Coach is a brand best known here in the US for their leather accessories. The primary risks to the company’s future are the same as its opportunities as it now looks to expand its reach beyond the US and other developed markets into higher growing emerging markets. http://www.seasoninvestments.com/insights/coach-gets-the-tap/
Since the financial crisis the reasons for favoring EM have changed. In a world where most developed countries are struggling under the weight of excessive debt and lackluster economic growth, emerging economies stand out as a diamond in the rough, but strong economic fundamentals have not translated into outperformance for EM equities. http://www.seasoninvestments.com/insights/an-emerging-dichotomy/
The price of gold is reflecting the tug of war between near-term expectations of a global recovery and long-term inflation risks. As the old saying goes, “gold is no one’s liability” which makes it the perfect life raft for investors with a long-term perspective faced with a global economy that is drowning in debt. http://www.seasoninvestments.com/insights/a-golden-life-raft/
We added AAPL to our watch list when it broke below $550 in November, and we purchased the stock yesterday in our client portfolios at roughly $451/share. We’ll spare you the technical details as there is no shortage of hyper-granular analysis available on the web, but here are a handful of high-level reasons for our decision. http://www.seasoninvestments.com/insights/buying-a-four-letter-word/
The current path of government debt and central bank balance sheet expansion is clearly unsustainable.Everyone knows this and yet interest rates are at historically low levels. Will there ever be a tipping point which changes the direction of interest rates, and if so what will be the catalyst and when will it happen? http://www.seasoninvestments.com/insights/tipping-point-for-interest-rates/
The global slowdown and specific concerns over China’s economy have resulted in Chinese equities being one of the worst performing markets this year. This weakness largely reflects the market’s uncertainty surrounding the soft or hard landing debate. We believe the underperformance has left China’s market very attractive from a valuation standpoint. http://www.seasoninvestments.com/insights/shanghai-hanging-low/
We have been in a policy-driven market now for roughly four years. Both monetary and fiscal authorities have played a heavy-handed role in the economy and capital markets over this time period. Global central bank (monetary) policy is on our Macro Radar due to its post-financial crisis impact on investor sentiment and the performance of both stocks and commodities. http://www.seasoninvestments.com/insights/macro-update-central-bank-policy/
Japanese bonds and the Yen have fared extremely well over the past three decades in the face of persistent deflation and sluggish economic growth. This strength is largely due to Japan’s aging population, which is becoming more heavily skewed to the older end of the spectrum. As such, the Yen makes for an excellent play against US Dollar devaluation. http://www.seasoninvestments.com/insights/micro-update-japanese-yen/
Walter Energy (ticker: WLT) is a pure play metallurgical coal producer with operations in the United States. The market for met coal has been very tight over the past several years due to constrained supply and increasing demand from emerging markets like China, India and Brazil. http://www.seasoninvestments.com/insights/micro-update-walter-energy/
As we head into the New Year there are four factors on our “Macro Radar” that we believe will be the primary drivers of financial market performance in 2012, which means we will spend a lot of time proactively focusing our research efforts on understanding and monitoring their development throughout the year. http://www.seasoninvestments.com/insights/macro-update-2012-macro-radar/
