LBS hosts global CNBC Pro Talks broadcast
Members of the School community put their questions to experts in an exclusive discussion hosted by Squawk Box’s Steve Sedgwick
Future market volatility was in focus when CNBC Pro Talks broadcast from London Business School on 27 March 2024.
The programme, hosted by Squawk Box’s Steve Sedgwick, brought together experts Hannah Gooch-Peters, global equity investment analyst at Sanlam Investments UK, and Gerry Fowler, chief European equity strategist and head of derivatives strategy at UBS, to discuss market movements and where investors should focus their efforts.
Hannah Gooch-Peters, a winner of Investment Week’s Young Investment Woman of the Year award, told the programme that despite an apparent healthy market, cracks were beginning to show.
“As investors, we don’t like to speak about crises or crashes, but I think there are some catastrophes going on that perhaps we’re not quite talking about,” she warned, highlighting the underperformance of the tech ARK Fund, which remains down 70 per cent from its peak, and iShares 20+ Year Treasury Bond ETF, a perceived safe asset class that remains down 40 per cent from its peak.
“So we’ve got these cracks showing - some more major than the others - under the surface.”
Nevertheless, Gooch-Peters was positive that investors could still gain under current market conditions.
“I think along with these cracks that are showing, we’re also starting to see opportunities outside of a market that is being very strong on a headline level … There are some great opportunities we can find to improve return expectations in the equity markets, in particular,” she said.
Gerry Fowler compared the current excitement in the market to that which was seen in the mid- to late-90s.
“Part of that is because you are seeing some quite narrow themes that are blowing the market away, like AI, but you’re also seeing macro events that are supporting risk taking,” he said.
Those macro events include the COVID-19 pandemic and the shifting significance of the manufacturing and service sectors, and a yield shock.
“Yields in the US went from something that started with a one to something that started with a five in the space of about 15 months and, while that is driven by macro factors, yields themselves can have different consequences for some companies versus others,” he said.
“Rising yields completely killed the idea that profitless tech could be valued at zero yields forever, so you see very weak performance from growth, expensive, even high quality parts of the market. And you’ve seen a lot of the deeper cyclicals, like banks, doing extremely well because they’re beneficiaries of rising yields.”
Fowler said there was increasing concern that, as those macro factors started to ease, market volatility would rise.
“But, for the moment, low volatility really supports risk taking.”
CNBC Pro Talks are hosted on CNBC’s Pro platform and offer subscribers access to live discussions between CNBC’s top talent and some of the biggest names in investing.
The LBS event marked the first CNBC Pro Talks broadcast from a European business school.
Members of the LBS community joined in-person and put their questions to the experts during the broadcast.
CNBC Pro subscribers can watch the event on catch-up or on CNBC’s channel later this month.
CNBC Pro Talks x London Business School global premiere: 23:00 CET, Wednesday April 17
Middle East, Europe and Asia air times:
Middle East
Thursday 18 April 2024: 01:00 GST
Friday 19 April 2024: 01:30 GST
Saturday 20 April 2024: 06:00 GST, 09:00 GST, 20:00 GST, 23:00 GST
Sunday 21 April 2024: 02:00 GST, 05:00 GST, 08:00 GST, 18:00 GST, 21:00 GST
Monday 22 April 2024: 01:00 GST
Europe
Saturday 20 April 2024: 04:00 CET, 07:00 CET, 09:00 CET, 18:00 CET
Sunday 21 April 2024: 06:00 CET, 16:00 CET, 19:00 CET
Asia
Saturday 20 April 2024: 08:00 HK/SIN, 18:00 HK/SIN
Sunday 21 April 2024: 07:00 HK/SIN, 09:00 HK/SIN, 19:00 HK/SIN
