The past year has been as rewarding for investors as it has been confounding for analysts.  While economic growth weakened to its slowest pace since the global financial crisis, both equity and fixed income markets performed well. Market valuations sent contradictory signals regarding the outlook. An observer who has not followed markets closely might wonder if equities and bond markets are dominated by separate sets of investors that rarely commingle.

Buy a cheap asset, watch it appreciate, and then sell it. What sounds like a simple and intriguing recipe for investment success is probably one of the most complicated to implement.

In a recent meeting with a London based fund manager, an investment case was made for a macro bet to be made on the secular shift towards fiscal expansion in one of the countries most famed for their discipline and steadfastness in this area, Germany.

At Parkview, we are finding it increasingly difficult to justify an allocation to “Emerging Markets” as an asset class (EM). This isn’t a tactical change in position, but a structural change of view. There are both positive and negative developments that lead us to this change in positioning.  Over the next few quarters we plan to shift out of emerging market funds and to focus on only a few countries and regions where the investment case remains strong.

The falling tree and the value of an independent advisor

I recently had a falling tree knocking out power of the whole neighborhood. I was puzzled, as it occurred in the middle of a sunny, windless day, but even more so, as I have had an Arborist from a well-known firm checking all our trees just a few months earlier. How was that accident possible? I turned to another tree expert, recommended by a friend. This independent advisor used to work for our previous advisor and shed some light on the mystery.

Entrepreneurs create wealth - failed succession destroys it

Two-thirds of the wealthiest families globally are self-made (1), a proportion that continued to grow over the last decade at the expense of inherited wealth. This trend seems to be largely driven by accelerated wealth creation across the emerging markets, but also by a new generation of risk-taking entrepreneurs in fast-growing sectors such as technology.

Since the beginning of the year we took the view that, despite blustering rhetoric, the US-China trade dispute would be resolved within weeks of its initial deadline. Our optimism was grossly misplaced.

There are two certainties in economics. The first is that economic cycles exist: recessions eventually happen. The second is that economists are terrible at forecasting them. A recent study found that the IMF was able to forecast 5 out of nearly 470 past economic downturns.