The reality is that retail investors are not ploughing in and nor are IPOs or M&A activity reaching new peaks, so none of those early warning signs are there, he says, adding that there is still a good balance of ‘glass half full’ and ‘glass half empty’ people shaping overall sentiment.
Daring to be different
As an investment boutique running global equity strategies, environmental equity funds and multi-asset funds, the asset allocation process has three distinctive elements to it, which O’Halloran highlights.
First, the core team of himself and two colleagues have combined market experience of close to 85 years.
“This is probably unique these days, that you have a core team with that much experience.”
He also says the team is not afraid to be different, citing how at the beginning of this year, they went underweight with US equities and overweight in European equities, for the first time in about three years.
“It was a kind of contrary trade, certainly at the beginning of the year, when people could give you a list as long as your arm of the reasons why Europe was a basket case and the reasons why the US was a sort of panacea.”
A lot of his belief is based on the expectation that the European Central Bank will deliver whatever it takes in terms of quantitative easing and that Greece “won’t fall off the cliff”.
