Uncertainty: the only certainty
Delaunay opted for hedging his European equity exposure instead of selling it off, because he believes Greece will only be a short-term issue for the markets, even if a Grexit actually materialises.
“We have been talking about this for four years now, so people have had time to prepare. Therefore a Grexit will not trigger a major crisis, but probably only something like a correction,” he says.
Not everybody thinks as lightly about the consequences of a Grexit though.
“If Greece goes bust, so what?” says Jacques Bossuyt, a fund selector at Novacap Asset Management in Luxembourg.
“The danger is, however, that the markets will take Greece’s bankruptcy as an excuse to trigger a crisis.”
In the end, adding the unpredictable game theorist annex Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis to the equation, there is probably only one thing we can conclude, and that is that there is a whole lot of uncertainty, which is not going to fade for some time to come.
“Now I’m actually not so sure about a Grexit anymore. My opinion is changing from one day to the other,” Delaunay says tellingly.
And for most investors, uncertainty is a strong incentive to sell, maybe even more so than if a Grexit would be a given. So your reporter’s bet is that markets will continue their downward path for some time to come.
