Nov 27, 2017 2:34 pm
“I have a high tolerance for pain” – Elon Musk Elon Musk’s quote has relevance to this week’s commentary. There’s been an ongoing debate about index valuations and forward return expectations. To gain some insight, we study the past 8 years of index returns versus the rest of the market, and put to test the…
Read MoreNov 13, 2017 1:12 pm
“It is dangerous to make forecasts, especially about the future.” – Yogi Berra The Dark Knight for the markets – crude oil – has risen, after a roughly 3 year hiatus. Crude has been, directly or indirectly, a contributor to every major recession going back to 1973-74. The situation today is evolving into a geo-political…
Read MoreOct 30, 2017 11:26 am
“Knowledge of what is possible is the beginning of happiness” – George Santayana A mosaic is taking shape, and a picture of an economy with structural low inflation, declining cost of capital, credit score based infrastructure, improving productivity, sound fiscal policy, credit multipliers, public investment multipliers, leapfrog technology, and healthy rural and urban consumers is…
Read MoreOct 16, 2017 1:52 pm
“If you look carefully, almost all Old Money secrets can be traced to a single source: a longer-term outlook.” – Bill Bonner In the face of dismal expectations for earnings this quarter, we have witnessed a surprising IIP print at a four month high of 4.3%, lower than expected inflation at 3.3%, robust auto sales,…
Read MoreOct 5, 2017 4:57 am
Repo Rate Maintained at 6%, Policy Tone Remains Neutral The Reserve Bank of India today decided to keep the policy repo rate unchanged at 6% in an “effective” 5-to-1 vote. 5 voted for status quo, while Dr. Ravindra Dholakia voted for a 25bps cut. The Monetary Policy Committee maintained its neutral stance on monetary policy…
Read MoreOct 4, 2017 1:26 pm
Thirty years ago, no one could have foreseen the huge expansion of the Vietnam war, wage and price controls, two oil shocks, the resignation of a President, the dissolution of the Soviet Union, a one day drop in the Dow of 508 points, or treasury yields at 2.8% and 17.4%. But surprise, not one of…
Read MoreSep 25, 2017 10:14 am
Markets sold off sharply late last week, with the Fed proving to be the trigger for the carry trade unwind and FI selling. FIs have been regular sellers all month, but their selling picked up steam post the Fed announcement. GST is Extending Working Capital Cycles and Causing a Slowdown, Particularly in Exports… There is…
Read MoreSep 18, 2017 10:11 am
“The biggest risk is not taking any risk… In a world that is changing really quickly, the only strategy that is guaranteed to fail is not taking risks.” – Mark Zuckerberg We are pleased to report performance for Sanctum’s PMS, which completed one year of operations last Thursday. A dominant theme centered around valuation and…
Read MoreSep 4, 2017 2:49 pm
“I would have written you a shorter letter, but I ran out of time” – Blaise Pascal Sanctum Asset Allocation Framework This week, we update our asset allocation pairs framework which forms the key input into our asset allocation profiles and strategy. We use a relative valuation factor based framework. For instance, we compare Equities…
Read MoreAug 22, 2017 6:38 am
“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for certain that just ain’t true” – Mark Twain Domestic Equities With Big Reforms… A case can be made that reforms such as GST, demonetization, real estate reform, unique ID, regulatory reform, targeting willful defaulters and shell companies and so…
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