UBS Investor Forum

Every month, we invite leading investment experts to challenge the UBS House View.

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Challenging the UBS House View

We invite global investment leaders from the fund management industry to challenge our UBS House View. We address global financial questions to make sure we never sin through over-confidence.

Short-Term Session

Every month, industry experts from all over the world join us to challenge our 6 to 12 months forecast for the markets.

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Long-Term Session

Twice a year, we hold a long term session with a 3 to 5 year outlook to discuss long term trends and investment themes with external market specialists.

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Podcast & charts

Listen to the latest podcast recorded at the Investor Forum and check out the charts of this month by market experts.

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Jump to the charts of the month

Short-term Investor Forum

Investor Forum

Central bank policies

On the policy outlook, panelists viewed the US hiking cycle as advanced, with peak hawkishness likely passed. The consensus view was for a 50bps rate hike in September. In Europe, participants foresee challenging times ahead for the European Central Bank, as it tries to reconcile inflationary pressures, a weaker economy, and the energy crisis.

China

Participants discussed the role of Chinese securities in investors’ portfolios given the relatively low level of inflation in China and attractive valuations. However, some panelists expressed concern about the strong dependence on regional monetary and fiscal policy and recommended a bottom-up approach to stock selection.

Investment opportunities

Panelists saw opportunities emerging in fixed income markets as yields have risen. Within equities, participants’ preferences remained for value and high-quality stocks over growth. Among currencies, the Swiss franc continues to be the preferred safe haven.

Outside View: High conviction ideas by leading market experts

Potriat of Andrew McCaffery

Global Chief Investment Officer, Asset Management
Fidelity International

  • We are seeing several signs that inflation momentum is stalling in the US, giving increased focus to the risks around growth, which the market has recently translated into the potential for a soft landing. The risk we see is for a more pronounced concern on growth prospects developing, as we see consumer sentiment deterioration matched by a downturn in employment and consumption levels ahead. The headwinds for growth have been further increased by a strong USD, creating further tightening of policy as the Fed has raised interest rates.
  • As we look across different asset classes, the Investment Grade (IG) corporate bond market had become more defensive and priced in greater growth challenges, through discounting enhanced risk than we had seen in equity or high yield markets, based upon historic relationships. This is reflected in US IG corporate bonds providing an additional premium of c.3% over equity yields recently.
  • With growth challenges likely to intensify, but with relatively favourable pricing of the US IG sector, combined with the improved position on overall yields backing up again, we would look for the spread and duration qualities of IG corporate bonds to be attractive, especially relative to other sectors and asset classes.
  • In Asia, with the accelerating shift in policy in China towards supporting growth and supporting the property market, and with valuations having built in significant default risk levels, we would look for the risk/reward profile to also favour looking to corporate debt spreads as attractive looking ahead.

House View

Central bank policies

Recent US economic data has been encouraging, improving the likelihood of the Fed achieving a soft landing. However, markets may have gotten ahead of themselves in pricing in this scenario. On the European outlook, we think that inflation will trump growth concerns for the ECB, which points to another 50bps hike in September, followed by two further 25bps hikes in the final quarter taking the deposit rate to 1%.

China

The zero-COVID policy continues to strain consumer confidence. The property market remains in the throes of a severe downcycle. Beijing has acted to prevent a systemic crisis, though the policy response has not been strong enough to revive housing demand. With few prospective catalysts on the horizon, we remove our most preferred stance on China in our Asia strategy and expect the market to perform in line with the region. That said, we still see attractive opportunities in China’s electric vehicle supply chain, renewable energy operators, and sectors that support Beijing’s industrial upgrade ambitions and dual circulation strategy.

Investment opportunities

We continue recommending a selective approach to investing. Within equities, we keep a most preferred stance on value and energy stocks. We also like quality-income and healthcare stocks, which would likely be relatively resilient in a slump scenario. We’ve added to our exposure to defensive sectors by upgrading consumer staples to most preferred. We keep our most preferred stance on high grade bonds and the safe-haven Swiss franc.

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Long-Term Investor Forum

Twice a year, we host a long term version of the Investor Forum to discuss macroeconomics, politics and investment topics with a 5-to-10-year time horizon

Session 1: Inflation and monetary policy, 4 April 2022

After more than a decade of disinflation and deflation, inflation has come back with a bang in the aftermath of the pandemic. Does this just represent a short-term blip in an otherwise disinflationary trend or a structural break? What does all this mean for monetary policy and markets?

Panel Speakers

  • Seth Carpenter, Chief Global Economist at Morgan Stanley
  • Robert Lind, Economist at Capital Group
  • Joe Zidle, Chief Investment Strategist at Blackstone Private Wealth Solutions

More about the speakers


Session 2: Growth and returns, 4 April 2022

After the deep pandemic recession and a sharp bounceback, focus is shifting to the future outlook for economic growth. Does the post-pandemic world bring us to the brink of a ‘productivity miracle’ or will high debt, energy security, and sustainability hamper rates of growth? What will this mean for investors in global markets for the decade ahead?

Panel Speakers:

  • Sean Connor, President of Blue Owl Securities
  • Natalie Gill, Portfolio Strategist, BlackRock Investment Institute
  • Remi Olu-Pitan, Head of Multi-Asset Growth and Income, Schroders
  • Paul Quinsee, Global Head of Equities, JP Morgan

More about the speakers


Session 3: Future trends, 5 April 2022

The pandemic has driven a lot of innovative thinking with new trends forming an increasingly common part of investor thinking about the future. Which are the most important themes for investors to build exposure to?

Panel Speakers:

  • Haim Israel, Head of the Global Thematic Investing Research, Bank of America Merrill Lynch
  • Edward Stanley, Head of Thematic Research, Morgan Stanley
  • Henning Stein, Global Head of Thought Leadership and Market Strategy, Invesco
  • Alastair Unwin, Fund Manager and Senior Analyst, Polar Capital

More about the speakers


Session 4: Building a nimble portfolio, 5 April 2022

New technologies, financial innovation, and a fast-changing global economy seem to have created more diverse potential opportunities for investors to generate alpha. Learn more about how should investors construct portfolios to manage risks while enabling alpha capture.

Panel Speakers:

  • Ursula Marchioni, Head of Portfolio Analysis and Solutions for EMEA, Blackrock
  • Justin Muzinich, CEO of Muzinich & Co.
  • Davide Serra, Founder and CEO of Algebris Investments
  • John Zito, Senior Partner and Deputy CIO of Credit, Apollo Global Management

More about the speakers


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