Bank of America / UEFA EURO 2024

Good Morning Ladies and Gentlemen

„Tis not unreasonable for me to prefer the destruction of the whole world to the scratching of my finger.“

David Hume

Bank of America monthly survey

Bank of America (BofA) delivers revealing data from monthly surveys among global fund managers. I like looking at those surveys and seeing these fund managers‘ views on various topics. BofA’s latest monthly global fund manager survey shows a shift in fund managers‘ preferences regarding global economic activity expectations. According to that survey, the „hard landing“ camp is still in retreat, with only 5% of fund managers expecting a recession. However, the number of „no landing“ supporters has also shrunk in the last two months, meaning that both the significant pessimists and optimists are on the retreat. The fund managers‘ cash positioning stands at a mere 4.0%, while they keep an overweight in equities of 39%, which is as high as in Q4 of 2021. Noteworthy, I would think.

Risks according to the survey

Regarding the most significant risks, inflation remains the biggest concern for fund managers, although it is receding. Geopolitical concerns are in second place, and the US election is in third place. On the other hand, these concerns are on the rise. The US election in November 2024 is approaching and will be more prominent in the media in the coming weeks and months, and this influences fund managers’ (and all other people’s) thinking. As I mentioned in earlier editions of “Stefan’s Weekly”, I believe from a stock market perspective, there is little uncertainty for investors, as both US presidential candidates have already been in office for one term, and there is, therefore, little potential for surprises from a purely economic perspective. With regard to the second half of 2024, fund managers see Europe likely to perform slightly worse than the USA. The quintessence of stock market performance is a deterioration in economic activity.

UEFA EURO 2024

So far, the European Football Championship seems to have succeeded. It feels like a holiday from life and the daily flood of negative news that the media landscape of the past few years has produced with almost relish. I am happy that Switzerland is still in the tournament and will play Italy on Saturday. Hans is happy that Germany will go through to the next round as group winners and ahead of Switzerland. And Ronni is ecstatic because Austria is going into the last 16 as group winners in an adamant group with France, the Netherlands and Poland.

Wrong decision, or what we can learn from football

Ladies and Gentlemen, we are all human; we make mistakes, so this probably will not surprise you. In football, wrong decisions happen constantly, less today than before VAR, micro-chips in the ball, high precision cameras on drones, and all of those technical gadgets, but mistakes inevitably still happen. During and after football matches, there are discussions about off-sites, penalties, fouls, mistakes by referees, and you know what? This is fantastic because people are discussing, and even if they are not of the same opinion, with very few exceptions, they accept the result, take it from there and go on. This part of the game of football, which also involves wrong decisions, therefore has a not insignificant quality, and it is precisely this quality that can be found everywhere in life, both on a small and a large scale, and we maybe should, therefore not be tempted always to try to eliminate different opinions and equalise everyone and everything.

Ladies and Gentlemen

As always, please share your opinion with me, but please do not forget (instead of hitting the reply button) to send your messages to smk@incrementum.li

Many thanks, indeed!

I wish you an excellent start to the day and the weekend!

Yours truly,

Stefan M. Kremeth
CEO & Head of Wealth Management
Incrementum AG – we love managing assets

Tel.: +423 237 26 60
Cell: +41 79 303 48 39
Im alten Riet 153
9494 Schaan/Liechtenstein
Mail: smk@incrementum.li