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Independent Strategy adds value to its clients by seeking out investment themes and opportunities in Macro Investments, often challenging conventional wisdom.
Too often investment research is constrained by the narrow focus of the research provider, but we seek to create a cohesive global view. We are compact and flexible enough to respond quickly to an ever-changing investment scene.
The research is designed to benefit both short-term and longer-term strategic thinking. It carefully studies geo-political and economic events, while looking for breaks in historical trends to uncover investment opportunities.
RESEARCH
We produce 60-70 reports a year on investment strategy, dealing with multiple investment topics. The scope of the research is global.
PORTFOLIO ADVISORY
After due consultation with the client, we devise a dedicated investment benchmark and country allocation policy for a portfolio of assets.
ALTERNATIVE INVESTMENTS
Alternative investments are becoming an increasingly important part of institutional investors’ portfolios.
Latest Reports
The gray zone – mapping events
This is what has changed in the gray zone map of war recently. The Ukraine peace plan of returning all…
Banking Monitor
Since the beginning of the current crisis, bank deposits have fallen $390bn, while borrowing from the Fed and other sources…
Learning to live in the gray zone
The world is not at war, but neither is there a new cold war. The world is in a gray…
The gray zone – mapping events
This is what has changed in the gray zone map of war recently. The Ukraine peace plan of returning all occupied territory to Ukraine is now a war objective, away from fighting an invader on an invader’s terms to arming Ukraine to win (not just ‘not lose’).
SUBSCRIBE TO DOWNLOAD REPORTSBanking Monitor
Since the beginning of the current crisis, bank deposits have fallen $390bn, while borrowing from the Fed and other sources has risen $430bn. Borrowing from the Fed’s facilities has stopped for now. Flows into money market assets have risen $450bn. Bank credit growth has slowed from 11% yoy at the beginning of 2023 to 8% yoy now. Small and regional banks stocks remain near all-time lows; and the bond yield curve remains heavily inverted. So stress remains.
SUBSCRIBE TO DOWNLOAD REPORTSLearning to live in the gray zone
The world is not at war, but neither is there a new cold war. The world is in a gray zone between the two. That will mean: a weaker dollar as the global reserve currency; more government spending, particularly on arms; lower growth and trade, but higher inflation. It will mean lower equity returns (as profit shares fall) and higher bond yields (given higher inflation). Most emerging markets will not outperform.
We shall all spend the rest of our lives living in the gray zone of mutually hostile alliances and bilateral treaties. This report will focus on the economics of the gray zone and its subliminal warfare. This is geopolitics with a hard edge.
We shall hark back to globalisation as like a childhood dream of a prairie or a steppe wide open and free. But now hedges, walls, barriers and walled cities dot it. They channel, influence, and often determine, every aspect of economics and markets. Nothing is immune. The economics of the state, defense, trade, technology, capital flows, reserve currencies and cultural interchange are all recast. The boiled-down variables of inflation, interest rates and investment all suffer a sea change into something more complex, poor and strange.
This report, hopefully, helps provide a way of thinking about the economics of the gray zone. But it has not the pretension to be a final answer.
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