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3Q 2021 GMO Quarterly Letter

This quarterly is a piece written by my Asset Allocation co-head John Thorndike. In it, he explains the rationale behind our strong preference for non-U.S. stocks despite the stellar performance the U.S. stock market has delivered over the last decade. The research behind the piece is an example of the bread and butter of our historical asset allocation analysis.
GMO Quarterly Letter: Speculation and Investment

Speculative booms provide both entertainment and outsized profits while they are happening, but they do generally burst painfully,” Inker writes. “Speculative booms provide both entertainment and outsized profits while they are happening, but they do generally burst painfully. This is particularly true in equity markets, where the demand growth is ordinarily met with increased supply from savvy capitalists. Maintaining excess demand in the face of growing supply becomes ever more difficult and eventually proves impossible.
The Duration of Value And Growth

It is commonly assumed that growth stocks are bigger beneficiaries of falling interest rates than value stocks, an assumption driven by a belief that growth stocks are much longer “duration” than value stocks due to the fact that more value in growth companies comes from relatively more distant cash flows.
1Q 2020 GMO Quarterly Letter
In a new quarterly letter to GMO clients, Ben Inker, head of asset allocation discusses the current uncertainty over the market and economic outlook and the decision to significantly reduce net equity exposure in the GMO Benchmark-Free Asset Allocation Strategy. Alongside Inker’s letter, Jeremy Grantham writes in “The Virus, The Economy and The Market” ...
Q&A with Ben Inker of GMO on market valuations and asset allocation
On May 5 at 2pm ET, Ben Inker of GMO will answer advisors’ questions about market valuations and asset allocation.
Ben Inker is head of Boston-based Grantham Mayo Van Otterloo’s (GMO's) asset allocation team. In his years at GMO, Ben has served as an analyst for quantitative equities and asset allocation, as a portfolio manager of several equity and asset allocation portfolios, as co-head of international quantitative equities, and as chief investment officer of quantitative developed equities. He earned a bachelor's degree in economics from Yale University and is a CFA charterholder.
Shades of 2000
The years leading up to the 2000 stock market bubble were extraordinary and unprecedented. They caused unique pain to the portfolios of valuation-driven investors. The valuation extremes, though, created the greatest opportunity set for valuation-driven investors since the Great Depression.
Emerging Markets—No Reward Without Risk
Emerging equities are more volatile than developed market equities. This owes little to the volatility of emerging stock markets in local terms and much more to the strong positive correlation between their local stock markets and movements in their currencies. The spring of 2018 was a classic example of this, with US dollar strength driving significant emerging weakness.
Is Investing Starting to Get Difficult Again?
In a new quarterly letter to GMO's institutional clients, head of asset allocation Ben Inker reflects on a change in the investment environment in the first quarter, characterized by a rise in volatility and a significant shift in the correlation between stock returns and bond returns ("Is Investing Starting to Get Difficult Again? I Hope So").
GMO Quarterly Letter
In a new quarterly letter to GMO's institutional clients, head of asset allocation Ben Inker considers the hypothetical question posed by chief investment strategist Jeremy Grantham in his third-quarter 2017 letter, "What should you do if you are tasked with managing Stalin's pension portfolio?" ("Don't Act Like Stalin! But maybe hire portfolio managers that do?").
GMO Quarterly Letter
In a new quarterly letter to GMO's institutional clients, head of asset allocation Ben Inker discusses why investors should be thinking about the risks of surging inflation, even if such a surge may not be inevitable or even probable. Chief investment strategist Jeremy Grantham considers the current market environment and how to most rationally take risk with the ultimate stakes on the line.