How have sustainable companies performed during the Covid-19 crisis? May 5, 2020 | City Talk Rather than being a luxury or an optional extra, our analysis shows that a focus on sustainability would have helped relative performance during the recent market turbulence. Here at Schroders, our view of sustainable investing is that companies who treat their stakeholders fairly will see better share price performance than those who do not. There [...]
First-hand account: my observations on China’s return to work May 1, 2020 | City Talk Emerging markets analyst Shuyu Gao provides a personal account of virus containment measures on her return to China, and reviews the recovery in activity. Amid the global spread of Covid-19, with lockdowns necessitating working from home more broadly, I decided to return to China and work from my family home in Nanjing. At the time, [...]
A new economic era beckons after this crisis April 29, 2020 | City Talk Current events likely mark a turning point in economic policy and the end of a 40-year spell of free market capitalism. Nobody can know how long the Covid-19 crisis will last, but I think that regardless of this it will mark a profound long-term change in economic policy. It is likely a turning point in [...]
Economies in free fall as hopes fade for a V-shaped recovery April 28, 2020 | City Talk Amongst the arguments about a lack of protective clothing for health workers and whether governments were too slow to react to the spread of Covid-19, the latest figures show that the pandemic is gradually coming under control. The rate of growth in new infections and fatalities around the world is slowing and the curves are [...]
What’s happening to dividends and what next? 11 questions answered April 23, 2020 | City Talk Nick Kirrage, co-head of the Value team, and Sean Markowicz, part of the Research and Analytics team, chatted with us about the future of dividends and buybacks. With so many investors reliant on dividends to boost their income or support their retirement we wanted know what’s happening now, whether investors should be concerned and what [...]
Coronavirus: Schroders boss donates to Covid-19 charities as firm posts AUM loss April 16, 2020 The chief executive of Schroders will donate 25 per cent of his salary to charities fighting the coronavirus outbreak, the firm said this morning as it reported a drop in assets under management (AUM). Group chief executive Peter Harrison said today that executive directors will donate their 2020 long-term incentive plan awards and 25 per [...]
Downturns this deep can take a long time to recover from, financially and mentally April 16, 2020 | City Talk The stock market has declined by 25% or more on 11 occasions since 1871. The median recovery time from this point has been 1.8 years. Investors who shifted to cash after the 1929 crash faced a 34-year wait to break even, compared with 15 years for those who remained invested and less than 7 years [...]
Which stock markets sold off the most over Q1 and how do valuations look? April 15, 2020 | City Talk It’s been an incredibly tough start to the year for investors, with some market veterans describing it as one of the most challenging situations they’ve ever experienced. While markets have staged a recovery since late March, it was a crushing quarter as coronavirus (Covid-19) effectively shuttered the global economy, not to forget the immeasurable human [...]
Six tips for better behavioural investing April 8, 2020 | City Talk At a turbulent time for global markets, Nick Kirrage, Co-Head of the Value Team, recently sat down with the Investor Download podcast. We discussed the current state of financial markets, reflected on the behaviour of investors and how they might best navigate the current turmoil. Below are six key points. Listen to the Investor Download. [...]
Coronavirus and the economy: your questions answered April 6, 2020 | City Talk Chief Economist & Strategist Keith Wade chatted to us about coronavirus and its economic impact. Here are your nine questions answered. Q1: How do you think that the virus will affect the global economy? It is going to have a very significant impact. The virus could create a fall in GDP unlike anything that we [...]