AI is very in. If one includes the phrases Artificial Intelligence and blockchain together with a smattering of machine learning or (cherry on the top) deep learning in any capital raising spiel then one is almost guaranteed to have people throwing cash at you. Appetite for such products in the data rich world of finance is especially high. Independent Fintech companies – like Amareos – that could not have existed a decade ago are being created to tap into this technological innovation; almost every major commercial bank is exploring opportunities in this space as evidenced by the proliferation of Fintech hubs

*This article originally  published prior to the March Ist  announcement on tariffs by US President Trump One of the numerous criticisms directed towards President Trump is that he tends to view everything as a zero-sum game. Almost certainly informed by his years as a corporate deal-maker, every gain made comes at someone else’s expense. Such thinking seems to be behind the administration’s recent greenlighting of tariffs on US steel and aluminium imports. The recently issued reports[1] by Commerce Secretary Ross cited “national security concerns” for supporting the imposition of tariffs. However, Trump’s comments that he expects the measures to “create a lot

The recent pullback in stocks has felt brutal. As the chart below confirms, an 8% drop from the January 26th peak has only been exceeded a handful of times during the past decade. What has, without question, compounded this sense of brutality is that is has followed an exceptionally benign market environment that investors have become accustomed to over the past year or so – the maximum drawdown since Trump’s election victory was just a shade over 1% – highly asymmetric price action. Exhibit 1: S&P500 Drawdowns – Cumulative And Monthly Source: www.amareos.com Concomitant with the correction, equity implied volatility has spiked–

The calendar year may have changed recently, but the underlying trend in global equity markets has not. The bulls are still in charge and the major indices have all continued to track higher (talk about year highs when it is only a handful of days old is simply ridiculous although it happens!). In terms of Wall Street, as we and almost all value-based investors have noted, from a historical perspective it is hard to argue that US large cap equities are cheap, rather the contrary – they appear richly priced[1]. According to one school of thought, the continued gains in