Neil Birrell: Investors' challenges go beyond bond markets

'Many drivers of asset prices'

Everybody has been talking about the seismic shift that has taken place in bond markets for an age and I myself have written one too many pieces on it, so there will be no comments about inverted yield curves in this piece.

Instead, I'll use this column to focus on the changing priorities of shareholders as ESG (environment, social and governance)  takes centre stage. There are many drivers of asset prices. At the moment, cyclical ones are to the fore. But we should never forget the structural political and social changes that are taking place around the world and the impact that they will have on economies and markets. These, of course, are very wide ranging. In demographics, alone this ranges from ageing populations in some countries to the impact of the millennials in others. The wealth in the hands o...