Monday, November 21, 2016

Market Commentary for the week of Novemeber 21, 2016

Getting back to business
Investors are often inclined to look outside their comfort zone, at opportunities that sound good but might be, in fact, too high risk/high reward gambits to suit them.  For some inexplicable reason they shy away from "boring" parables, lured instead by something that sounds newer and shinier.  Frequently, what's right in front of their noses just leaves them uninspired.

But the problems that have grown out of the world's "new demography" have actually created investment opportunity whose capital gains probabilities quantify at the highest ranges of my proprietary statistics.

Consider water, for example.

Because of situations that relate to scarcity, pollution, aging infrastructure, and expanded commercial/private usage, the topic has been one which lends itself to discussion and opportunity like almost none other.

Urban areas around the globe have shown difficulty maintaining delivery and purification of the commodity, while rural areas are dealing with other factors, such as access and supply.  These are not just regional problems, they are universal.

The topic of water, and other socially responsible themes, has occupied a great deal of my research time.  For several decades I have built algorithms which focused upon ubiquitous demographics, specifically creating a target silo investment opportunity, the Water Concept Investment Strategy, in the past 18months.  Thus far, its performance has demonstrated that you can address socially responsible issues while still generating profit potential for the very long-term.

Better times
More people are starting to connect the dots between discussing current events and creating investment possibilities....without having to exceed one's comfort zone for risk/reward tolerance.

Changing climate and eco-systems are no longer seen as far away abstracts.  Whether one believes in the science or not, all of us are aware in some fashion of crop shortages, thirst and hunger, arid deserts, flooding, and pollution.  Similarly, water infrastructure  has made sense to me as a viable macro investment topic.  My quantitative investment tools have thus far corroborated my belief that this might also be a capital gains vehicle, as well.

Studies have shown that cumulative global capital spending on all things water-related are expected to be in the tens of billions of dollars in the next two decades.  Some of that spending is most likely also to yield investment performance for consumer portfolios.

For the past several decades the world looked at emerging markets......China, for example..... as a model for economic and infrastructure development.  Unaddressed in that scenario, however, was the design and specific investment in water treatment and potable water solutions to support that kind of rapid urban development.  We now know that these technologies exist and are ready for application.

Corporations that span the matrix of my portfolio research range from early-stage small cap membrane filtration manufacturers all the way to large cap conglomerates that use water for their internal operating systems.  Our Water Concept Investment Strategy portfolio is invested only in publically traded companies, and doesn't even address technologies not yet discovered or currently in production.  My belief is that this topic has the potential to generate innovation and profit potential for decades to come.

We also gain portfolio diversity through "special situation" allocation which I believe helps to reduce volatility that comes from the rest of the equity universe.

The right thing
With surging populations, the world is coping with increased demand for water and the prospects for reduced capacity if nothing is done to address the need.  Rapidly growing urban areas further exacerbate and localize the problem.  We face the very real possibility of running out of our valuable resources in our lifetime or that of our children.  I invite this discussion...with peers, clients, friends and adversaries.  I will be writing more on these topics in the weeks and months ahead.

"H2O" is more than just a chemical compound.  It is the very essence of life.

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