Insights
Conventional wisdom dictates that everyone should save as much as they can, as early as they can, for as long as they can in order to live a dignified life in retirement.
The long-simmering trade dispute between the US and China has intensified in recent days.
Nurtured by ever-cheaper computing power and the datafication of modern life, the rate of advancement in technologies based on artificial intelligence (AI) and offshoots like machine learning has a
Fund of America Class A shares (without sales charge)* rose 18.66% in the first quarter, outperforming the S&P 500 index, which returned 13.65%. The rebound we expected in our portfolio after the second-half 2018 drawdown occurred, with strong performance in first quarter 2019 driven by many of the stocks that had performed poorly last year.
As we have written in the past, the growth of debt over the last decade has brought forward demand in the economy and generally benefited corporate profit margins; in the future, however, debt instead may become a headwind for nominal growth around the world. Furthermore, when the level of debt is high relative to borrowers’ capacity to repay it—i.e., the cash flows available to businesses and consumers and the latent taxing capacity of governments—debt that comes due cannot be amortized from cash flows; it needs to be rolled over. We believe this renders markets more vulnerable to bouts of risk aversion.
As we have written in the past, the growth of debt over the last decade has brought forward demand in the economy and generally benefited corporate profit margins; in the future, however, debt instead may become a headwind for nominal growth around the world. Furthermore, when the level of debt is high relative to borrowers’ capacity to repay it—i.e., the cash flows available to businesses and consumers and the latent taxing capacity of governments—debt that comes due cannot be amortized from cash flows; it needs to be rolled over. We believe this renders markets more vulnerable to bouts of risk aversion.
High yield had been more resilient earlier in the year but cracked in the fourth quarter, with lower-quality issues—CCC bonds—bearing the brunt of the market’s weakness. Outflows from ETFs and other passive structures proceeded in reasonably good order during the quarter, but we are not confident that future outflows will be managed as smoothly.
It’s by design that companies in Matthew McLennan’s portfolios aren’t exactly those that set investors’ hearts racing with excitement. “We’re happy to own businesses with what we consider a gradual positive drift to them,” he says. In this article, Matthew McLennan and Kimball Brooker describe how they assess “fade risk” in a number of industries, what makes them uneasy about the state of the world today, why their exposure to gold is higher than normal, and why they see mispriced value in Fanuc, Orkla, Schlumberger, Jardine Matheson and Weyerhaeuser.
The timing and conditions of Brexit remain unclear, but most estimates suggest that both the UK and EU economies will suffer as frictions are introduced into their economic connection.
Investors and consultants frequently ask for the Global Value team’s views on sustainable investing. While we do not offer strategies that focus in this area, we do pay close attention to issues of sustainability because they may be a key to a company’s resilience over the long term. Some investors see the energy sector as the antithesis of sustainability, but we see things differently. In this interview, Benj Bahr, energy-sector analyst on the Global Value team, explains why.
Fund of America is a fundamental research-driven strategy that seeks to identify undervalued companies that can benefit from catalysts for corporate change.
The Global Value Team shares current investment thinking and a year-end update on the Global, Overseas, U.S. Value, Global Income Builder and Gold Funds.
We cannot predict what will happen next in economies or markets, but 2018 had the feel of a transitional year. Volatility, which in our view, had been muted for an unexpectedly long period of time, returned in force during the year—first in February and then again in the fourth quarter.
First Eagle’s Global Fund marked its 40th anniversary on January 1, 2019. From the time that Jean-Marie Eveillard—a pioneer in global value investing—assumed leadership of the Global Fund, it has consistently employed a disciplined, benchmark-agnostic, value-oriented philosophy.
In the latest video insight from The UK Investment Association, First Eagle's Matt McLennan and Kimball Brooker discuss why their focus on downside protection may help create sustainable, long-term value for investors.
Pages
Contact Us
Internal Sales Desk
salesandmarketing@feim.com
800.747.2008
877.683.3403