Multi-asset investing provides benefits typically not achievable by investing in a single asset class. In volatile markets it’s increasingly dangerous to rely on one driver of returns, despite history pointing to incidents where this rewarded investors handsomely.
There is a risk that the equity markets that have done well historically are just the last man standing.
Most financial analysis has taken the US as a starting point, because that is where the great majority of capital and universities are situated. The question becomes: is the US representative of the investible landscape today, and will it be going forward?Probably not.
US asset markets have been the best performer – both in nominal, real, and risk-adjusted returns – over the last hundred years. Using them as a base case means a heavy concentration of survivorship bias in your portfolio. To make our point, we turn back in time and look at Russia.
In this investment publication, our multi-asset team covers the basics before looking at what history can tell us about real returns, how correlations between asset classes can shift and volatility.
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