Flows into EPFR-tracked Emerging Markets Equity Funds during the third week of January climbed to their highest level since mid-1Q21 as investors positioned themselves for China’s much anticipated economic rebound and, the anti-inflation rhetoric of the Federal Reserve and European Central Bank (ECB) notwithstanding, an early end to the current interest rate cycles in the US and Europe. Investors also steered $2.5 billion – a 101-week high – into Emerging Markets Bond Funds.
Evidence that inflation is falling and global growth is stalling gave EPFR-tracked Bond Funds a shot in the arm during the first full week of January. Ahead of December’s CPI number, which showed US inflation grew at a 13-month low of 6.45% in the final month of 2022, investors committed over $17 billion to all Bond Funds.
This blog will examine the impact the conflict between Russia and Ukraine has had on global energy markets and the calls investors have made during 2022.
Over $110 billion – a 131-week high – flowed into EPFR-tracked Money Market Funds during the week ending Jan. 4 as investors surveyed an investment landscape still being reshaped by inflation, tighter monetary policy and geopolitical forces.
The final week of 2022 saw EPFR-tracked Bond Funds post consecutive weekly outflows for the first time since mid-October, capping a year when the overall group smashed its previous outflow record as central banks scrambled to contain inflation running at multi-decade highs.
Behind the headline number, however, was a marked shift from active to passive management.
Markets have reacted coolly to Shell’s attempts to win over critics by simplifying its structure and moving headquarters from the Netherlands to the UK. The move takes one of the world’s largest private oil companies around, over – and, possibly, into – some of the major fault lines in Europe’s economic landscape: high versus low taxation, the pace of change needed to meet key climate goals, and the UK versus the European Union it voted to leave.