Here are the seven featured research reports of this week. The unavoidable “Brexit” still features in four of the seven research reports as a major risk factor. Speaking about factors, factor investing is also a popular theme these days.

1. Schroders is signalling in “Global update: Panic over, what’s next?“ that after a rocky start of the year the tail risks in the markets have eased, but the question remains whether the outlook has brightened. According to hem that depends on whether the outlook for global activity will improve. They expect a steady growth, but nothing spectacular.
2. Abn Amro is signalling the still lingering political risks in the euro zone. The usual suspects are Greece and Portugal, but also Spain that has to form a new government and of course the Brexit referendum.
3. In their monthly asset allocation publication “Investment Monthly”, HSBC continues to favour risk assets such as global equities, corporate bonds and high-yield debt relative to developed market (DM) government bonds. However, US equities are now underweighted.
4. In the Global Investment Outlook Q2 2016 BlackRock takes a look at Q2. Stabilizing growth, a slower pace of rate increases by the U.S. Federal Reserve (Fed) and a pause in the U.S. dollar’s rise bode well for markets in the near term, they believe. Main risks remain a Chinese Yuan devaluation and a Brexit.
5. In “Brexit update” AXA takes a look at the polls and spread bets. At the time of writing the UK is most likely to remain in the EU. But “…event risk provides the greatest uncertainty to the outcome of the 23 June vote over the coming months…”.
6. FX Prospect collects all currency exchange rate forecasts drawn up by various parties and processes it to average exchange rate expectations. In the March edition of Consensus FX Forecasts it becomes clear that the Brexit threat has provided for a sizeable drop in GBP; risks remain tilted to the downside into the June 23 referendum.
7. Lately we see a lot of articles about Factor Investing. The Factor Approach by BlackRock gives a solid introduction to the subject. More Factor reports can be found here.

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