James Montier and Matt Kadnar, members of GMO’s Asset Allocation team, have just published a new white paper -- “The S&P 500: Just Say No” -- warning of the risks to investors throwing in the towel on valuation, diversification and active management in favor of a passive allocation to large-cap U.S. equities.
Imagine an asset class with a decently positive expected rate of return, little to no equity beta, and little to no interest rate duration. A unicorn? We think not.
Emerging Value and Margin of Superiority by Ben Inker and Why Are Stock Market Prices So High? by Jeremy Grantham
Bhartia, a portfolio manager on GMO’s Emerging Markets Equities team, and his colleague Mehak Dua, explore the benefits of combining a risk-based approach with valuation in an asset class that has grown considerably more complex over the last three decades.
Jeremy Grantham explains why he believes that the high equity prices in today’s market have some staying power, and expects it will take much longer than usual for the power of mean reversion to draw profit margins and price earnings ratios back to historical norms.
After a decade of lagging relative returns, value equities delivered impressive performance in 2016, outperforming growth stocks by 10% in the US.
Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates effectively excommunicated Qatar from the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC); they cut off all transportation links, forced Qatari citizens in the GCC to leave, and closed their airspace to Qatar Airlines’ flights to Europe and the US. The stated goal of these measures is to force the Qatari government to stop allying with the government of Iran and to stop supporting certain political/terrorist groups, like the Muslim Brotherhood, in Egypt and across the Middle East. However, if the Qataris do not accede to their demands, their objective may become to cause regime change in Qatar. The US has a major military base in Qatar and so has a stake in the outcome.
Investors have a tendency to prefer home cooking when it comes to their stock portfolios. In the latest GMO Asset Allocation Insights, Rick Friedman writes that US-based investors are paying steep prices for domestic equities. but straying from their home market presents more attractive prices.
In a new quarterly letter to GMO's institutional clients, head of asset allocation Ben Inker addresses "perhaps the most common question I get from clients: What keeps you up at night?" ("Up At Night").
Is the dollar losing its grip on its status as the world’s reserve currency?
