Industry Voice: The emergence of thematic investing

Thematic investing is providing new opportunities for investors to invest in the long-term trends transforming the way we live and work.

clock • 1 min read
Industry Voice: The emergence of thematic investing

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In recent years thematics have been one of the fastest-growing segments in the world of equities. Omar Moufti, Lead strategist on thematics for iShares by BlackRock, highlights that the pandemic accelerated a lot of digitalisation and healthcare-related trends:

"I think the pandemic has been a good acid test for thematics since you had an event which brought forward some future trends. We saw the sustainable themes as being particularly resilient in this environment, due to the long-term structural growth drivers behind the companies the team invests in.  This was a big boost to the growth of the industry."

An immediate trend that looks to impact demand for thematic investing is inflation. While thematics are focused on gaining exposure to structural growth, they can also have value factor exposure. And in the case of rising inflation, commodity-linked themes have seen strong returns.

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