Robeco chief executive Maurice Meijers has said that financial participants love to predict another 2008 or 2000 and that this was not realistic.
“I think it is extremely difficult to make such an assessment. If we just look at the facts in terms of the status of the credit markets, leverage, growth etc. I think it’s to be expected that we are going to see some weakness,” he said.
Mr Meijers said that Robeco is more optimistic and that the market trends are making debt affordable and keeping markets strong.
“We are not predicting a trainwreck, far from it. We still feel that markets are too strong,” he said.
Mr Meijers did say, however, that there were indicators that the Australian market has started to cool off.
“The Australia government bull market has been one of the stronger performers of the year to date that’s because with that cooling of the economy, bull markets have rallied,” he said.
Robeco creates a sustainability assessment together with their data firm RobecoSAM. Mr Meijers said that the data it produces can help to predict future trends.
“What we as investors are more interested in are the trends. If we see the deterioration of political risk, does it have any bearing on the future direction of fixed income earnings,” he said.
However, Mr Meijers said that an ever-changing political landscape often does not have any long-term impacts on the market.
“If there is one country that is mired by political uncertainty or changes, it’s Australia. It does not affect credit markets, it does not affect interest markets. It might impact equities market[s], but to us it’s slightly less relevant,” he said.
Mr Meijers thinks that Australia will see some fluctuation moving forward.
“We have seen quite a bullish environment for markets and it’s difficult to see here that Australia can continue to outperform,” he said.
