Amareos

Ryan Shea

Thematic (Sector/Industry)

2016's "Political Kill" season continues, making this year one of the most toxic for incumbent politicians we can ever recall.Monday saw Italian PM Renzi announce his resignation following the crushing defeat of his constitutional-reform-turned-personal-confidence-vote referendum; an outcome clearly flagged by our crowd-sourced sentiment indicators as outlined in an earlier Market Sentimentalist Insight.However, Renzi is not the only political leader whose time in office appears to be drawing to a close. South Korea’s President Park Geun-hye is facing an impeachment vote in parliament this Friday, having failed to pacify her critics with her pledge to step-down in April. The scandal has led to a surge in social unrest and contributed to South Korea being the crowd’s “most-hated” country.Such strong emotions are reminiscent of what we observed last December in Brazil, when President Rousseff also faced impeachment proceedings. Back then this extreme crowd negativity proved to be a very prescient contrarian buy-signal for Brazilian equities. Is the same now true of South Korean equities? Is Mr. Market again offering investors an early Christmas present?

2016's "Political Kill" season continues, making this year one of the most toxic for incumbent politicians we can ever recall.Monday saw Italian PM Renzi announce his resignation following the crushing defeat of his constitutional-reform-turned-personal-confidence-vote referendum; an outcome clearly flagged by our crowd-sourced sentiment indicators as outlined in an earlier Market Sentimentalist Insight.However, Renzi is not the only political leader whose time in office appears to be drawing to a close. South Korea’s President Park Geun-hye is facing an impeachment vote in parliament this Friday, having failed to pacify her critics with her pledge to step-down in April. The scandal has led to a surge in social unrest and contributed to South Korea being the crowd’s “most-hated” country.Such strong emotions are reminiscent of what we observed last December in Brazil, when President Rousseff also faced impeachment proceedings. Back then this extreme crowd negativity proved to be a very prescient contrarian buy-signal for Brazilian equities. Is the same now true of South Korean equities? Is Mr. Market again offering investors an early Christmas present?

ishares msci switzerland index fund (etf) (EWL US)

ishares msci switzerland index fund (etf)

Listed Index Fund JPX-Nikkei Index 400 (1592 JP)

The Market Sentimentalist: Political Kill