EM PM, Ecstrat

Emad Mostaque

EM PM

Ecstrat

Ecstrat is a consultancy advising on asset allocation between global equity markets, with a focus on the intersection of governments, geopolitics, governance and markets.
 
Over the past few years and more especially since the Great Financial Crisis (GFC), investors have become more focused on short-term market movements and real-time returns and have consequently neglected the analysis of the underlying structural themes that underpin longer term performance.
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More specifically we believe that the evolution of governance-based relationships between investors, controlling shareholders, labour and the state is one of the primary determinants of both relative and absolute performance between individual equity markets.
 
We will endeavour to provide investors with some of the context surrounding governance-related issues which encompass many different disciplines including history, economics and political science, as well as the financial metrics which are the most obvious manifestation of the structural characteristics of each market.
 
We will pay particular attention to the shifts and potential inflection points for governance in individual markets as these are often the best lead indicators for both economic and market performance.

Thematic (Sector/Industry)

Egypt Financials / Thematic (Sector/Industry)

<div>Below are some thoughts on the current situation in Turkey re: the Kurdish flare up, the likely outcome of which will be an AKP majority government. Not all kurds are the same and ISIS is succeeding in its tactics of neutering one of the more effective forces against it, although the YPG &amp; Peshmerga will remain.</div><div>&nbsp;</div><div>Egypt is now at a crucial point in its development, with real risks of repeating the mistakes of Algeria in the 90s civil war.&nbsp;</div><div>&nbsp;</div><div>Further escalation may well mark a great opportunity for investment however as the underlying economy, ex-tourism, will continue to hum along with the real victim of all this being civil society.&nbsp;</div>

Below are some thoughts on the current situation in Turkey re: the Kurdish flare up, the likely outcome of which will be an AKP majority government. Not all kurds are the same and ISIS is succeeding in its tactics of neutering one of the more effective forces against it, although the YPG &amp; Peshmerga will remain.&nbsp;Egypt is now at a crucial point in its development, with real risks of repeating the mistakes of Algeria in the 90s civil war.&nbsp;&nbsp;Further escalation may well mark a great opportunity for investment however as the underlying economy, ex-tourism, will continue to hum along with the real victim of all this being civil society.&nbsp;

Vanguard FTSE Emerging Markets ETF (VWO US)

A Kurdish conundrum & Egypt faces the ghosts of Algeria