January’s publication summarizes three articles on value, growth, and momentum. The first separates fact from fiction in value investing, the second discusses how the growth premium can be helpful to the value investor, and the third highlights how momentum in combination with value and growth can lead to a less-risky portfolio.
In this edition of VantagePoint, we briefly discuss economic growth prospects, reaffirming the need to be cautious about cyclically oriented assets in an environment of low growth and severe weakness in some corners that could potentially spread. In other words, we remain patient in evaluating opportunities and set high standards for taking cyclical risk. We review our outlook for cheap assets that keep getting cheaper (commodity-related assets and emerging markets equities), evaluate the case for high-yield bonds as yields and spreads have widened, and revisit our global developed markets equity recommendations.
2015 looks likely to go down as a year to forget for many investors, and 2016 may bring only slight improvement.
Every year, we take a fresh look at the themes and drivers likely to influence capital markets and, along with our valuation analysis, inform our asset allocation recommendations. Heading into 2015, we identified five trends that influenced our advice: US dollar strength, weakening commodity prices, elevated US equity valuations, extremely low sovereign bond yields, and…
Considering climate factors is an economic risk management and opportunity capitalization issue core to prudent investing for the long term.
November’s publication summarizes three articles on China. The first suggests that the country’s GDP growth rate is unlikely to decline severely, the second argues that the government’s policies to stabilize the economy probably will promote a more sustainable growth path, and the third highlights how China’s slowing growth may limit global growth.
In 2009, we published a paper titled “Behavioral Risk” that described the universal tendency to make poor investment decisions in times of crisis because individuals typically allow instinct and emotion to override objective analysis of the pertinent data. The ideas in the paper remain as pertinent as ever. To return investors’ attention to this important topic, we are republishing the paper with comments that reflect the ideas in light of the current environment.
No. We continue to advise small overweights to Asia ex Japan or emerging Asia relative to US equities, but would not suggest investors add more substantial overweights unless they have an exceptionally long time horizon and the ability to tolerate substantial volatility. The risks to emerging markets are well known. Commodity weakness, a slowdown in…
Well-diligenced private investments in a skillfully constructed portfolio are important growth drivers that have helped pension funds deliver superior performance and increased the probability of meeting or exceeding long-term required returns.
Investors should be wary of modifying their bond exposures solely based on what they think interest rates might do, and focus instead on bonds’ role in the portfolio and on mitigating risk/return asymmetry at current yields.