Editorial
Marketing Communication
It’s easy – and tempting – for investors to want to react to news headlines and market movements. But, as we argue across the various pieces in this edition of ETF Market, investors should try to stay the course, think long term, and remain focused on their financial objectives.
One increasingly popular investment approach falls under the category of goals-based investing. This is all about aligning your investment strategy with personal aspirations, rather than trying to ‘beat’ the market1.
The first step in goals-based investing is to clearly define financial goals and their time horizons. Examples of goals might include saving for holidays, or longer-term objectives such as putting money aside for your child’s university education, a property purchase, or your own retirement.
On the topic of longevity, the computer game The Sims was released 25 years ago. As with many other games since, players have the opportunity to create their own characters. Everything from gender to age to hairstyle and fashion can be customised. In a similar way, using data from Amundi’s 2025 Decoding Digital Investments survey, we can build a character profile of a typical retail ETF investor across various European countries.
When looking at longer time horizons, the survey finds that many European retail ETF investors say that a comfortable retirement is either their primary or secondary motivation for investing. However, there are differing levels of confidence in achieving their long-term objectives. UK respondents are the most optimistic, with 86%2 saying they believe they will achieve their retirement goals. Italians trail at 66%2 – well below the European average of 76%2 – while respondents in France and Germany came in at 73%2 and 82%2 respectively.
Although US or world indices remain popular building blocks in portfolios, there is a case to be made for a broad-based pan-European allocation. This could offer diversification3 – and less concentration risk4 versus the US, for example – because it includes stocks from multiple countries across various sectors.
Other reasons to consider Europe include potential dividends5 and the relative resilience of many companies on the continent that draw a large portion of their revenues from international markets. Europe’s benchmark indices in major markets might also be considered other crucial options in an investor’s toolkit, along with sector-focused allocations. All in all, European ETFs could present growth opportunities for an investor with a future-focused mindset.
It’s important for investors to make decisions aligned with their personal goals, time horizons and risk tolerance. We nevertheless believe this issue of the magazine might give you some insights that could help you with your long-term investment thinking.
1 "Beating the market" refers to the ability of an investor to achieve returns that are higher than a benchmark index2 Source: Amundi’s ‘Decoding Digital Investments: Achieving a More Prosperous Future’. Data as at January 20253 Diversification does not guarantee a profit or protect against a loss. However, a diversified portfolio could help to spread risk across different asset classes, sectors, and geographic regions4 Investment involves risks. For more information, please refer to the Risk section below5 Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future performance
