Welcome to the 10th edition of Perspectives

Following strong performances throughout much of 2017, the majority of global markets have consolidated over recent weeks. Importantly, near-term weakness is still playing out in the context of uptrends and a supportive global credit backdrop.

In this edition, we highlight two strong performers of 2017: Frontier Emerging markets and Bitcoin. Cryptocurrencies and the Blockchain have been hot topics throughout most of the year and with bitcoin reaching $15,000 at the time of our writing, we seize the opportunity to revisit the investment thesis as “institutionalization” of cryptocurrencies could become a strong theme in 2018. Frontier emerging markets is for sure closer to our core business - this month, we highlight the reasons of our long-term positive stance on this segment of the market.

The Special focus of this edition is about investing into emerging managers instead of allocating exclusively to the big names. This Fund lifecycle theory has been well documented by academics and we explain thereafter why it should be integrated into a fund selection and asset allocation process.

Last but not least, we share our key takeaways from our latest trip to Saudi.

We hope you will enjoy this issue