Investment Strategist, Transparently.AI

Mark Jolley

Mark Jolley has been an investment strategist for almost 40 years. In that time he has advised some of the world’s biggest investment funds, public companies and notable investors.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s Mark managed the consulting firm Syntec Economics, which advised the world’s largest mining and commodity trading companies on interest rates, exchange rates and commodity price trends. 

In the newly deregulated environment of the 1980s, he was among the first analysts to identify key linkages across markets under the floating exchange rates, such as between US and global bond yields, and between the US dollar and global equity and commodity markets. 

He was a vocal bear on Japan’s economy in the late 1980s and one of the few to call the Japanese market peak in 1990 and subsequent recession. He warned of a collapse in the pound ahead of the ERM crisis of 1992.

In the mid-1990s, Mark became a global investment strategist with Deutsche Bank. For almost a decade, he produced perhaps the most influential daily investment notes in global financial markets with a regular readership exceeding 16,000 investment professionals including, at one point, all voting members of the Fed, the ECB and the Bank of England.

Mark increasingly turned his focus to Asia in the early 2000’s, moving to Hong Kong in 2004 as the Asian Strategist for Deutsche Bank and then as Strategist for China Construction Bank. At the peak of the emerging market mania in late 2007 he was the only strategist with a bearish call on Asian markets.

Originally from Tasmania, Mark now calls the Philippine island of Siargao his home.

Investment Strategist

Fletcher Building - FY24 Result — The Cycle Bites

AI detection of accounting fraud and manipulation

Transparently.AI

Fraud and manipulation of their numbers see companies lose USD1 trillion+ per year for their stakeholders. Transparently.AI has developed an AI system that determines:

1. The likelihood that a company is committing fraud/serious manipulation of their books;
2. Whether it is serious enough to result in total corporate failure;
3. Estimated $ losses to stakeholders;
4. How that manipulation/fraud evolves through time; and
5. Detailed analytics on the forms of manipulation/fraud (e.g. which parts of the accounts, what tricks of the trade, questions for analysts to ask management, where/how to investigate further, etc.).

This is effectively automating the analysis of forensic accountants, activist short sellers, credit analysts, etc to do work that would typically take weeks per company, and instead run it in seconds and for thousands of companies simultaneously.

Critically, this solution frequently alerts users to the presence of serious manipulation risk up to 2-3 years in advance of the wider market and short sellers becoming aware of problems.

Forensic Accounting

<ul>
<li>Embattled Kiwi building materials giant announced emergency fundraise in September</li>
<li>Accounting quality has deteriorated significantly in recent years, AI tool shows</li>
<li>Share price is a quarter of its 2007 peak, company leadership is in flux</li>
</ul>


Embattled Kiwi building materials giant announced emergency fundraise in September
Accounting quality has deteriorated significantly in recent years, AI tool shows
Share price is a quarter of its 2007 peak, company leadership is in flux


Fletcher Building

Fletcher Building: Plugging the Leaks