed Income The ECB as expected announced in September a list of decisions to prop up inflation expectations: the interest rate of the deposit facility was lowered by -0,10% to -0.50%, an APP Asset Purchase Program, a new QE, will kick off as of 1 November, at a monthly pace of EUR 20bn, as long […]
Let’s start this newsflash with an overview of the current state of ‘the wall of worry’. What is keeping investors awake at night? A current hot-topic is the Democrats’ decision to open an impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump. We make no judgement on the gravity of this case. However, this procedure could take months, […]
Never mind the volatility on the equity markets. Forget about stock prices and their occasionally strong fluctuations. What you have to remember about 2019 is the disappearance of positive interest rates. Feel free to compare Mario Draghi and Jerome Powell to magicians who have performed an impressive vanishing trick. They made the “positive interest rates” […]
Bond markets The main driver behind an extraordinary first half of the year 2019 has been an unexpected decline in interest rates. In fact, even the strong performance of the recovering stock markets, which had suffered from big losses towards the end of 2018, were outpaced by the falling interest rates. Just when everyone agreed […]
With a legal/tax background (Ghent University), Herman Coppens started his career at KPMG. After that, he went on to the Generale Bank, where for more than ten years he mainly occupied tax positions. “In the late 90s I was in charge of the stock listing of property investment funds,” he explains. He moved to Petercam […]
Macro Context In January, the markets showed a nice rebound after a period of a slumping global stock markets in December. This phenomena showed us an extreme of both, December 2018 was one of the worst month periods for the global stock market in the last decades whereas the following month was one of the […]