Looking back at 2021, according to the Charity Commission Covid-19 Survey, nearly all charities (91%) in England and Wales have experienced some negative impact from Covid-19, including a negative impact on their financial positions. In the world of investments, the picture was very different with global equity indexes ending the year near all-time highs as investors were optimistic about the global economic recovery and successful vaccination programmes.
Key themes for 2022
Key themes for the global financial markets in 2022 will likely be a continuation of those we have been discussing last year, including rising inflation, uncertainty and volatility and climate change.
Most investment managers that we follow retain a constructive outlook on equities (although not to an extent seen in 2021) and a much more cautious view on fixed-income investments. While we expect that investment managers will deploy their tactical views when managing charity portfolios, we believe that these themes are also important for charity trustees and investment committees to address as they are discussing their investment strategies.
We provide more details about how we expect these themes to impact charities and what challenges they may present for the investment committee in our Blog Post that can be found on our website at https://www.pmclconsulting.com/post/charity-investments-2022-outlook.