Robeco: Spanien hochgestuft

Main market events

Peripheral bonds performed better than German bonds this week. The differences between theperipheral countries were relatively small. Just like with the Greek and Catalan elections in theprevious weeks, the Portuguese election outcomes did not upset markets. Portuguese bondsreturned 4.4% this year, Italian bonds 3.4%, Irish bonds 1.2% and Spanish bonds 0.9%.

Spain

S&P upgraded Spain on Friday by one notch, from BBB to BBB+. It argued that the Spanisheconomy has benefited from the reforms carried out since 2010. European CommissionerMoscovici has cautioned Spain that its proposed 2016 budget does not meet European spendingrules. On the Commission's predictions, Spain's deficit will reach 4.5% of GDP in 2015 (above therequired 4.2%) and 3.5% in 2016 (above the required 2.8%).

Portugal

The incumbent center-right coalition has won the elections, but it fell short of an absolutemajority. A minority government supported by the center-left is now being discussed. Both thecenter-left and the center-right have supported the bailout program in recent years.

Greece

The government will present its 2016 budget today. Official forecasts include a further GDPcontraction in 2016. Public debt is projected to rise to 196% this year and to 201% in 2016.

Ireland

The Irish government will make some changes to its corporate income tax regime in the 2016budget due on 13 October in order to clamp down on tax avoidance.

Robeco Euro Government Bonds

We are cautiously optimistic on the periphery. We continue to see the ECB’s QE program, thegenerally supportive stance of EU policy makers towards the periphery and the improvement ingrowth as positives for peripheral debt. On the other hand risk aversion in wider financialmarkets (related to emerging markets, commodities and weaker global growth) can weigh onthe periphery. The fund has an overweight in Portuguese bonds and Spanish bonds versus Italianbonds as Portugal benefits disproportionately from QE and Spain’s recent underperformance dueto election concerns is overdone. The fund maintains its overweight in 10-year Irish bonds.Peripheral bonds make up 34% of the fund. Year-to-date the fund’s absolute performance is1.23%.

Der vollständige Beitrag als pdf-Dokument