Investment Outlook Q2 2016

Lower interest rates and liquidity injections stimulated the US economy in the aftermath of 2008, but the same measures in Europe and Japan are struggling to deliver any sustained boost to activity. As a result, the ECB and BoJ have adopted increasingly unorthodox measures, using negative interest rates and buying private-sector non-fi nancial bonds. Even more noteworthy is the fact that some eurozone central bank offi cials are no longer ruling out helicopter money, i.e. distributing banknotes directly to households, in the hope of driving infl ation higher.