Robeco: Peripheral Europe Update, week 29

Lega waters down flat tax election promise  

Main market events

Peripheral spreads tightened during the week, although on Friday Italian bonds came under some pressure after speculation on a possible upcoming fall of the Lega-5-Star government. The supposed deadline is July 20th, to allow for new elections before the Autumn budget round. Last week’s sell-off in Spanish and Portuguese bonds only lasted for two days as speeches by ECB members increased the prospects for further stimulus in September. Italian bonds have returned 8.9% year-to-date, Spanish bonds 8.9%, Portuguese bonds 8.7% and Irish bonds 6.6%.

Italy

The Italian government is considering to introduce a reduced, flat tax rate of 15% on personal incomes in 2020, but only on the part of the income in excess of 2019 levels. A flat tax on incomes has been the main policy pledge of the ruling Lega party. A flat tax rate of 15% on incremental incomes is estimated to cost just EUR 2bn, as opposed to several tens of billions if a flat rate on all incomes would be implemented.

Spain

Negotiations between the Socialist PSOE and Podemos broke down this week, as PSOE leader Sanchez refused to give ministerial positions to Podemos members. This increases the chances of renewed elections around September. Although PSOE won the 28-April elections, they remain well short of an absolute majority. Latest polls show PSOE would gain even more seats than in the 28 April ballot. The Spanish economy continues to ignore the political uncertainty and seems to weather the slowdown in the rest of Europe well, thanks to solid growth in the services sector.

ECB

Ahead of next week’s ECB meeting, at which the central bank is expected to pave the way for fresh policy easing in September, ECB staff seemingly have begun studying a potential revamp of their inflation goal of “below but close to 2%”. In his Sintra speech from last month President Draghi already emphasized that there was conviction at the ECB in pursuing the inflation goal in a “ symmetric”  fashion. That would allow the ECB to keep inflation above 2% for a while after a period of inflation weakness, and hence to keep policy accomodative even longer.

Robeco Euro Government Bonds

We used the sell-off in Portuguese bonds to close the underweight in PGBs. Moreover we bought 4-year Italian inflation-linked bonds. We believe peripheral risk will remain well supported in the run up to the ECB meeting next Thursday. After a period of weakness, inflation linked bonds are expected to gain ground as the ECB steps up its efforts to revive inflation expectations.  The fund is 42% invested in peripheral bonds, which is 1% above the level of the index. Year to date the absolute return of the fund is 7.22%*.

* Robeco Euro Government Bonds, gross of fees, based on Net Asset Value, 18 July, 2019. The value of your investments may fluctuate. Past results are no guarantee of future performance.