Efectos de la normalización de las políticas de bancos centrales en estrategias MultiActivos

Cross Assets, Unigestion - Viernes, 26 de Enero

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Overview 2017 was a strong year in terms of multi asset returns. The stars were aligned to create a supportive market environment, with economies delivering above potential growth, inflation pressures remaining subdued and major central banks (largely) maintaining accommodative monetary support. This combination of outcomes resulted in a ‘Goldilocks’ economic scenario, where the economy is neither too hot (generating inflation), nor too cold (creating a recession). Multi asset portfolios benefitted from this environment with both growth and hedging assets delivering positive returns.

2017 did see a change in stance by several central banks and, in our view, 2018 will see the continued reduction in asset purchases and an increase in interest rate rises. Moreover, we expect the impact of unplugging this monetary drip, even if handled with care, is likely to affect assets in many ways. Even so, we believe there are ways investors can prepare for change in the macroeconomic and monetary backdrop and even benefit from it.

Keep on navigating and brace for larger waves

It could be easy to forecast a completely different story for 2018 to 2017 given current levels of certain assets, such as equities, bonds and commodity prices. Exuberance has been going on for so long that it leaves investors with a crucial choice to make: stay invested or take profits. Be greedy or regret.

From a macroeconomic standpoint, there has not been such strong and synchronised growth momentum since before the great financial crisis and we believe this framework will continue to be highly profitable for risky assets. The steady repricing of inflation should steer central banks away from extraordinary measures, without having to actually tighten monetary conditions - a necessary step when the economy overheats. The pace of this normalisation will be key, and even though there will be surprises along the road, we expect action will be well signposted so that macro and financial stability is not put at risk. We expect inflation to return and, in our view, the pricing of this seems currently too low.  We believe this could create disruption across bond markets, which could suffer net losses.

The good news is that we believe there are ways to protect against this less accommodative backdrop, while maintaining exposure to risky assets. Our approach favours staying fully invested, but changing the mix of growth and hedging assets. We are also tactically reducing duration in favour of inflation -linked assets, that should be less sensitive to interest rate rises and have the potential to capture the repricing of inflation expectations. In our view, the regions most at risk from a rapid surge in sovereign yields are Europe, the Nordic countries and Japan, where the current level of accommodation is no longer justified.

Currencies could also be impacted. We expect monetary convergence to lift those currencies where the gap between macroeconomic strength and central bank accommodation is the largest. In this respect, the Japanese yen appears very appealing: as well as its defensive characteristics, economic growth in Japan has been accelerating, inflation has been showing signs of modest revival, yet the Bank of Japan policy is currently among the most accommodative of the G10 countries. On the other hand, the US dollar has been soaring on the back of positive developments on the fiscal front and the implication this could have on inflation in the US. A rate hike in March from the Fed is already 80% priced in the market, as well as another hike later in the year. As we do not expect the Fed to fall behind the curve and become any more aggressive, we are in favour of the US dollar right now.

We believe the need to adapt diversified portfolios to these more challenging market conditions will become dominant in 2018. We do not expect risk assets to achieve comparable returns this year to those of 2017 and we believe the opportunity set will be largely driven by relative value exposures over pure beta plays, especially in foreign exchange and sovereign fixed income assets. We will continue to maintain exposure to growth assets, with a preference for equities (as long as the economic environment remains sound), alongside a layer of hedges in order to achieve an asymmetric return profile, while prudently participating in any risk-on rallies.

Además, puedes ver en este vídeo un análisis de Olivier Macriot, gestor del equipo MultiActivos de Unigestion.

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Moisés Romero

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