Faang's Fall, Fed's Focus and Foreign Fears

Spring arrived last Tuesday… but you may have missed it as it came along with the cold and snow. Along with the harsh weather, the economic and political news also blew cold air onto the markets.

The week started with a sharp drop in stocks, with Facebook plunging 7% -and losing in one day about $30 billion of its value - after news that a political intelligence firm that had worked on the Trump campaign had obtained data on millions of Facebook users. This fall spread to the market, starting with the tech companies. The other FAANG stocks (the FAANG include Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Google/Alphabet) together lost an estimated $39 billion in market value on Monday, bringing the total loss on FAANG stocks to almost $70 billion in one day. But the sell-off was not limited to the tech sector: the Dow Jones also ended down on 1.4%.

On Wednesday, as expected, the Fed raised short-term interest rates by 25 basis points, at its first meeting under Jay Powell’s presidency. The Fed also confirmed two additional rates will increase this year and signalled three new increases for 2019, one more than expected. This announcement pushed stocks slightly down but what really had the biggest impact on the markets last week was the US tariff hikes on Chinese imports. Stocks plunged amid fresh fears over a trade war: the Dow Jones industrial average lost 2.9% on Thursday and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng has decreased by 4% since its market opening on Thursday.

In this downward-oriented market, Ageas’s shares ended the week down 3.0%, in line with the Euro Stoxx 50 (-4.1%) and the Bel20 (-3.6%).

But we had at least one reason to rejoice as we have been ranked n°1 in category “Best Analyst Days” and N°2 in “Investor Relations Program”, from amongst 33 European small and midcap insurance companies, by Institutional Investor. We are really proud of this achievement as this ranking, which is based on the votes of no fewer than 1,054 investors and 791 sell-side analysts, is a reference in the investor’s sector. Thank you for this vote of confidence; we will keep doing our best to deserve it.