Arndt Kussmann gets to the bottom of developments on the capital markets and the motives behind investment decisions. For our Head of Portfolio Concepts, the priority is above all putting things into context for investors.
Whether the longest bull market in US history or the globally felt financial crisis of 2008: Arndt Kussmann has already guided investors through many ups and downs on the equity markets. He is doing so again right now, as the war in Ukraine and rising inflation rates unsettle customers. Kussmann is Head of Portfolio Concepts at Quirin Privatbank and also “on duty” for quirion. Keeping an eye on current developments, analysing them, and educating people about them: that is the heart of the work of the 49-year-old and his team.
Kussmann completed his training as a bank clerk at Sparkasse Essen in the 1990s. And he quickly decided there on a path into securities advice. “When I started, we were right in the middle of the euphoria of the Neuer Markt – an instructive time,” Kussmann recalls. First the gold-rush mood and ever more fantastical price targets – then the abrupt collapse and the loss of trust among many private investors: “Emotions played a special role in investing, especially back then. The subject of investor psychology fascinates me to this day.”
Setting out towards independence
For a number of years, Kussmann looked after wealthy private and business clients. In this role, his interest in the securities markets on the one hand and in contact with people on the other could be combined nicely. “At some point, though, I was looking for a new challenge – I wanted to make a change,” the portfolio expert recounts. During this time, he became aware of the newly emerging Quirin Bank.
From the world of savings banks to a start-up: in April 2007, he took the leap – first as an employee, then as Head of Financial Analysis. In this role, Kussmann helped build Germany’s first independent fee-based advisory bank. It now trades as Quirin Privatbank, of which quirion is a majority-owned part. “Since then, an incredible amount has moved at Quirin,” Kussmann observes. “The team and the number of customers have grown, yet you can still work very freely here and shape a great deal.”
Sensible context instead of hot stock tips
Together with his team, Kussmann wants to set “guardrails” for investors. “We continuously look at the markets, but also at the coverage in the media, observe developments, and derive topics from them. We then take those up, for example on the blog or at customer events.” The point is to understand and put current market developments into context – not to hand out supposedly profitable stock tips. The basis is the forecast-free investment strategy, which is grounded in the findings of capital-market research. Its focus is not on short-term trends in individual stocks, but on the long-term return of the global equity markets.
Building wealth over the long term is becoming ever more important. For the younger generation, this holds true if only because they can no longer rely on the state pension alone. In times when capital-investment “no-brainers” such as interest-rate products have largely dropped out as a source of returns, building wealth is no easy task. Kussmann sees conveying know-how around investing as one of the essential goals of his work. “When it comes to sharing knowledge, we want to expand our offering even further in the future,” the portfolio specialist announces. “We are working on this project intensively right now.”
Don’t go with your gut
In this, Kussmann can also draw on his knowledge of investor psychology. After all, he has not only engaged with it in theory but has concretely accompanied many investment decisions. From that experience, he knows the pitfalls of emotions. “Gut feeling, which is very valuable in many areas of life, has been shown to do harm when it comes to investing,” Kussmann emphasises.
Among the most painful investment mistakes he still encounters especially often is a lack of diversification. “Some tie themselves too closely to their home market and thereby miss out on a great many return opportunities. Others focus on hunting for lucrative individual stocks,” Kussmann notes. Even if many of them were held in the portfolio, that would not be genuine diversification. “You shouldn’t let yourself be led emotionally into decisions – neither by regional proximity nor by hot tips – and would do better to orient yourself towards the global capital flows,” Kussmann advises. “With quirion’s globally positioned ETF portfolios, that happens completely automatically.”
