Savings between protection and enhancement

“Il savings it must become a driver of the real economy. With the debt we have, if we don’t transform savings into the real economy, we won’t do the country any good.” It is one of the steps of the intervention Maurizio Casascopresident of the parliamentary commission supervising the tax registry, spoke at Consulting 2024currently underway atAuditorium Parco della Musica in Rome. Casasco underlined that in this context the role of financial advisors takes on fundamental importance. “We also need a larger stock exchange, a stronger financial market, greater investment in equity and, at the same time, less, more specific and simpler regulation.”

Yes to technology, watch out for bubbles

During the second day of the event organized by Anasf Father, among others, spoke Paolo Benanti, theologian and president of the national commission for Artificial Intelligence. “Trust is the value that can never be replaced by machines. We need to study and enhance the potential of this emerging frontier of technology, but without losing sight of the centrality of man,” he added.

Remaining in the vein of potential to be balanced with risks, Carlo Benetti, market specialist of Gam (Italia) Sgr, focused on the situation of the financial markets, fresh from a long run in the stock market, but almost exclusively due to a small handful of technology stocks. “This means that we need to go beyond list price multiples, looking for revaluation opportunities especially among the stocks that have lagged behind in the last period”.

Benetti recalled a recent headline in the Economist which spoke of the concrete risk of a bubble on some stock exchanges, to highlight that “identifying financial bubbles at the very moment they occur is particularly difficult. This leads us to say that the most effective antidote is diversification, to be implemented wisely and ready to review one’s beliefs as market situations change”.

Solutions built on individual needs

Per Paolo Fumo, commercial director of Cnp Vita Assicura, the best way to avoid being influenced by the economic situation is to focus on planning that starts from the needs of the individual customer. In this sense, the insurance investment policies they have very interesting peculiarities to consider not only during the purchase phase, but during the entire duration of the contract. I think of policies as the foundations of a building: when you want to do a renovation, you shouldn’t question the foundations unless superstructures are created,” he adds.

However, the increase in redemptions that characterized the market last year suggests that this awareness is not always present: moving towards different financial instruments does not necessarily respond to the logic and needs initially requested. “In this context, the consultant plays a key role: he is the point of reference for the client and is increasingly asked for a global approach capable of guiding savers towards conscious and responsible financial choices (and not only) that go beyond the yield,” he concludes.

Second Giancarlo SandrinHead of Wholesale Distribution for Southern Europe at Lgim, the future will be of the Etf, even if their success up to now has been limited in the face of a market dominated by supply, which has limited the development of fee-only consultants, i.e. those paid on a fee basis and therefore immune from the risk of conflict of interest in relation to proposed investment. “ETFs are transparent and low-cost tools for implementing investors’ investment strategies. We are seeing more and more consultant networks expanding and pushing the provision of independent consultancy.”

In particular, Sandrin sees a bright future for the thematic investments, which aim to ride the structural changes affecting the economy and our very lives, such as “the energy transition, health and well-being, technological innovation and demographic changes. THE megatrend they offer greater diversification than an investment in a single stock considered a leader in a specific theme, and in many cases they are aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, contributing to a positive impact”, he concludes.