by James Downie | Jan 10, 2019 | All Articles, James Downie, MitonOptimal Group, MitonOptimal PM (SA), Weekly Comment
The latest TLA (three letter acronym) rolling off asset managers’ tongues at every conference is ESG. Every manager claims to espouse the principles of ESG in their fundamental research process and when pressed for a sound bite to quote their adoption of ESG, one is offered a suspiciously similar paragraph from each manager that one
by Liam Wyatt | Dec 21, 2018 | All Articles, Joanne Baynham, Market Update, Markets, MitonOptimal Group, MitonOptimal PM (SA), Weekly Comment
Looking into 2019 and attempting to make sense of the year ahead, I am reminded of the old expression that economists exist to make weathermen look good! With that in mind, and the fact that almost no investment strategists called the events of 2018 (except for the perma-bears, but as they say even a stopped
by James Downie | Nov 29, 2018 | James Downie, MitonOptimal Group, MitonOptimal PM (SA), Weekly Comment
Every time one opens the financial press, one is faced with the debate between “active” investing and “passive” investing and, particularly these days, how investor flows have been flooding out of active investing and into passive. Active investing is easy to define. It is the style of an investment manager to take active bets away
by Liam Wyatt | Nov 21, 2018 | All Articles, Market Update, Markets, MitonOptimal Group, MitonOptimal PM (SA), Scott Campbell, Weekly Comment
As we have been presenting and debating for over 20 years, the big picture discussion over US inflation / disinflation / deflation and then inflation again is clearly shown on any long-term chart of the US Bond Yield. The last time we had US 10 year interest rates at a cyclical low of around 2% was
by Andy Pfaff | Nov 16, 2018 | All Articles, Andy Pfaff, Commentary, MitonOptimal Group, MitonOptimal PM (SA), Weekly Comment
I attributed this quote to the economist John Maynard Keynes in my last Weekly Comment in August (“As per John Maynard Keynes, change your mind – portfolio positioning – when the facts change. But not before”). There is some disagreement on the origin of this quote, but apparently the comment should have been attributed to
by Liam Wyatt | Nov 7, 2018 | All Articles, MitonOptimal Group, MitonOptimal PM (SA), Roeloff Horne, Weekly Comment
It has been a devastating eight months for investors in Emerging Market (EM) bonds and equities. In US$ terms, investors in EM equities (using the MSCI EM ETF as proxy) have now faced four years of basically zero returns. One could suggest several reasons for this setback in asset prices: fear of continued trade wars
