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

<p>As early as January of last year, I suggested that notwithstanding his stated admiration for Russia’s leadership, President Trump would eventually be forced to take a harder line than his predecessor against Russia, writing that ‘ the incoming US administration is more likely to impose stricter sanctions against Russia than to repeal them’ - this at a time when commentators on Russia were universally predicting that a more emollient approach from the new president compared with his predecessor…</p>

As early as January of last year, I suggested that notwithstanding his stated admiration for Russia’s leadership, President Trump would eventually be forced to take a harder line than his predecessor against Russia, writing that ‘ the incoming US administration is more likely to impose stricter sanctions against Russia than to repeal them’ - this at a time when commentators on Russia were universally predicting that a more emollient approach from the new president compared with his predecessor…

Russia: The Valuation/Governance Trade-Off Has Become Even More Binary