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.
​
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>In January’s ‘Government and Markets’ report, we used the themes in the 2016 GEM overview and China outlooks to introduce our intra-GEM country weightings.</p><p>We provide more detail on each of these countries in the full version of this report, focusing on the economic, financial and structural governance issues that we believe will be the most important market drivers over the course of this year and beyond.</p>

In January’s ‘Government and Markets’ report, we used the themes in the 2016 GEM overview and China outlooks to introduce our intra-GEM country weightings.We provide more detail on each of these countries in the full version of this report, focusing on the economic, financial and structural governance issues that we believe will be the most important market drivers over the course of this year and beyond.

Shanghai Electric Group Company (601727 CH)

Haitong Securities Co Ltd (A) (600837 CH)

China Railway Construction Corp (1186 HK)

China Communications Construction (1800 HK)

Shanghai Pudong Development Bank Co. (600000 CH)

Shanghai Electric Group Company (2727 HK)

Metallurgical Corporation of China Ltd (1618 HK)

China Pacific Insurance (Group) Co., (601601 CH)

Shanghai International Port Group (600018 CH)

Wens Foodstuff Group Co., Ltd. (300498 CH)

Governance, Valuations and the Crisis of State Capitalism