Insight for outcomes

Our food system needs to be more productive and sustainable with increased demand, changing diets and an outdated production system. According to PGIM thematic research group director Jakob Wilhelmus, there are two main challenges in the food chain right now – our current food system is outdated and secondly the devastating impact on the environment and climate change.

Last year was a terrible year for growth equity investing but 2023 will be a year they can shine, as long as interest rates stabilise, according to Raj Shant, London-based managing director and equity portfolio specialist at Jennison Associates, which is a fundamental equities manager owned by PGIM.

Balanced portfolios will be more volatile without the “natural hedge” provided by a negative correlation between stocks and bonds, but diversification will remain a powerful tool to protect portfolios, according to Noah Weisberger, managing director in the Institutional Advisory & Solutions group at PGIM.

The world is experiencing the results of an underinvestment in traditional oil/gas energy infrastructure which was compounded by Covid- 19, when some companies believed that peak oil demand had arrived pulling back even more on investment, then came the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and the disruption is overlaid with the longer-term focus on energy transition. David Winans, principal and credit analyst for PGIM Fixed Income’s US investment grade credit research team and Julia Newbould, managing editor, Conexus Financial look at both sides of the demand and supply puzzle.

A shift towards positive correlation between stocks and bonds is likely, and this phenomenon could persist for many years if history is a guide and this could lead to a “much more volatile world” for those trying to maintain balanced portfolios and may force investors to either raise their risk budgets or lower their return expectations, according to Dr Noah Weisberger, managing director at PGIM IAS group.

Michelle Teng, vice president and co-head of the private assets research program in PGIM’s Institutional Advisory & Solutions (IAS) group, speaks with Julia Newbould, acting editor at Investment Magazine about how climate change and early release schemes can affect super funds and the wider economy.

Junying Shen, vice president and co-head of the private assets research program in the Institutional Advisory & Solutions (IAS) group at PGIM, speaks with Amanda White, editor of Top1000Funds.com (Investment Magazine’s sister publication), on how historical performance and cash flow characteristics differ enormously among infrastructure asset sectors.