Apr 3, 2020 | Featured, Framework, Global Economy, US Economy
The coronavirus pandemic is a highly unusual circumstance, and in several ways we are in uncharted waters. Two weeks ago we published a thematic report titled Recessions and Shocks In which we applied our tools, our signals and our outsider approach to: distinguish...
Mar 15, 2019 | Featured, Framework
Extrapolation has killed more people, companies and portfolios than almost anything else we can think of. You assume that you’ll continue to be healthy until you get that cancer diagnosis or fall to the floor from a heart attack. You assume profits will continue to...
Sep 11, 2018 | Featured, Framework
Bethany McLean has written a book titled Saudi America on fracking and how it might contribute to the next financial crisis. She writes: Some of fracking’s biggest skeptics are on Wall Street. They argue that the industry’s financial foundation is unstable:...
Jul 29, 2018 | Emerging Markets, Featured
We recently published a new white paper on EM Crises. In this report, we look at the history of EM crises. How they unfold, and when they become buying opportunities. EM crises have generated some of the largest market sell-offs in the last 25 years. At the...
Jul 19, 2018 | Asia, Emerging Markets, Featured, Framework
Failing to spot the Asian currency crisis of 1997 would have been disastrous for an investor. In the case of Thailand, Malaysia and the Philippines, it took almost a decade for equity markets to reach January 1997 levels again in nominal terms. But, how can you see a...
Jul 11, 2018 | Featured, Framework
The financial media and economists are almost always late to a trade. That’s because they’re reporting on what has been performing well and are simply extrapolating that performance into the future. Retail stocks are the latest example. There is no shortage of...
Jun 13, 2018 | Featured, Framework, Global Economy, Japan, US Economy, US Equities
Recessions are like death – it’s not a matter of if they will happen, but when. Morbid? Perhaps, but as Steve Jobs put it, “Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life… death...
Sep 23, 2016 | Featured, US Economy
The ISM Manufacturing Index came out at the beginning of the month and offers a dim view of the next three months for US manufacturing as well as for stocks. The key data we focus on in the ISM is the relationship between New Orders to Inventory. The ratio leads the...
Jun 29, 2015 | European Economy, Featured, Framework
At the start of 2012, Variant Perception’s research team wrote a paper on the best way to break up the euro. A lot has happened since this paper was written. However, it still provides a clear, solid analysis of the problems leading up to the current situation....
