What does the remainder of 2018 hold for investors?

Central banks and multi-asset in the spotlight

With continued uncertainty over trade wars, potential interest rate rises and geopolitical risks such as the ongoing Brexit negotiations Olaf van den Heuvel, chief investment officer of Aegon Asset Management (Netherlands), looks to what the remainder of 2018 holds for investors.

As we expected, the one standout investment feature of 2018 so far has been the return of market volatility across most asset classes. Volatility is generally good news for active fund managers as it provides us with an opportunity to provide add value through fundamental analysis and good stockpicking. And despite this volatility, most economies continue to steadily grow. The year so far has been marked by a continuously flow of different events, such as equity market volatility spikes, widening LIBOR spreads, Italian politics and emerging market currency weakness all of which have t...