| Facing headwinds This week brought more bad news for investors with inflation in the UK hitting 9 per cent and stock markets reaching lows not seen for a number of years.
Figures from the lang cat revealed that financial advisers and wealth managers are working harder than ever. Rich Mayor, senior analyst at the lang cat, comments: "In the face of strong economic headwinds in the cost-of-living crisis, interest and inflationary rises, ISA and pensions gross sales were only a smidge down from the same totals as last year.
Around two-thirds of total platform gross sales came from advisers, but advised net sales formed just shy of 90 per cent of the total net sales. This indicates that while outflows have increased, it is focused in other channels such as D2C, proving the value of advisers in reassuring clients and staving off snap decisions to sell at potentially the worst time.
The financial
climate has put active funds back in the picture, and a study from Capital Group published this week revealed that nearly two-thirds (63 per cent) of investors prefer using active funds to integrate ESG, with equities (80 per cent) over bonds (58 per cent) being the most popular asset classes globally to gain ESG exposure.
Thematic investing becomes a popular port of call for investors facing challenging markets and we have an interview this week with BB Biotech’s Dallas Webb.
USD3.3 billion specialist biotech investment company, BB Biotech, has enjoyed 28 years of being in the right sector at the right time, returning an annualised share performance of 12.5 per cent since launch.
Covid and the headwinds of rising inflation and interest rates have proved a challenge to the sector, but Webb says: "Everyone understands this is a sector of growth and has never been stronger in terms of innovation, science and chemistry."
Beverly
Chandler, managing editor, Wealth Adviser
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