Recent thinking

Fixed income
Why fixed income, why now? Navigating a new era for bond markets
31 Jan 2023
Despite ongoing market volatility and geopolitical uncertainty, 2023 could bring attractive opportunities for fixed-income investors, says Barney Goodchild.
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Real Assets
Why London remains the ultimate city of the future: Assessing the prospects for London real estate in a post-Brexit, post-COVID world
30 Jan 2023
Brexit and the post-COVID shift in working patterns have changed the landscape of London real estate. But the city remains well-positioned as a key hub in the global knowledge economy, as Jonathan Bayfield, James Stevens and Ed Atterwill explain.
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Fixed income
Higher for longer: A new era for fixed income
26 Jan 2023
James Vokins and Chris Higham from our credit team believe the path of inflation will remain the central question for investors in 2023. Fixed-income investors should remain cautious until that path is more certain, but fundamental analysis can still uncover attractive opportunities.
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Real Assets
Why infrastructure investors better beat beta: End of cheap-money era brings risks and opportunities
25 Jan 2023
Benign macroeconomic conditions have boosted infrastructure investments over the past decade. But with higher interest rates, investors in the asset class will have to show they can create true value, says Darryl Murphy.
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Liquidity
Opportunities in cash: Our 2023 liquidity outlook
24 Jan 2023
Our liquidity team give their take on what the challenging market environment means for positioning in 2023.
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Equities
Follow the leader: Why companies should take the drama out of CEO succession planning
19 Jan 2023
Botched leadership handovers can severely impair company performance. To satisfy investors, boards need to take succession planning more seriously, argue Trevor Green and Louise Piffaut.
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Real Assets
Resilience, renewables and rates: The prospects for infrastructure debt in 2023
12 Jan 2023
Infrastructure demonstrated characteristic resilience in 2022 in the face of significant headwinds. Sinéad Walshe and Florent del Picchia from our infrastructure debt team expect more of the same this year.
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Real Assets
The (re)price is right – how long-term investors can capitalise on a turbulent time for real estate
11 Jan 2023
Despite the ongoing turbulence in commercial real estate, Daniel McHugh discusses why market repricing represents an opportunity for long-term investors.
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Fixed income
EMD outlook: Why 2023 could offer improved prospects as storm clouds lift
10 Jan 2023
After a bruising 12 months, our emerging-market debt team anticipates an improvement in the asset class’ fortunes in 2023 as declining inflation allows central banks to ease back on monetary tightening. But with many issuers still at risk of default, investors will need to tread cautiously.
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Multi-asset & multi-strategy
Recessions, returns and relative value: A Q&A with Peter Fitzgerald and Ian Pizer
6 Jan 2023
The managers of the AIMS Target Return strategy explain why investors should be prepared for more turbulence in 2023.
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Equities
Charging up: Batteries and the fight against climate change
5 Jan 2023
Batteries are set to play a crucial role in helping to decarbonise the global transport and energy sectors. As capital floods into an industry experiencing exponential growth, we look at the key considerations for investors.
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Fixed income
Focus on the fundamentals: The outlook for high yield in 2023
3 Jan 2023
Macroeconomic forces have been key drivers of performance in the global high-yield market in recent months, but 2023 is likely to bring a renewed focus on issuer fundamentals, say Sunita Kara and Brent Finck.
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Equities
Avoiding tunnel vision: UK equity income 2023 outlook
20 Dec 2022
Chris Murphy and James Balfour, co-fund managers of our UK equity income strategy, reflect on the big shifts in 2022 and what they could mean for the asset class in 2023.
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Multi-asset & multi-strategy
Multi-asset investing: The five big questions for 2023
16 Dec 2022
Sunil Krishnan looks back at 2022, and outlines what multi-asset investors should look out for in 2023.
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What does the data say?
What does the data say? Reflections on COP27
14 Dec 2022
In this month’s instalment of our visual series on topical themes, we look at climate in the aftermath of November’s COP27 event in Egypt.
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Insurance
Time to rethink collateral cash
13 Dec 2022
In this Q&A, Alastair Sewell explains why investors need to urgently rethink their approaches to collateral cash management.
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AIQ: The Macro Stewardship Edition
In this edition of AIQ, we give a primer on the next frontier of responsible investing - macro stewardship - where engagement moves beyond companies to focus on reforming systems.

The Little Book of Data
The world, including finance, is constantly changing and investors are always looking for an edge. Every year, we curate and create what we believe are some of the most relevant and thought-provoking charts and information graphics for our clients. In the fifth edition of our award-winning publication, The Little Book of Data, we use visualisations to bring to life the biggest trends in economies and markets.

The AIQ Podcast
We sit down with some of the best minds in economics, finance and academia to break down important ideas in investing, challenge conventional thinking, and have a bit of fun. The AIQ Podcast brings you the ideas that matter, the intuition behind the results, and the understanding to apply them.

Macro House View
Our House View represents the best collective judgement of Aviva Investors on the current and future investment environment.
AIQ features

Deep water: Ten threats to marine ecosystems
Our air, weather, food, the health of diverse marine life and millions of jobs all depend on the ocean. But we have not done well as custodians of marine ecosystems. Here, we set out ten ways where human actions threaten the health of an essential environment.
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Levelling up: Investing towards a new social contract
As we learn to live with COVID-19, focus is returning to delivering a just transition. This is important to secure long-term investment outcomes, but also presents direct opportunities.
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Back to nature: Why we must act now on the biodiversity crisis
In an age of mass extinctions, policymakers, businesses and financial institutions are beginning to acknowledge the risks associated with biodiversity loss, along with the opportunities that arise from nature-positive solutions.
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Power to the people: The moral and investment case for human rights
Healthy and happy employees, consumers, and communities are all critical ingredients in a company’s long-term success. Investors have a key responsibility in ensuring the rights of these groups are respected.
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Change diets, not the planet: The link between food and sustainability
We explore how shifting diets can help create a more sustainable world.
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Tough gig: How to improve the platform economy
Companies operating in the gig economy have been subject to industrial action and legal challenges. Workers say they are being denied basic rights; platforms reply this is the price of flexibility. But there is a viable middle-ground which can be beneficial for all, including investors.
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Valuing nature: An interview with Elizabeth Maruma Mrema
In this interview, AIQ catches up with Tanzanian biodiversity leader and lawyer Elizabeth Maruma Mrema about the threat of biodiversity loss, the recent Kunming Declaration and missed Aichi Biodiversity Targets, as well as the role of finance in protecting nature.
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The great digital detox
From Russian hackers interfering in foreign elections to high-profile corporate breaches, people are waking up to some harsh realities around data. We look at what the European call for a ‘Magna Carta’ for data has led to, and explore the investment implications of the growing scrutiny over data privacy.
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Waste not, want not: An investor’s guide to the circular economy
Using the examples of electronics, food, autos and fashion, we explore the benefits of, and challenges to achieving, a more circular economy.
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A fair COP: Why social justice is vital to climate action
For too long, issues of justice and equality have been left out of the climate conversation. But policymakers, companies and investors are slowly beginning to acknowledge the social dimensions of climate action.
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We need to talk about waste: Tackling renewable energy’s dirty secret
Renewable energy has a vital role to play if the world is to combat climate change. But its widespread adoption comes with a price. As older installations come to the end of their useful life, countries urgently need to work out what to do with the waste.
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Cleaning up: Transforming finance for a net zero-world
To align with net-zero emissions targets, the financial system needs a radical transformation. Can it get there and, if it does, what should it look like in 2050?
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Counting emissions and accounting omissions: The struggle to measure, monitor and manage corporate net-zero efforts
Internalise the climate externality. That is the major task facing policymakers and corporate executives. However, this requires accurate measurement and incorporation into financial accounts and neither are straightforward.
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Law and climate: Using the legal stick to accelerate change
Energy majors, cement producers, utilities and financial services providers are among the latest targets of legal action designed to make them move faster towards a lower carbon world. Could this be an inflection point, as the conversation turns to specific responsibilities rather than vague commitments to change?
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Pricing carbon: Taxing polluters is the only way forward
Nearly three decades after it first agreed to tackle climate change, the world has failed miserably to curb the growth in CO2 emissions. To succeed, it urgently needs to establish an effective price for carbon.
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The going gets tough: Can heavy industry decarbonise?
Heavy industry and heavy transport are hard to decarbonise, but this must be done to reach net-zero emissions by 2050. Can companies, policymakers and investors join forces to make it happen? The race is on…
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AIQ client matters

Why infrastructure investors better beat beta: End of cheap-money era brings risks and opportunities
Benign macroeconomic conditions have boosted infrastructure investments over the past decade. But with higher interest rates, investors in the asset class will have to show they can create true value, says Darryl Murphy.
Read more

Time to rethink collateral cash
In this Q&A, Alastair Sewell explains why investors need to urgently rethink their approaches to collateral cash management.
Read more

Inflation, yield curves and energy prices: The outlook for buy-and-maintain credit
Siddhartha Bhattacharyya, Iain Forrester and Matthew Raque from our buy-and-maintain credit team discuss the impact of the current environment on portfolios, where they are finding value, and how they are integrating these considerations in their net-zero plans.
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Building better: Investing in the climate transition through real assets
Investors in real assets can propel the transition to a more sustainable future while also benefiting from portfolio diversification and attractive returns, says Mark Meiklejon.
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Alpha, asset stranding and action: The state of play in Climate Transition Credit
Will new climate legislation accelerate the transition, or will the energy crisis hamper it? Thomas Chinery and Justine Vroman assess the implications for strategically positioned bondholders.
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Resilience and selectivity: The outlook for real estate long income
Renos Booth, Isabel Gossling and Kris McPhail from our real estate long income team discuss the strengths of long-income strategies in a period of high inflation and rising rates.
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Inflation, volatility and net zero: The outlook for real estate equity
Ben Sanderson and James Stevens from our real estate team discuss risks and opportunities for property investors amid changing work patterns, rising inflation and the race to net zero.
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What does the data say? Real Assets in focus
In this month’s instalment of our visual series on topical themes, we look at some of the key recent trends in the real asset universe.
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Long income, short ESG windows: Matching real estate long income and responsible investing timelines
Luke Layfield looks at how real estate long income can help address clients’ ESG responsible investing objectives and how respective timelines for implementing change can be best aligned.
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A new Cold War? What the Russia-Ukraine crisis means for globalisation and markets
The world has become more volatile and unpredictable with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. But while Vladimir Putin may have dealt globalisation another blow, China and the West will want to prevent the world splitting into two competing blocs.
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Real assets: An alternative way to hedge inflation risk
As inflation soars to levels not seen in years, the costs of hedging against it via traditional liquid market securities are becoming prohibitively expensive. Real assets might offer institutional investors a better option, argues Luke Layfield.
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Our annual letter to company chairpersons
As a key part of our engagement efforts, every January we send a letter to the chairs of companies we invest in (and some we don’t, but still want to use our influence with) to set out our stewardship priorities for the year. Here, in full, is our 2022 letter.
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That déjà vu feeling: The outlook for UK infrastructure
Darryl Murphy assesses the current state of the UK infrastructure market and the likely drivers of activity in 2022.
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What does the data say? Ice meltdown, unicorns and green pensions
In this month’s instalment of our visual series on topical data themes, we look at melting ice caps, the rising value (and volume) of ‘unicorn’ companies, and the hidden power of your pension.
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How to build an office: Post-pandemic
Watch our video to find out how offices can provide a powerful tool in boosting productivity, and attracting and retaining the best talent.
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Kings, Dukes and superfunds: An interview with Edi Truell
In a wide-ranging conversation with AIQ, the self-described “disruptive capitalist” whizzes through the highlights of a varied career and ambitions for his latest venture, the UK’s first consolidating pension ‘superfund’. Words by Miles Costello.
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