Driving allocations

After more than a decade of stimulus induced by the global financial crisis, the world is now contending with an even-larger wave of central-bank and government interventions.

Investors are working double time to reassess priorities and assess the coronavirus-related damage to their portfolios. They are doing so at a time when fiscal and monetary policies are changing practically daily.

We are only beginning to understand the kinds of pressures this pandemic is placing on economies around the world. Prior to the COVID-19 outbreak, property was already feeling squeezed, with too much money finding too few places to call home. Years of quantitative easing produced record-low returns on fixed-income products, driving additional capital into property. How much of this new round of stimulus, at a time of even lower interest rates, will follow suit?

Central banks have essentially exhausted monetary policy in response to the outbreak. Governments have stepped in with f