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Global Asset Allocation, Politics & Governance, Ecstrat

John-Paul Smith

Global Asset Allocation, Politics & Governance

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.

Cross Asset Strategy

Multiple Countries / Cross Asset Strategy

<p>Bull markets are born when the prevailing sentiment is one of disgust and die amidst hubris. The post-GFC run-up in equity prices has been rightly labelled as the most hated bull market in history, but sentiment and flows are finally catching up with the 425% appreciation in the S&amp;P 500 index, which has taken place since the markets' post-GFC nadir at the start of February 2009. Conventional wisdom is that long-term investors should not attempt to time markets but there are times such as 1999-2000 and 2007-08, when it is worth taking the risk of being early and shifting assets into cash and cash proxies given the prevailing levels of valuations and sentiment.</p><p>I believe this is one of those occasions, as current market levels do not discount the potential impact of three key secular drivers on the anticipated returns to capital over the medium term.</p>

Bull markets are born when the prevailing sentiment is one of disgust and die amidst hubris. The post-GFC run-up in equity prices has been rightly labelled as the most hated bull market in history, but sentiment and flows are finally catching up with the 425% appreciation in the S&amp;P 500 index, which has taken place since the markets' post-GFC nadir at the start of February 2009. Conventional wisdom is that long-term investors should not attempt to time markets but there are times such as 1999-2000 and 2007-08, when it is worth taking the risk of being early and shifting assets into cash and cash proxies given the prevailing levels of valuations and sentiment.I believe this is one of those occasions, as current market levels do not discount the potential impact of three key secular drivers on the anticipated returns to capital over the medium term.

Global Equities: China, Technology and Politics to Dominate 2018