How to value money in a time of falling rates

The investment breakfast with the subtitle “Bonds and credit: How to invest when rates are falling”, organized by the EMUN group, will advise investors on how to best navigate the current investment environment, what to focus on and how not to make a mistake. The meeting of investment experts will take place on Wednesday, April 24, 2024, from 9 a.m. You can also watch the live broadcast of the event on the website newstream.cz or www.investicnivyhledy.cz.

After the wave of inflation virtually reached its peak last year around the world, central banks have started a cycle of cutting interest rates, or are about to do so. The Czech National Bank has already reduced its interest rates in several steps from 7 to 5.75 percent, and it can be expected that it will go in a similar direction for the rest of the year. Therefore, a new situation arises for investors on the financial markets. Commercial banks react to monetary policy and quickly reduce interest rates on their term deposits.

How to best evaluate money in such an environment? The answer will come from investment titans.

The first part of the Investment Breakfast will be attended by three speakers. He is the first to speak Leoš Jirmanpartner and CIO of EMUN investment company, who will provide an overview of the development of the markets in the first quarter of this year and how bond yields are developing.

He gets off after him Ľuboš Mokraš, macroeconomic analyst of PPF Bank. He will analyze the macroeconomic outlook of Europe and the USA. He will take the floor Jakub Seidlerchief economist of the Czech Banking Association, who will focus on Czech interest rates and the development of the Czech koruna exchange rate.

Bond year

“We assume that at the end of this year, interest on term deposits in Czech banks will be close to three percent. Domestic investors have no choice but to look for other investment opportunities. It will surely interest a number of them good performance of Czech government bonds, which earned 12.3 percent last year, which was the second best year in the last twenty years. Although we expect their appreciation this year as well, we can most likely state that the ‘easy’ money in this asset class has already been ‘earned’,” says Leoš Jirman from the EMUN group.

It will be all the more important to know your way around bonds. The lectures on the investment environment will therefore be followed by a thematic panel discussion in which the owner of the Czech corporate bond fund will speak Martin Waitedpartner of CVI Radoslav Tausinger and portfolio manager of investment company EMUN Vojtěch Železný. Their debate will focus on the progress of the CNB during the last cycle of interest rate increases and the current rate cuts and on what central bankers will decide on their next steps. Related to this is the effort to find answers to the questions of whether the world will return to zero interest rates or what is the normal level of interest rates in the Czech Republic.

How to choose the best bond fund

The discussants will also discuss the state of the bond market in the Czech Republic causes of bankruptcies of some bond issuers. They will also touch on the issue of how to choose the best bond fund for the current investment environment, what parameters to monitor when choosing such funds and whether to choose a passive government bond fund or an actively managed fund. It will also focus on private credit, its most important segments and related issues.

The investment breakfast will be conducted by moderator Michala Hergetová. The detailed program and medallions of individual speakers are on the website www.investicnivyhledy.cz, where it will also be possible to join the Investment Breakfast. Questions to all speakers can be sent via the sli.do application under dluhopisy .

Regular Investment breakfasts are intended not only for investors. They are also beneficial for those who are interested in events and expected developments in the economy and capital markets. They provide an outlook of macroeconomic development in the Czech Republic and in the world. Speakers and guests discuss the topics currently affecting the financial markets and the investment world. They follow the conference of the EMUN group Investment Outlook.

The cycle is organized by the leading Czech multi-family office EMUN. The partners of the event are the RSJ Group, the Prague Stock Exchange, the law offices Kocián Šolc Balaštík, Weinhold Legal and Mavericks, as well as Aalto Residences, Panorama Golf Resort and SONBERK. Newstream is a media partner.

EMUN investiční společnost manages assets for clients, primarily in the asset category of over 100 million crowns. It has been operating on the market for over 12 years. Since 2019, it has a license for the management and administration of qualified investors’ funds, as well as a license for individual portfolio management and a license for the activities of a trustee. Under the supervision of the CNB, it manages assets worth over 5.5 billion crowns in individual and fund asset management and as an institutional trustee and manages 9 investment funds.

EMUN family office is a leading Czech multi-family office dedicated to effective and comprehensive property management of important clients.

Lukáš Kovanda: Should the West bet on the fall of China? That would be difficult to calculate

Opinions

Beijing’s effort to prop up China’s economic growth on something other than the country’s collapsing reality under the weight of debt is creating new demands on the country’s public coffers. And this worsens the state of public finances of this second largest economy in the world. It could be worse, warns Fitch. The downgrading of China’s rating outlook from “stable” to “negative” is likely to be contradicted by the Beijing regime, but it is clear that the Chinese are more at risk than ever of getting their debt over their heads.

Lukáš Kovanda

Read the article