More than half of investment funds attached to unit-linked insurance started the year in the red as foreign and Bucharest stock exchange decline ate into yields.
Practically, 26 of the 42 funds on the domestic market made losses the first month of this year, led by KD Maximus (-15.98%), where Slovenia's KD Life invests unit-linked money. This was followed by Interextra (-13.02%), managed by Interamerican, Exponent, managed by AIG Life, which invests 90% of insured people's money in shares listed on the BSE, with a 12,56% drop, Practic Max-Aviva (-11.66%) and Progresiv-Allianz-Tiriac (-11.53%).
The other 16 funds that were in the black posted increases ranging between 0.19% (Bond, managed by ING Asigurari) and 1.93% (Euro-Plus, managed by Allianz-Tiriac) in January.
The biggest losses were registered by the funds investing in shares given that the BET index of the BSE which gauges the performance of the 10 most important companies listed on the Bucharest Stock Exchange, lost 23% in January and the US Dow Jones Industrial, for instance, dropped 4.6% in the same period.
"According to analyst forecasts, 2008 will be a difficult year for European and US financial markets, as well as for the Romanian one. Analysts anticipate slower economic growth and the negative data that continued to emerge in the wake of the US mortgage crisis are harming the banking sector," explains Sinziana Maioreanu, commercial manager of Interamerican. She says the domestic and foreign capital markets are more strongly correlated and any move on foreign markets is more visibly felt in Romania.
The funds attached to unit-linked insurance did not have a better performance last year, either: though only four were loss-making, most of them posted low yields, of between 0.28% in the case of Intermedium, managed by Interamerican, and 29% in the case of KD Maximus, the o
