Michael Blayney: How to invest in an inflationary environment | Pendal Group
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Michael Blayney: How to invest in an inflationary environment

Investors are facing the challenge of investing in a high-inflation environment. Pendal’s head of multi-asset MICHAEL BLAYNEY explains what to keep in mind

  • Investors face slowing growth and high inflation
  • Diversification and active investment are critical
  • Equities, bonds, alternatives and currency all play a role

INVESTORS haven’t faced the challenge of investing in a low growth, high-inflation environment for many decades. But that’s the scenario right now.

For financial planners, equities mostly sit at the heart of a portfolio and provide long term growth. Now investors must diversify to protect portfolios, says Michael Blayney, who heads up Pendal’s multi-asset team.

Investors can think about the market in four quadrants, says Blayney:

“First, there’s good growth and high inflation. That’s not necessarily a bad thing for equities. They generally do well, whereas it’s a bad environment for bonds.

“If you have a low growth, low inflation, equities might be lagging a bit, but bonds are doing well.

“Then there’s the good growth, low inflation environment which we have enjoyed since the global financial crisis. We’ve had solid, albeit unspectacular, growth and really low interest rates and that’s been close to a Goldilocks situation for both equities and bonds.

The most challenging time to be an investor is in a low or slowing growth, higher inflation environment – the likely current scenario.

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“We haven’t seen that for a long time. That’s what happened with the dreaded stagflation of the 1970s,” Blayney says.

“That environment is challenging for bonds – they tend to get whacked early when you have the initial high inflation. Once the market adjusts and you get higher yields, they can start being a good investment.”

“Right now, Aussie bonds are about fair in terms of pricing-in higher inflation. Overall, with global bonds, the yields aren’t quite high enough. They haven’t quite priced in the inflationary environment enough.

“But it is an environment where you want to be active because if yields spike, then bonds might be attractive,” he explains.

Inflation-linked bonds are a potential option in the current environment.  In their standard index form, they tend to have long interest rate duration and so can still suffer in a rising rate environment.

Blayney says a critical factor for the asset class is not where inflation has been, but where the market thinks it’s going.  

“If you see the market start to expect inflation to be higher for longer, than you would expect inflation-linked bonds to outperform nominal bonds of the same maturity – though absolute returns may still be negative if the impact of rising yields is larger than the impact of the increase in longer-term inflation expectations, which has been the case so far in 2022.”

So far, the market hasn’t priced in inflation as a long-term problem, with pricing inferring an inflation rate over five years of 2.6 per cent.

Investing in equities in a low growth, high inflation environment is tricky, Blayney says.

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“A higher bond yield means a higher discount rate applies to equities, so they get marked down. And you will also likely see earnings start to come off, though that hasn’t come through in aggregates of broker estimates yet.

“In periods of rising inflation commodity sectors tend to do better. Further, in periods of both rising inflation and falling growth, sectors with sticky demand and pricing power like healthcare and consumer staples have historically been good places to invest.”

Diversify and stay nimble

The current environment highlights the benefits of diversification and being nimble, says Blayney.

It’s time to look beyond bonds and equities, he says.

“There are assets like commodity futures which have followed the pattern of the early 1970s, though have come off a bit more recently. Real assets can be attractive in the listed infrastructure space, where you can get inflation-linked cash flows.”

He warns that trying to pick exchange rate movements is not straight forward.

“The Australian dollar is a commodity currency, so all things being equal, you’d expect with commodity prices high, the Aussie dollar would be strong.

“But it’s also a ‘risk-on’ currency. If markets struggle a bit, you tend to see those currencies fall. And then there’s the interest rate factor and the US Federal Reserve has been more aggressive than the Reserve Bank of Australia. There’s opposing forces on the currency and it’s difficult to get a clear direction for the Aussie dollar.

“Financial planners should think about the things that provide portfolio diversification away from just equities. And that’s bonds, currency and alternatives.

“Unless you have a wonderful crystal ball, you need to own all of them.”


About Pendal’s multi-asset capabilities

Pendal’s diversified funds provide investors with a variety of traditional and alternative asset classes and strategies.

These include Australian and international shares, property securities, fixed interest, cash investments and alternatives.

In March 2024, Perpetual Group brought together the Pendal and Perpetual multi-asset teams under the leadership of Michael O’Dea.

The newly expanded nine-strong team will manage more than $6 billion in AUM and create a platform with the scale and resources to deliver leading multi-asset solutions for clients.  

Michael is a highly experienced investor with more than 23 years industry experience, including almost a decade leading the team at Perpetual.

Find out more about Pendal’s multi asset funds:

Contact a Pendal account manager here


This information has been prepared by Pendal Fund Services Limited (PFSL) ABN 13 161 249 332, AFSL No 431426 and is current as at July 21, 2022. PFSL is the responsible entity and issuer of units in the Pendal Multi-Asset Target Return Fund (Fund) ARSN: 623 987 968. A product disclosure statement (PDS) is available for the Fund and can be obtained by calling 1300 346 821 or visiting www.pendalgroup.com. The Target Market Determination (TMD) for the Fund is available at www.pendalgroup.com/ddo. You should obtain and consider the PDS and the TMD before deciding whether to acquire, continue to hold or dispose of units in the Fund. An investment in the Fund or any of the funds referred to in this web page is subject to investment risk, including possible delays in repayment of withdrawal proceeds and loss of income and principal invested. This information is for general purposes only, should not be considered as a comprehensive statement on any matter and should not be relied upon as such. It has been prepared without taking into account any recipient’s personal objectives, financial situation or needs. Because of this, recipients should, before acting on this information, consider its appropriateness having regard to their individual objectives, financial situation and needs. This information is not to be regarded as a securities recommendation. The information may contain material provided by third parties, is given in good faith and has been derived from sources believed to be accurate as at its issue date. While such material is published with necessary permission, and while all reasonable care has been taken to ensure that the information is complete and correct, to the maximum extent permitted by law neither PFSL nor any company in the Pendal group accepts any responsibility or liability for the accuracy or completeness of this information. Performance figures are calculated in accordance with the Financial Services Council (FSC) standards. Performance data (post-fee) assumes reinvestment of distributions and is calculated using exit prices, net of management costs. Performance data (pre-fee) is calculated by adding back management costs to the post-fee performance. Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future performance. Any projections are predictive only and should not be relied upon when making an investment decision or recommendation. Whilst we have used every effort to ensure that the assumptions on which the projections are based are reasonable, the projections may be based on incorrect assumptions or may not take into account known or unknown risks and uncertainties. The actual results may differ materially from these projections. For more information, please call Customer Relations on 1300 346 821 8am to 6pm (Sydney time) or visit our website www.pendalgroup.com

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