News

Lehman Brothers collapsed a decade ago. It was a key milestone in the global financial crisis, teaching investors a painful lesson that nothing is too big to fail. A lot has happened since then and anybody you ask will tell you it’s been a tough decade all round, both on political and economic fronts.

With the third quarter of 2018 at an end, data from FE Analytics shows a dramatic change in the constituents of the top 50 best performing funds over the three quarters of 2018 to date, compared with the last three quarters of 2017.

The European Supervisory Authorities (the ESAs, made up of ESMA, EBA and EIOPA), have published a series of letters between them and the European Commission (EC), over the proposed ending of the exemption for UCITS KIIDs at the end of 2019.

We spoke to Mikkel to get all the necessary information on the DCPT - from what it entails to how fund groups are going about populating the template.

Over the past decade, nine sectors achieved a first quartile performance ranking within the IA, four of which were smaller companies. IA Japanese Smaller Companies, IA North America Smaller Companies, IA UK Smaller Companies and IA European Smaller Companies were ranked second, third, fourth and sixth respectively.

On 11 September, the Association of Investment Companies (AIC) published a report detailing the extent of misleading output, particularly in the risk and reward sections, of PRIIPs KIDs.

Risk has never been a bigger issue for financial advisers. Not only do today’s financial advisers need to correctly assess clients’ attitude to risk and map it across to suitable portfolios – they also need to become risk management experts and ensure regulatory compliance. This blog will look at the issues raised in FE’s latest annual adviser survey, ‘Adviser business models - What lies beneath?’

With a ‘no deal’ Brexit looking to be a strong possibility, investors are likely feeling anxious about how to position their portfolios. In light of this, we have used FE’s unique Market Intel (MI) tool to see which Investment Association (IA) funds and sectors advisers have been researching recently, as well as the period leading up to the referendum and the two years since (July 2015 to July 2018).

Bond markets had been patient in anticipation of the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee decision today to raise the benchmark interest rate by 0.25 percentage points to 0.75 per cent. A decision that has seemed increasingly predictable given that the probability of an interest rate hike had moved to 90 per cent over the summer.

This year’s FE Adviser Survey (Adviser Business Models – what lies beneath) looked at how advisers are managing their investment processes, to discover areas for improvement and to highlight best practice. Here, we look at one part of that process specifically – investment choices and which sectors advisers have increased their exposure to.

Nobody denies the value of a short document with key information for investors before they commit to a fund or product. But criticism of the calculations used in PRIIPs KIDs has been pretty constant since even before they hit the streets in January and has hopefully reached a level that can’t be ignored by the European Commission or the European Supervisory Authorities (ESAs).

The IDD requires greater product governance by manufacturers and distributors, including identification of the target market, and disclosure to customers of product features and costs and charges. For those familiar with MiFID II, this will ring bells. Indeed, in terms of disclosure and product governance, the IDD is effectively MiFID II for life products.

Back in what now feels almost like pre-history, the European Working Group (EWG) came together to provide a standardised reporting template to deliver the data from asset managers to insurance companies for their Solvency II reporting and the Tri-Partite Template (TPT) was born.

The FCA has had a busy time so far in April, with the publication of, among other things, Policy Statement PS18/8 on final AMMS remedies, Consultation Paper CP18/9 on further proposed AMMS remedies and Occasional Paper 32 on the disclosure of fund charges.

With the World Cup underway, pundits have been tipping many European teams such as Germany, Belgium, France and Spain as favourites, whilst expectations for the UK’s only qualifier - England – are much more modest. Here, we take a look at how this dominance of European teams mirrors the current investment landscape.

With the World Cup beginning last week, football fans will have been putting together their dream teams, made up of the top players participating in this year’s tournament. Inspired by this, FE’s research team has put together their dream team of funds based on the FE Invest Approved List. They’ve opted for an attacking 4-3-3 formation, consisting of a goalkeeper, four defenders, 3 midfielders and 3 attackers.

The world nowadays is divided into generations that have grown up in completely different circumstances and which therefore have very different outlooks on the world. The generation made up of those born between 1980 and 1995 have come to be known as millennials, and while older generations may look down on them and say how “things were better in my day”, its undeniable that millennials and their views are shaping the future.

It has been a tough decade for Europe on both the political and economic fronts. The global financial crisis and European debt crisis had significant knock on effects for the countries in Europe and political events such as the Brexit vote in 2016 led to uncertainty in the area. However, Europe is starting to prosper again. Let’s take a look at how/why money has flowed towards Europe recently.

Pre-sale Key Information Documents (KIDs) are now required for all Packaged Retail and Insurance-based Investment Products (PRIIPs) that don’t publish UCITS KIIDs. Following heavy criticism about misleading performance scenarios, the FCA says firms can now produce “explanatory materials to put the calculation in context”.

The recent European Commission Notice to Stakeholders on MiFID opened with talk about “the considerable uncertainties in…the content of a possible withdrawal agreement” and said the requirements on UK firms are “subject to any transitional arrangement that may be contained in a possible withdrawal agreement."