Alternative Investments

A relatively buoyant environment for Equity Market Neutral strategies.

Investors had a few months to get mentally prepared for the return of Donald Trump to the White House. While he has not disappointed and started his second term with a bang, the real surprise came from China with the introduction of DeepSeek to the world. The results announced by this technology company had the effect of a financial quake towards some of the star market performers over the last quarters.

As we enter 2025, the arrival of a new President in the White House is generating a great deal of uncertainty. Merger arbitrage (M&A) strategies are no exception to the question: What impact can we expect from the change of administration on this asset class ?

This year, the Christmas rally came a month earlier, and Santa Claus has moved from the North Pole to Florida. During December, some of the “Trump trade” winners gave back part of the previous month gains.

Although financial markets were already pricing a higher probability of a Donald Trump win coming into the US election, during November, asset prices were mainly driven by the election results.

During October, markets moved to price in a return of Donald Trump to the White House – and were ultimately proved right.

After an uncertain and relatively volatile summer, September brought some good news for investors.

Damien Vergnaud, portfolio manager in Candriam's alternative strategies team, presents his study on index rebalancing. It highlights the effects of these transactions on investors' portfolios, and the importance of anticipating them by combining various approaches.

It is not unusual for markets to experience volatility spikes during lighter trading volume summer periods.

The month of June was relatively noisy for markets, especially in Europe where geopolitical risk remains one of investors’ primary areas for concern. In the US, the latest macroeconomic data continues to indicate that the Fed might succeed in piloting the economy to a soft landing.

Risk appetite returned to markets after a cooling period during April. Economic indicators in western economies continue to point to a phase of deceleration across most economic powerhouses, but there is no evidence of severe recession looming. However, there is proof of increasing dispersion across financial assets returns and risk premia.

After five months of gains, equities finished down in April in a relatively volatile market. Although the EPS beat/raise has been high, markets focused more on top-down factors than micro news-flow.

Markets held up well during March, supported by robust economic indicators coming from the US, manufacturing and services PMIs improving in China and an increasingly dovish stance from the ECB.

Since the market has incorporated the fact that there would be fewer rate cuts by the Federal Reserve and they would probably come later than expected at the end of 2023, core equity indices have continued to perform well in Northern America and Western Europe.

Has commercial real estate reached its inflection point? With little transaction activity, price and index data are generated with a lag. Market prices can change much more rapidly than they can be aggregated and reported. Investors must rely on fundamental analysis and experience more than data to time the recovery.

Although the Federal Reserve slightly opened the door to rate cuts during the last quarter of 2023, the latest economic data points were solid, leading the Fed to indicate that rate cuts may come later rather than sooner.

2022 was a landmark year for monetary policy, with Central banks shifting priority from supporting growth to taming inflation.

Like the Rolling Stones during a concert, the dovish stance from the Fed had the effect to “spread out the oil, the gasoline” on a market that was already anticipating a brighter future.

Central bank tightening monetary measures continue to progressively slow the economic growth rate of most regions around the world.

Economic fundamentals did not dramatically change over the summer.

Financial markets took a breather over August.

It is not unusual for the quiet summer season when investment professionals take a break from their screens to chime with nervous and volatile markets.

Looking back over the first half of the year, we can say that the bulls gained the upper hand over the bears.

With the onset of the inflationary cycle and the change in central bank monetary policy, markets have entered a new paradigm, leaving investors uncertain as to the direction that markets will take next, and the timing of the transition into the next phase of the economic cycle.

In a market animated by contradictory economic data points, NVIDIA’s excellent Q1 earnings were enough to light the fire under an already hot technology sector.