BlackRock’s Investment Outlook for 2017

Investment Outlook

BlackRock, Inc. based in New York City, is the world’s largest asset manager with $5.4 trillion ($5,400,000,000,000) assets under management, which is even more than what Vanguard has. Due to its power and influence, BlackRock is often referred to as the world’s largest shadow bank. So when this company releases a report, investors tend to pay attention. 🙂

Last month BlackRock published its Q2 2017 global outlook. Below are some highlights.

You can download the full BlackRock report here. 🙂

How does this change my current plan? Not much. After seeing the second chart, I have decided to continue investing in high yield bonds since it’s one of the best performers in the model. The duration is also relatively short (around 5 years.) This lowers interest rate risk. The only fixed income asset that has a higher yield is Latin American government bonds. But I don’t like it due to tax reasons. I can shelter U.S. investments in my RRSP thanks to NAFTA. But Brazilian investments in my portfolio will be subject to the full brunt of taxation. What about diversification though? I do want Latin American exposure. But that’s why I have equity of companies such as BNS conducting business there, instead of owning debt directly.

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