There is nothing particularly magical about the start of a new calendar year, but it is a time to reassess the global economy and markets in search of investment opportunities. At the start of 2016 the outlook shows low recession and bear market risks, the U.S. poised to outperform but an inflection point is nearing. The opponents look equally strong, however, and tug-of-wars eventually come to an end. Until then, the investment outlook is one of relative opportunity and walking the tight line of balancing return opportunities and risks.
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While election-year politics will dominate legislative action in 2016, comprehensive tax reform remains a priority for many businesses. President Obama and the Republican leaders of Congress will face key tax policy issues, including tax reform, global tax controversy, IRS challenges, new regulatory projects, and other tax policy matters of importance to today's business leaders. The Obama administration and Congress are expected to offer competing plans on how to reform the US tax system and to promote other policies intended to increase economic growth.
The economic outlook may be better than many think, with U.S. growth in 2016 likely remaining well above the long-term trend of 1.5 percent. The economy is expected to grow near 2.6 percent, with the household sector and residential investment being the two primary drivers. The recent Washington D.C. policymaker agreement, which resulted in a lifting of the debt ceiling, should add 0.2 percentage points to overall economic activity in 2016.
Last week, markets were caught on the wrong foot by the latest package of measures by the European Central Bank (ECB). There was no headline increase of monthly asset purchases, which are currently at EUR 60bn. Since then, investors have grown used to ECB President Mario Draghi over-delivering, earning him the nickname “Super Mario”. When Draghi failed to do so this time around, investors were unprepared. This overview discusses how the ECB measures are impacting international markets.
The real estate industry is going through an unprecedented phase of institutionalization as it formalizes processes, outsources noncore activities and takes proactive steps to managing increased regulatory oversight. This trends report for the coming New Year provides some surprising changes in the real estate private equity market. Some of the highlights include:· Fundraising is up and real estate investors are seeing opportunities in markets across the globe, including ones that have seen slowdown
Geopolitics aside, economic data outside the United States displayed modest improvement based on ‘flash’ purchasing manager surveys for Europe and Japan, which pointed to stronger activity, Quantitative easing (QE) by the European Central Bank (ECB) and Bank of Japan (BoJ) have supported both economies, although recent signs of soft inflation may indicate both central banks should inject additional stimulus. This latest global economic commentary discusses a number of updates in equity, commodity and fixed income markets worldwide.
It is a common understanding that when investing in international assets, there are two sources of risk, first, the volatility that comes from the underlying asset itself (typically equities or bonds) and second, the volatility of the currency in which the international asset is denominated versus the base currency of the portfolio.
As we enter the ninth year since the Federal Reserve Bank slashed interest rates in response to the Great Recession, many Wealthy Families are looking for ways to deploy cash into the fixed income markets. This comes at a time when most market pundits are predicting that the Federal Reserve Bank will finally begin to raise interest rates at the scheduled December 2015 meeting. This long awaited rise in rates poses many challenges for wealthy families, in particular those with fixed income portfolios. Some of those are as follows:
Something significant occurs when people are in a dispute, especially an angry one – they stop communicating. Or they communicate primarily in an aggressive or passive aggressive manner. Effective long-term dispute resolution practices require the parties in a dispute, or potentially in a dispute, to learn how to listen actively, show understanding and speak assertively. Assertive speech is the subject of Strategy Sheet #3. This Strategy Sheet discusses “active listening” and “evident understanding” techniques.
The process of effective dispute resolution requires the participants to be able to identify four types of communication and conduct: passive, aggressive, passive aggressive and assertive. A goal of dispute resolution is to encourage assertiveness in communication and conduct.