The political environment is arguably more important now for investors than it has been for many years. Trump’s presidential victory in the US, the rise of ‘populism’ in Europe, and potentially more regulation for domestic energy, healthcare and banking sectors all have the potential to impact markets. Show More
I recently travelled to the US for a closer look at global health care companies. The trip was timely - the investment decision in the sector became increasingly contentious during 2016, driven by the US political debate as well as some weakening fundamental trends in the stocks. I came away... Show More
How do we explain Donald Trump’s rise, the risk of a Brexit, the fact that Marie Le Pen stands a good chance of becoming France's next president, and the general situation of a political world in which all incumbents appear ready to be knocked off their stools? Simple, Dr. Watson!... Show More
It is getting interesting. Attention has been focused since August 11 on the unsustainable nature of the Chinese problem. What China needs, given the over-investment in non-productive assets estimated at $1.7 trillion a year for several years, is a deep recession, the writing off of several trillion dollars of debt... Show More
Long U.S stocks and short gold has been a nice trade in the past week. While I have my own reasons for the positions which I will outline at the end of the post, I often feel the markets price action is representing hope that stocks will provide the yield... Show More
With the release of CPI figures last week we have completed our September economic model for the USA…Overall price weakness is the area of key concern and the average year-on-year price increase across the QMG coverage universe (10 countries) is now -2.5% with the trend having been consistently negative across... Show More
The S&P500 suffered a shocking Q3 2015 seeing July +1.3%, August -6.3% and September -2.6% wiped off the value of the index erasing all year on year gains.. Recovery has come back into October however with Fed rate hike likely pushing into 2016, question of whether positive trend sustainable becomes... Show More
US steel tube and pipe manufacturing remains one of the weakest products across QMG's coverage universe: volumes (down -53% yoy), pricing (down -13% yoy) weak, costs increasing at +13% yoy, pressure on both revenue and margins....most highly correlated equity that we have mapped to this product group is Tenaris (North... Show More
I have decided to dedicate this newsletter to the US economy, given that our investments in the US represent close to 60% of the fund's portfolio. Despite the recent stock market correction, the US economy is growing nicely with US GDP growth revised upwards to 3.7% in the second quarter.... Show More
QMG’s economic data collected from various US statistical agencies points to 3 areas of concern in the DIY Retailers space. These are 1) Negative trend in QMG Sales observations. This is driven by declining volumes and and we also observe an increase in costs… 2) Factors are lining up in... Show More
