John Pinto
Executive Director
j.pinto@robeco.com
+1 646 690 9385
www.robeco.com/us/insurers
230 Park Avenue, Ste 3330, New York, NY 10169 USA
About Robeco
Robeco is a pure-play international asset manager founded in 1929 with headquarters in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, and 16 offices worldwide. A global leader in sustainable investing since 1995, its unique integration of sustainable as well as fundamental and quantitative research enables the company to offer institutional and private investors an extensive selection of active investment strategies, for a broad range of asset classes.
As of September 2023, Robeco had USD 186 billion in assets under management, of which USD 183 billion is committed to ESG integration.
Voting to support the climate transition
Climate change has taken center stage during the annual general meeting (AGM) season for many years, offering investors the chance to vote on how well companies are transitioning toward net zero. But it’s not a simple matter of voting yes or no.
SI Dilemma: How important is the G in ESG?
Unraveling 9 key questions about credits
Spring is in the air for commodities, awaiting summer vibes
Equity outlook: Building on momentum
Credit outlook: Race to the bottom
Covariance rhapsody: A reality check for evaluating risk models
Europe: beautiful stagnation, challenging recovery?
SI Dilemma: A tale of two court cases
Real-life experience: Using ML and distance-to-default to predict distress risk
Japan: With all bases loaded, ready for a homerun?
Central bank watcher: One way or another
Customizing quant with Quintet
Tackling modern slavery leads Q4 Active Ownership report
Navigating the climate transition with forward-looking analytics
Carbon data measure a company’s emissions in the past. While this is valuable information, it does not accurately reflect the risks and opportunities related to the climate transition. For that, we need forward-looking metrics to analyze the transition readiness of companies.
Three reasons to move from cash to investment grade credit
As flows typically follow returns, we are now starting to see investors moving out of cash and into credits. This raises the question: Is this a smart move, or is cash still king in the current environment?
Podcast: In tune with the markets – Shame!
Tune in for the best of markets and the best in music with portfolio manager Arnout van Rijn. This week it's all about Davos, the freshly launched Bitcoin ETF, China's headwinds, earnings season in the US and the Great ESG Divide.
Value investing: "The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated"
As 2024 kicks off, we explore the resurgence of the Value factor since the Covid-19 vaccine announcement roughly three years ago, with insights from ten key graphs and analyses.
Podcast: Moving from cash to credits
Multi-asset opportunities in the climate transition era
Seeking opportunities in emerging markets' sustainable transition
Ocean life and hazardous chemicals lead 2024 engagement themes
A good enough end to a roller coaster COP
China needs fiscal firepower to spark equity revival
Credit outlook: Party like it’s the 1990s
Central bank watcher: Running down that hill
Equity outlook: Guarded optimism
We look back on a remarkably strong year for global equity markets, which despite a hesitant start delivered close to 20% returns by mid-December. Our Global Stars, Emerging Markets and Asian equity strategies have been performing successfully, all well above benchmark and high up in their peer group rankings.
Fixed income outlook: Staying Power
SI Dilemma: Is 'good enough' good enough in sustainability?
Finding diamonds in the rough
Marilyn Monroe once famously sang that “diamonds are a girl’s best friend” – but do they hold the same allure as a metaphor for stocks? Looking for hidden gems among small caps rather than fixating on the crown jewels in mega caps may well allow investors to beat the market next year, says strategist Peter van der Welle.
‘You can’t blindly abandon a strategy’
Kent Daniel is professor at Columbia Business School. He was with Goldman Sachs’ Quantitative Investment Strategies group, and his research specializes in behavioral finance and asset pricing research. We spoke to him in the summer about factors, bias and his ongoing research.
Good COP or bad COP for climate summit in oil’s heartland?
It’s the first formal stocktake of how seriously the world is taking measures to combat climate change. So, will the upcoming COP28 summit in Dubai yield any concrete results?
2024 Outlook: Exit stage right for Goldilocks
Robeco’s new one-year outlook warns that the ‘Goldilocks’ scenario of a soft landing for the global economy faces increasing headwinds.
Honey, we shrunk the factor zoo
How many factors does it take to compress the factor zoo? Quant researchers Alexander Swade, Matthias Hanauer, Harald Lohre and David Blitz set out to find the answer.
Central bank watcher: Peaking and tweaking
The rise in long-term yields and the broader tightening of financial conditions has been noticed by central bankers. At both the recent ECB and Fed meeting this was mentioned as one of the factors behind their decision to keep rates on hold, in addition to signs of moderating inflation pressures.
AI, meet SI: Using artificial intelligence for sustainable investing
Artificial intelligence is being hailed as the greatest advancement of the 21st century – but can it help sustainability? Yes, says quant expert Mike Chen, who believes it may turn into a ‘moon landing moment’ for solving the world’s greatest problems.
Engaging for a Just Transition leads Q3 Active Ownership report
The issue of mitigating the social cost of transitioning from fossil fuels leads the Robeco Active Ownership team’s report of its activities in the third quarter.
Reversing the trend of short-term reversal
Has the short-term reversal effect truly vanished? In a new paper, Robeco's Quant Investing research team—Chief Researcher David Blitz, and Senior Researchers Bart van der Grient and Iman Honarvar—continue to explore the complex landscape of short-term reversal strategies. Serving as a sequel to the 2022 publication, "Beyond Fama-French Factors: Alpha from Short-Term Signals," this latest paper addresses growing concerns about the short-term reversal phenomenon.
‘The SDGs provide a valid, reliable way of working towards that impact question for investment portfolios’
Kees Koedijk is a Professor of Finance at Utrecht University and a Fellow of the Centre for Economic Policy Research in London. He is one of three academics on Robeco’s Advisory Board for the UN Sustainable Development Goals, providing objective feedback on the scoring methodology of our SDG Framework, as well as its application to investment products.
Finding value within long-term thematic trends
It’s been man overboard for thematic investing as the style went out of favor in 2022. Steadying the ship means following the underlying trends that support key themes such as digital transformation and the green transition, says analyst Daniel Ernst.
The power of chips: The most strategic commodity in the world
Semiconductors are set for a resurgence in 2024 as their role in sustainable energy becomes ever-more important, says multi-asset investor Arnout van Rijn.
Using machine learning for emerging market equity returns
Machine learning algorithms and models have large potential for investing in emerging stock markets, says quant researcher Laurens Swinkels.
Vigilance required
Welcome to our renewed and expanded Fundamental Equity Quarterly. In addition to our regular outlook articles for developed markets and emerging markets, we present several new sections in this publication: where we differ from the market, Japan trip notes, sustainability highlights, a ‘stunning statistic’, and an interview with one of our lead portfolio managers.
SI Dilemma: Social or environmental – is the whole bigger than its parts?
At Robeco, we have always considered sustainability holistically. We started out integrating financially material sustainability issues in our investment processes. To also be able to analyze companies’ impact materiality, we developed a framework based on the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and their underlying targets, thereby taking a holistic view on global sustainable development.
Credit outlook: This time is not different
Consensus views in the market have changed from a high likelihood of a recession to a most likely soft landing, at least in the US. Download the latest credit outlook to find out more.
Integrating the SDGS into Government Bond Portfolios
Extending the Robeco SDG Framework to cover government bonds can provide a useful way of bridging the funding gap for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, says quant researcher Laurens Swinkels.
Fixed income outlook: It's hard not to be bullish
Our fixed income quarterly outlook supports the belief that policy rate peaks are close or have arrived, and in either a ‘hard’ or ‘soft’ landing scenario bonds can rally from current levels.
The invisible hand that guides bond markets
Understanding the neutral interest rate at which an economy neither contracts nor expands has vexed investors for years. But once grasped, the r* rate can provide many opportunities in bond markets, say Martin van Vliet, Bob Stoutjesdijk, Rikkert Scholten and Philip McNicholas.
5-year Expected Returns: Triple Power Play
Robeco is pleased to launch the 13th edition of its flagship annual publication, Expected Returns 2024-2028. The title this year is ‘Triple Power Play,’ in which our experts predict that three separate but overlapping forces are set to dominate markets over the next five years.
Mind the gap: Effectively replacing sustainability exclusions
Sustainable investors commonly exclude the least sustainable companies, but in doing so create a gap in the portfolio. Our latest research compares various methods to replace these excluded stocks.