Management approaches, products, projects, results and an interesting, multi-faceted view of global economic and geopolitical scenarios were discussed at Kairos’ annual “Scenari e proposte di investimento” convention held in Milan on 26 January. Again in 2015, the convention provided another occasion to look back at the year just ended and towards the future with a major voice in the international community’s economic and financial debate. Indeed, Kairos Group Chairman and CEO, Paolo Basilico, shared the stage with Robert J. Shiller, 2013 winner of the Nobel Price for Economics and Sterling Professor at Yale University, who spoke of his views before an audience made up prominent figures in the economic and professional world.
In a question and answer session led by Basilico himself, Shiller emphasized his substantial confidence in Europe, although he specified that it will take time for the effects of Draghi’s recently announced QE to spread to the real economy. He was optimistic about Italy as well, but expressed his concerns about interest rates, which he considers too low, especially in the long-term, and his hopes for significant structural reforms.
These were only a few of the many topics that the Nobel Prize winner discussed after the evening’s other speeches. In particular, Fabio Bariletti, General Manager of Kairos, focused on predictions for 2015 in comparison with the years from 2008 to date, noting that, having understood the importance of knowing how to deftly maneuver between different asset classes, Kairos has created a new fund, KIS Real Return, which meets the need of diversifying from bonds. This fund invests in equities, bonds and currencies, drawing on the full range of Kairos’ experience”.
Guido Brera, Manager of Fund Management at Kairos, shared similar views, highlighting how we have now entered a substantially new economic phase: “All this monetization has not generated significant growth, and has instead diminished competitiveness, with the effect of shifting geopolitical balances. The large volume of liquidity could therefore end up in stocks, like it did in Japan and the United States and as it is expected to do in Europe in 2015”.
Next, Alessandro Fugnoli, Group Strategist and author of the acclaimed newsletter “The Red and the Black”, took the floor. As usual, he had an interesting viewpoint to share and reminded clients to distinguish between objective impressions and subjective data. “The numbers tell us that the crisis is behind us,” he argued. “But the point is the high price we paid in terms of public debt to get out of it…”.