Risk

We expect risk assets to continue to grind higher, and maintain our exposure. It might not be time to add too much risk, but we don’t think it’s time to take it all off either.

On Wednesday, US stocks fell dramatically, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average falling more than 800 points. The rout was led by technology stocks, with the NASDAQ Composite Index down 316 points, but all sectors experienced losses. This was the worst one-day sell-off for US stocks since February. For much of the day, bonds sold off as well but, by the end of the day, a flight to safety occurred in US Treasuries, sending yields lower.

Italy’s announcement of a tentative budget deficit goal of 2.4% of GDP over 2019-2021 could compound the country’s existing debt sustainability challenges. This represents a significant risk to Italy’s A-/Negative Outlook ratings.

According to Christopher Gannatti, Head of Research, WisdomTree, the lesson here for investors is the potential to embrace volatility. Where a rising VIX typically equates to a short-term equity sell-off, EM investors who have used the dips as buying opportunities historically have seen positive results.

According to Olaf Tölke, team leader, corporates, Scope Ratings, low interest rates are a major problem because they don’t reflect the true cost of risk. The result is that enterprises and individuals have taken on more and more debt simply because it is cheap.