Each month in PWM, eight top European asset allocators reveal how they would spend €100,000 in a fund supermarket for a fairly conservative client with a balanced strategy.
Benjamin Hamidi
Senior portfolio manager, ABN AMRO Investment Solutions.
Based in: Paris, France
“The pause initiated by the US administration to negotiate tariffs in a context of high volatility suggests that they do not want to weaken the markets too much. Meanwhile, tariff uncertainty started to get reflected in US sentiment indicators. These tariffs must be reviewed rapidly, to give economic players more visibility on the evolution of global activity, inflation and how the Fed could react. Against this backdrop, the current diversified asset allocation remains unchanged at this stage, but we are keeping a close eye on the ongoing negotiations, the evolution of political risk and its effects on economic activity.”
Luca Dal Mas
Senior fund analyst, Aviva Investors.
Based in: London, UK
“After weeks of turmoil, markets experienced relative calm due to reassuring messages from US Treasury secretary Bessent about potential trade deals and president Donald Trump’s confirmation that Fed chair Jerome Powell would not be fired. Following recent developments, the US and China have agreed to significantly reduce their reciprocal tariffs for 90 days, this agreement marks a positive step towards resolving trade tensions and the IMF may revise its growth forecasts as the immediate impact of trade disruptions is expected to be reduced. Early survey manufacturing data were stable but at depressed levels, while services fell into contraction territory in major economies except the US. Markets reacted positively to these reassuring messages and major indices, saw significant gains, driven by tech and consumer discretionary stocks. In portfolios we have maintained our recent stance, only marginally reducing our underweight to Europe during the second half of the month.”
Jorge Velasco
Director of Investment Strategy, CaixaBank Private Banking.
Based in: Madrid, Spain
“Looking ahead, with many things that continue to alarm us, we reaffirm our position of caution without pessimism. American assets will be subject to a risk premium: fear is priced faster than relief because trust always takes longer to earn and uncertainty, lack of strategy or the created chaos has damaged trust. In terms of portfolio composition, we replaced the DWS floating-rate fund with an aggregated European short-term fixed income fund, thereby increasing exposure to European government bonds in our portfolio and somewhat reducing credit risk.”
Adam Norris
Portfolio Manager, Colombia Threadneedle Investments.
Based in: London, UK
“Global equity markets were volatile during April, with investors pouring over the US administrations’ tariff announcements and the likely impact on corporate earnings. Despite the volatility, we remain constructive on risk assets. However, the month was a useful reminder of the benefits of a diversified, balanced, portfolios with cash, government bonds and absolute return generation positive returns, versus credit and equities which were, on average, negative. The best performing fund in our model portfolio was Iguana Investments Long/Short Equity Fund which returned 1.6 per cent. The worst performer was Pzena US Large Cap Value Fund which returned -8.9 per cent.”
Silvia Tenconi
Multimanager Investments & Unit Linked, Eurizon Capital SGR.
Based in: Milan, Italy
“In April the performance of the portfolio was negative, with Robeco US Select Opportunities detracting the most. The month began with the much awaited ‘liberation day’, when president Donald Trump announced much higher tariffs than investors anticipated. Markets collapsed and volatility sky-rocketed. And then Mr Trump started to postpone or lower tariffs, grant exceptions, and investors regained some confidence. Risky assets rose again, except for the dollar, which bore the brunt of Mr Trump’s aggressive negotiation techniques. We keep our balanced exposure to equities, high yield, US dollar and Italian government bonds.”
Richard Troue
Fund Manager, Hargreaves Lansdown Fund Managers.
Based in: Bristol, UK
“Financial market volatility moderated towards the end of April, and in many cases post-‘Liberation Day’ losses were recovered. Anyone who only looked at month-end data might wonder what all the intra-month fuss was about. Yet while it can be easy to simply put such volatility down to “uncertainty” I do think the events of April warrant consideration. President Donald Trump’s actions potentially end decades of stability and mark a significant change in US trade policy. Lower growth and higher inflation are likely, and portfolio allocations might need to evolve. As I said last month, the best approach while there’s still so much uncertainty is likely to be to sit tight, but as clarity emerges on where the US might land with tariffs, be prepared to reconsider whether its past dominance can be repeated. At the margin I’m starting to favour Europe over the US.”
Antti Saari
Chief Investment Strategist, Nordea investments.
Based in: Copenhagen, Denmark
“The sour market sentiment deteriorated further in early April after what president Donald Trump dubbed ‘Liberation Day’, and the announcement of very high reciprocal tariffs. After plentiful flip-flopping and a market rebound, the economic and earnings outlooks remain obscure and have suffered significantly. But as things stand, the baseline is not disastrous, either. Valuation and sentiment have now become tailwinds for risky assets, but in an extremely uncertain environment, we prefer to stay neutral between equities and bonds as the market rebound could very well continue or volatility may resume on the back of unpredictable announcements from the White House. Within equities, we lift Europe to an overweight as we expect easier fiscal policies, deregulation and lower rates to benefit the region’s growth outlook.”
Didier Chan-Voc-Chun
Head of Multi-Management and Fund Research at Union Bancaire Privée (UBP).
Based in: Geneva, Switzerland
“Markets were volatile in April, as the the US’s so-called ‘Liberation Day’ tariffs were more wide-ranging than expected, sparking sell-offs and a spike in volatility. Sentiment improved after president Donald Trump announced a 90-day pause on his tariffs, giving the countries involved an opportunity to negotiate better terms with the US. In light of this, we increased our US equity exposure slightly.”
