Braitling: Long short strategy the best option for choppy markets

Braitling: Long short strategy the best option for choppy markets. We feel that long-short equities strategies such as variable beta and equity market neutral will fare best in 2015. Australia's transition away from mining is not going as smoothly as many would have hoped. The mining sector will be in a bear market for some time as most commodities now look oversupplied. While the housing cycle is one of the few bright spots, this was last year's story. Most of the companies exposed to the trend have struggled this year. With earnings growth hard to come by, the ability to pick winners and losers from within sectors also allows an investor to profit from the relative difference in performance between stronger and weaker companies, while hedging out exposure to macro-economic factors.