It was a challenging market environment in the second quarter. We take a closer look at real assets, defensive sectors and factor indexes as investors navigate what might be a prolonged period of volatility and uncertainty.

Carbon markets can play a significant role in managing carbon risk within equity portfolios to hedge against price risks. Our research focuses on applications, carbon-risk management and correlations to other assets classes.

Demand and pricing for industrial commercial property got a boost from spiking e-commerce demand during the early part of the pandemic. We look at the longer-term trends in e-commerce sales for guidance.

Real estate investors have historically exhibited a strong home bias. But there is evidence that real estate may have become more global based on return and transaction behavior — bucking the trend, evident in listed markets, toward deglobalization.

Although real estate income returns have tended to be stable in aggregate, the right-hand chart below illustrates the extent to which they have varied across individual properties in the MSCI Pan-European Quarterly Property Fund Index (PEPFI).

Understanding private capital’s exposure to the energy, materials and utilities sectors, and their related industries, across asset classes, may be critical in supporting more-informed risk management and engagement decisions.

As 2021 real estate index returns roll in, we’ve seen a broad-based acceleration of returns across nearly all countries and property types. But what can looking beyond the aggregate index returns tell us about the difference between the winners and losers?