For most financial assets 2015 was a challenging environment, with equities seeing negative or muted performance and fixed income facing its worst year since 2013 as yields slowly moved higher in anticipation of the Fed rate hike in December. Some of the macro themes of 2015 (a strong dollar and monetary tightening in the U.S.) will carry forward into 2016, but some will change and new themes will develop in the global economy. The outlook provides significant investment opportunities while recognizing the current risks and volatility of the market environment.
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Important insights lie in the trends hidden under asset class classification of the hedge fund industry, which is expected to grow 25% annually in the next five years from $0.5 to $1.4 trillion dollars. To spot the trends, the asset categories should be useful for family offices to gain meaningful insights of major allocation shifts. A good place to start is to apply the widely recognized industry categories—Equity Hedge, Event Driven, Macro, and Relative Value—to the classification methodology.
Global equity markets rebounded sharply in October 2015 after the third quarter sell-off due to accommodative monetary policies and some better economic and earnings news. The gains faded late in the quarter on further weak data from China, weak exports, and more stress in the energy and commodity sectors due to oversupply mostly extracted by new technologies. As the world economies work through various transitions and uncertainty, investors are understandably anxious about the outlook for financial markets.
While the public sentiment remains focused on high valuations, research shows the news cycle is focusing on hype and the fear that venture capital is in another bubble. When evaluating the health of the venture market, internal data shows that revenue multiples have been declining since 2012 for a majority of the U.S. venture-backed technology companies with revenues under $100M. The phenomenon can be attributed to young companies growing revenues earlier than before, with revenue growth rates outpacing valuation growth rates.
The venture ecosystem in Israel is undergoing an evolution as entrepreneurs are flourishing throughout the country. In November 2015 there were 6,000 start-ups in Israel garnering funding from a new generation of venture funds made up of both spin-outs from existing firms and new VCs. The combination of a vibrant culture of entrepreneurship, support of the government, strong university, multi-national corporations, and existence of venture capital and liquidity has made many bullish on Israel.
Many investors are analyzing how the recent volatility may impact both their public and private holdings. When comparing the S&P 500's performance over the past 32 years with the Cambridge Associates’ median venture capital returns over the same period, you will find an inverse correlation between the two of 28%, implying that as the public markets increase, venture returns for those vintage years decrease. Ultimately, market volatility and the correlated lowering of public valuations can create opportunities for the venture partners.
Overall, the insurance market in Asia remained competitive in 2015, with rates remaining stable or decreasing in most lines of insurance. However, certain lines did experience rate increases and these were generally driven by loss experience, as in the case of the Tianjin explosion in August and its impact on property catastrophe-exposed coverage, or rising costs, such as has been seen in the medical malpractice and employee benefits lines.
Ample capacity and insurer competition generally put downward pressure on rates in most coverage lines in 2015, a trend expected to continue in 2016, barring unforeseen changes in condition. Other significant developments that bear watching throughout 2016 include demand for cybersecurity coverage across all industries, large-scale mergers and acquisitions, executive leadership changes, and recent announcements regarding potential and actual reinsurance underwriting.
In the last decade, multinational organizations have undertaken unprecedented international expansion, leaving them exposed to an expanding array of global credit and political risks. And those risks—including terrorism and political violence, armed conflicts, increasingly powerful anti-establishment political movements, the threat of global recession, and persistently low commodity prices—continue to grow. Multinational companies and foreign investors must now be prepared for virtually any type of political or economic risk threat in developed and emerging markets.
Despite modest recoveries across most markets in the fourth quarter, 2015 was a poor year for investment returns. While concerns at the end of 2015 continue now—volatility in China’s domestic Shanghai market, rising interest rates in the U.S., falling oil prices, the U.S. dollar’s strength—history has shown that markets often revert to above trend line returns after weak periods when underlying fundamentals remain positive. Looking ahead and past the oft-exaggerated media warnings of spreading financial distress, there is reason for cautious optimism.