What are the key issues for investors in the second half of 2013?

ECONOMIC OUTLOOK

Whilst the markets are not about to dissolve, the issues affecting investors are changing. John Ventre, head of multi-manager at Old Mutual Global Investors takes a closer look at four of them.

Mario Draghi, president of the European Central Bank, rode to the rescue of European markets last year and the risk of a eurozone break-up looks to have subsided. 2013 looks rather different to 2012 and investors need to be much more defensively positioned. However, the economic malaise of the periphery has spread to the core. France looks to be in recession and Germany, for so long the strong man of Europe, looks more like Arnie the Politician than the Mr Universe of the sixties and seventies…(even though Arnie is Austrian). French leading indicators have ticked up a little recently ...