Macroeconomics

AgPa #54: Transitory Inflation

How Transitory Is Inflation? (2023)
Rob Arnott, Omid Shakernia
The Journal of Portfolio Management April 2023, URL/Research Affiliates/SSRN

Full disclosure: I am generally skeptic about macro forecasts and I don’t think statements like “We had the same situation in 1980 and therefore things will develop like XYZ.” are much helpful. In economics, two situations are never exactly the same and we humans are very good when it comes to finding patterns in essentially random data. However, given how important the topic over the last years was and still is, I couldn’t resist the temptation. This week’s AGNOSTIC Paper is a little scenario analysis how “transitory” inflation actually was in the past.

  • Transitory inflation would be a historical best-quintile outcome
  • Historically, it took >5 years to get >8% inflation down to 3%

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AgPa #53: Investing in Interesting Times

Investing in Interesting Times (2023)
Annti Ilmanen
The Journal of Portfolio Management Multi-Asset Special Issue 2023, URL/AQR

Almost exactly one year ago, Antti Ilmanen (Partner at AQR Capital Management) released his outstanding book Investing Amid Low Expected Returns: Making the Most When Markets Offer the Least. The book is (in my opinion) a must-read and the timing couldn’t have been better. Many of the key themes began to materialize in 2022. Given how much markets have changed since then, Antti released a few updates for six of his major ideas in this week’s AGNOSTIC Paper.

  • The low expected return challenge
  • Investors’ response to low expected returns – private markets
  • What happened in 2022 and where we stand now
  • Long-only versus long-short strategies
  • Downside protection via trend-following

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