BOSTON, MA – 07/02/21 – Beyond Borders Investment Strategies, LLC (BBIS) announced that Vitaly Veksler, the firm’s CEO and Portfolio Manager, participated in the Capital Allocators Roundtable episode moderated by Paul Gray of IronHold Capital on July 1, 2021.
 
To see the description of the event, please Click Here
​
Below is the list of all participants of the Roundtable.
 
Capital Allocators Roundtable Participants
 
James Leach, National Trust (Single Family Office)
Clark Cheng, CFA, FRM, CAIA, Merrimac Corporation (Single Family Office)
Vitaly Veksler, CFA, Beyond Borders Investment Strategies (Global Macro Investment Firm)
Carrie DiLauro, Hamilton Robinson Capital Partners (Private Equity Firm)
Paul Gray, IronHold Capital (Value-Based Investment Firm) – Moderator
 

To watch the full recording of the event, please Click Here

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After the Roundtable, Vitaly Veksler said the following, “It was a great pleasure to participate in such an exciting Roundtable. I have learned ideas and topics that highly respected professionals from the other parts of the investment industry are exploring in their work. For example, it was very interesting for me to hear perspectives from Clark Cheng and Jim Leach, leaders of two successful single-family offices. I have also really enjoyed hearing about Carrie DiLauro, an Operations and Investment Relations leader, working for a Private Equity firm.
 
I would also like to compliment Paul Gray for masterfully moderating the Roundtable. Paul is a very informed and well-read investment professional. Through reading and moderating the Capital Allocators Roundtable episodes, Paul has learned and incorporated in his thinking ideas of the top-notch investors. During our conversation, we did not talk only about the ideas of five participants of the Roundtable. We also explored ideas of such investment legends as Ray Dalio of Bridgewater Associates, Steve Cohen of Point72 Ventures, Sam Zell of Equity Group Investments, and others.”

Please let us know if you have questions about Vitaly Veksler’s ideas that he expressed at the Capital Allocators Roundtable or any other topic related to Beyond Borders Investment Strategies, LLC by sending a message to [email protected].

BOSTON, MA – 06/11/21 – Beyond Borders Investment Strategies, LLC (BBIS) announced that Vitaly Veksler, the firm’s CEO and Portfolio Manager, was interviewed by Jeff Mount on the Dynamic Mapping podcast on June 4, 2021. The podcast’s episode with Vitaly’s interview is titled “Dynamic Mapping Introduction to Global Macro Investing.” The podcast focuses on “interviewing professionals who support the essential family office service model and deliver tips on their area of expertise.” Below are several topics discussed during the podcast:

1. The tremendous positive power of investments in ending a massive economic crisis that seemed endless in Russia and other former Soviet republics after the collapse of the USSR. Observing that power motivated Vitaly to start an investment firm that would focus on earning returns for its investors while also helping to end crises in countries worldwide.
2. Controlling risks of BBIS’ investment portfolios through diversification AMONG countries (not investing more than 10% of a portfolio in any country) and WITHIN each country by using single-country equity Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs), or fund vehicles that contain dozens and hundreds of stocks, as building blocks of the portfolios.
3. A painful stock loss that convinced Vitaly to use ETFs rather than individual stocks as the portfolios’ building blocks.
4. BBIS’ favorite valuation measure of country stock market attractiveness, also known as The Buffett Indicator (after Warren Buffett).
5. A country stock market that Vitaly considered to be one of the biggest investment opportunities as of early June 2021.

 
The podcast episode can be found on one of the podcast platforms listed at the end of the post.
During the podcast, Vitaly has mentioned a white paper titled “Investment Lessons from Fishing: Building Portfolios from Single-Country ETFs” that I authored in 2017. In the paper, he compared BBIS’ method of building portfolios from single-country equity ETFs with three widely-spread methods of international investing: bottom-up stock picking, “hybrid” stock picking, and investing in funds or Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) that closely follow broad-based international indices. The investment methods were compared in such areas as potential reduction of risk of capital loss, flexibility of investment selection, speed of entering & exiting investment positions, and investment management fees.

The paper also described the painful stock loss that convinced him to use single-country ETFs as building blocks for Beyond Borders Investment Strategies’ portfolios (see Topic 3 above).

To read the paper, please Click Here

Finally, if you are interested in learning more about the firm’s impact investment goals mentioned as Topic 1 above, please read the white paper titled “We Will Not Leave You Behind: Economic, Social and Political Impact of Investing via Single-Country Equity ETFs in Countries During and After Major Crises.” The paper described a short but dramatic experience that made Vitaly start a firm decades later that would focus on both earning money for its investors and helping countries and their citizens recover from crises. The paper described the former Soviet republics’ rocky transition from socialism to capitalism that caused the massive economic crisis. The last part of the paper introduced the firm’s triple bottom line. The paper explained ten differentiating impact-investment features of the firm’s investment style that may be of interest to impact investors.

To read the paper, please Click Here
 

The “Dynamic Mapping Introduction to Global Macro Investing” podcast episode may be found on the following podcast platforms listed in alphabetical order:

• Amazon Music 
• Apple Podcast
• Audible  
• Buzzsprout
• Deezer
• Google Podcasts  
• Listen Notes
• Podcast Addict  
• Podcast Index

• Podchaser

• Player FM
• RSS Feed

• Spotify

Please let us know if you have questions about the podcast episode, white papers mentioned above, or any other topic related to Beyond Borders Investment Strategies, LLC by sending a message to [email protected].

BOSTON, MA – 03/25/21 – Vitaly Veksler, CEO and Portfolio Manager at Beyond Borders Investment Strategies, LLC (BBIS), published a report on the importance of analyzing past performance over short-, medium-, and long-term periods. He agrees with a famous phrase, “Past performance is no guarantee of future results.”
 
However, Vitaly also believes that analysis of past performance can help:

• Explain existing performance trends that may continue in the future.
• Identify country stock market candidates for rotation, from the top performers to bottom performers and back.
• Prevent investors from making incorrect investment decisions by putting individual countries’ stock market performance into the global context.
• Forecast future stock market performance directionality. 

 
The report is titled “On Stock Markets’ Past Performance and Investing ‘Where the Puck Is Going To Be.’”

To read the report in PDF format, please Click Here
 
Best regards,

Vitaly Veksler, CFA
CEO & Portfolio Manager
[email protected]

​Below are Performance Tables from the report.

Sources: Refinitiv, Beyond Borders Investment Strategies. Used MSCI country index performance for 48 countries - all but the US. The US performance is represented by MSCI USA and S&P 500 indices. All performance series measure total returns of US Dollar-denominated indices.
 
 
Disclaimer: Opinions expressed in this report are of Beyond Borders Investment Strategies, LLC (BBIS) and are for information purposes only. This report does not represent investment advice. BBIS holds investment positions in single-country equity ETFs of some or all countries mentioned in the report. Past performance is no guarantee of future results.

BOSTON, MA – 01/28/21 – Beyond Borders Investment Strategies, LLC (BBIS) announced today that the firm was added to the New England Impact Investor list by the New England Impact Investing Initiative (NEIII). Since its founding in 2016, NEIII has focused on building “a thriving and diverse regional impact investing industry by fostering connections, knowledge sharing, and talent development.”
Vitaly Veksler, BBIS’ Founder and CEO, stated, “It is an honor to be added to the New England Impact Investor list of companies.” 

BBIS pursues a strategy that was described as unique by a number of institutional and private investors. The firm aims to earn attractive returns while making the world a better place in the process. It specializes in managing portfolios built from single-country equity ETFs of developed, frontier, and emerging market economies. BBIS aims to buy these ETFs at valuations that are significantly lower than their historical averages. These opportunities most often occur in countries that have recently undergone economic, financial, or political crises, or where stock market valuations were low due to suppressed demand for goods or commodities exported by these nations. 


Beyond Borders Investment Strategies’ Triple Bottom Line 

Goal 1: Earning Attractive Returns While Lowering Risks: The firm aims to earn attractive returns for clients over the market cycle. BBIS often achieves this goal when valuations of the undervalued ETFs in its portfolios revert to the long-term historical levels, and, on occasion, jumping above these levels. Through the use of the macroeconomic and political country analyses, BBIS aims to improve returns by avoiding markets that deserve to trade at low valuations, so-called “value traps.” The firm reduces its client portfolios’ investment risks by diversifying the portfolios’ composition among and within countries. It diversifies the portfolios among countries by not investing more than 10% of portfolios in any one country and keeping most country positions significantly below this maximum. For comparison, the weight of Chinese stocks in the MSCI Emerging Markets Value Weighted Index that BBIS’ Emerging & Frontier Market Country Value Equity strategy competes against is higher than 32% as of the end of 2020. Adverse developments in China’s stock markets may seriously impact investors benchmarking their portfolios closely to the index. BBIS also diversifies the portfolios’ holdings within countries to eliminate individual companies’ idiosyncratic risks by investing via single-country ETFs composed of dozens and hundreds of stocks.
 
Goal 2: Helping Countries Recover from Crises: BBIS aims to help countries’ stock markets stabilize, companies start expanding their operations and hiring people, and the countries’ citizens emerge from crises. Importantly, by using single-country ETFs, the firm buys shares of all large and medium-sized public companies and can help a very large number of their employees and their families return to normalcy. BBIS can even help people in their communities who do not work for the companies through the virtuous income multiplier effect. For comparison, stock pickers usually invest in several companies per country and can help a much smaller group of people. 
 
Goal 3: Strengthening security around the World: BBIS aims to strengthen global and regional security by reducing militant nationalism that often impacts people within crisis-afflicted countries and sometimes spills onto the international arena in the form of terrorism or war.


Vitaly Veksler added, “I have developed Goals 2 and 3 of BBIS’ Triple Bottom Line after observing as a youth the devastating impact of a massive economic crisis on ordinary people in post-Soviet Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s. Inadequate pensions pushed older people to the brink of death from hunger, lack of employment opportunities forced women into prostitution, and a crime wave reduced men’s life expectancy to below 60 years. Also, the rise of militant nationalism almost brought ultranationalists with aggressive international expansion goals to power. Investments from domestic and, especially, foreign investors were of the utmost importance in ending the monstrous crisis. I have seen the incredible power of investments in ending a crisis in one nation. I started BBIS decades later to help people in crisis-stricken countries worldwide to get back to normalcy by investing in their economies in the time of need.” 

To see the NEIII New England Impact Investor list, please Click Here
 
To read a white paper on BBIS’ impact goals titled “We Will Not Leave You Behind: Economic, Social and Political Impact of Investing via Single-Country Equity ETFs in Countries During and After Major Crises” written by Vitaly Veksler in February 2019, please Click Here
 
Advisor Perspectives, a leading interactive publisher for wealth managers and financial advisors, published an article based on the above-mentioned white paper in November 2019. To read the article titled “Helping Crisis-Stricken Countries Recover with Single-Country ETFs,” please Click Here

​BOSTON, MA – 01/07/20 – Vitaly Veksler, CEO and Portfolio Manager at Beyond Borders Investment Strategies, LLC (BBIS), published a report on the results of the race among countries’ stock markets in 2020. It is titled “2020: The Closest Finish in the Last 50 Years in the Country Stock Market Race”.

To read the report in PDF format, please Click Here
 
Have a Happy, Safe, and Prosperous 2021!
 
Vitaly Veksler, CFA
CEO & Portfolio Manager
[email protected]



Below are Performance Tables from the report:

BOSTON, MA – 12/22/20 – Vitaly Veksler, CEO and Portfolio Manager at Beyond Borders Investment Strategies, LLC (BBIS) published another update on the performance of global equity markets titled “December 2020: The Race Among Countries' Stock Markets May Go Down to the Wire”. Below is the text of the report. 

To read the report in PDF format, please Click Here

As I wrote in a LinkedIn post about Beyond Borders Investment Strategies’ previous report titled “December 2020: Major Developments at Both Ends of the Table”, “I love sports and global investing. When I talk to my clients, my colleagues, and my kids (who do not know all intricacies of finance but love sports), I often describe the annual competition among stock markets of different countries as a multistage bicycle race similar to the Tour de France. There are 50 competitors: MSCI stock indices of 48 countries that are represented by at least one single-country equity ETF plus MSCI USA and S&P 500 indices. There are twelve stages (months) and 52 intermediate sprints (weeks).” The biggest prize is to win the overall annual competition by accumulating the highest total return (price accumulation plus dividends) by the end of the day on December 31.
 
In 2020, the race among the country equity markets may go down to the wire. With seven trading days to go, the difference between MSCI Denmark in the first place and MSCI Taiwan in the second place is 3.4%. MSCI Korea trails MSCI Denmark by 6.7%. As a tired cyclist, who led a long break away from the peloton in a cycling race, MSCI Denmark slowed its growth of total returns by early December after leading for most of eight months since late March. By Friday, December 11, 2020 (when I published the above-mentioned “December 2020: Major Developments at Both Ends of the Table” report), MSCI Denmark lost its leadership and was in third place behind MSCI Taiwan and MSCI South Korea. However, as the cyclist who received the benefit of drafting behind two other cyclists and using less energy needed to overcome air resistance, MSCI Denmark overtook the other two leaders on Monday, December 14, and has been in the first place since then.
 
As of the close of the markets last night (December 21, 2020), MSCI Denmark’s total returns for the year were 41.7%, MSCI Taiwan – 38.3%, and MSCI South Korea – 35.0% (see the Year-to-Date Performance table as of December 21, 2020). Currency returns were a major contributing factor for the difference among the “Top 3” total index returns. From December 11 to December 21, Danish Kroner appreciated versus the US Dollar by 0.9%, New Taiwan Dollar stayed almost the same (appreciated by 0.1%), and the Korean Won depreciated by 1.1%
 
The reason I started this report by saying that the race may go down to the wire is that the difference between the “Top 3” markets is not large and there is a factor that can help the pursuers – MSCI Taiwan and MSCI South Korea. Over the weekend, investors focused on a new especially contagious strand of COVID-19 that was identified in the United Kingdom and described in many publications worldwide. The strand is currently known as “SARS-CoV-2 VUI 202012/01”. In my opinion, yesterday (December 21) most markets had negative returns, some significant, due to this news. [1] For example, MSCI Thailand was in the last 50th place with a negative return of 6.2% (see the Daily Performance table as of December 21, 2020). However, MSCI Taiwan was one of just six markets that had positive returns. It returned 1.0% over the trading session putting it in 2nd place.  MSCI Korea dropped by 0.1% (9th place), while MSCI Denmark declined by 1.0% (18th place).
 
I attribute this performance difference in large part to the fact that Taiwan and South Korea have so far relied on testing-and-tracing practices rather than on the economy-damaging lockdowns to fight the pandemic. Denmark had implemented an efficient and relatively short lockdown in March-April 2020, but still, it was a lockdown. The following comparison of GDP growth rates for 2020 demonstrates the difference in the economic impact of the testing-and-tracing and lockdown strategies. According to GDP forecasts of inflation-adjusted returns measured in local currencies by Oxford Economics, Taiwan’s 2020 GDP is expected to grow 2.5% over its 2019 level, and South Korea’s 2020 GDP is expected to drop by 1.0%. For comparison, Denmark’s 2020 GDP is expected to drop by 4.2% compared to the 2019 levels. In my opinion, if a large number of investors believe that COVID-19 is likely to spread significantly in 2021, MSCI Taiwan and MSCI South Korea may outperform stock markets of countries that rely on lockdowns as the primary defense strategy against the pandemic. 

Sources: Refinitiv, Beyond Borders Investment Strategies. Used MSCI country index performance for 48 countries - all but the US. The US performance is represented by MSCI USA and S&P 500 indices.
​


​Happy Holidays!
 
Vitaly Veksler, CFA
CEO & Portfolio Manager
[email protected]
 

Disclaimer: Opinions expressed in this report are of Beyond Borders Investment Strategies, LLC (BBIS) and are for information purposes only. This report does not represent investment advice. BBIS holds investment positions in single-country equity ETFs of some or all countries mentioned in the report. Past performance is not indicative of future results.


[1] There were other factors impacting performance of individual stock markets around the world, but the news about the new COVID-19 strand negatively impacted most of them.  

BOSTON, MA – 12/14/20 – Vitaly Veksler, CEO and Portfolio Manager at Beyond Borders Investment Strategies, LLC (BBIS) published a new update on the performance of global equity markets titled “December 2020: Major Developments at Both Ends of the Table”. Below is the text of the report. 

To read the report in PDF format, please Click Here
 
“There were major developments in the world of global equity investing during the first two weeks of December (through December 11, 2020) both among the leaders and laggards. Stock markets of Taiwan and South Korea, two countries with some of the world’s most sophisticated methodologies of responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, had an extremely strong performance in December. While they started the month in the second and fourth place respectively (see the Year-to-Date performance as of November 30, 2020), Taiwan and South Korea, pushed Denmark, a country that was in the first place in the Beyond Borders Investment Strategies’ (BBIS’) 50-index universe for more than eight months to the third place in the table (see the Year-to-Date performance as of December 11, 2020).
 
Denmark was credited with being one of the first countries to shut down its economy in March and reopening it relatively fast in April. The shutdown was a success because the Danes took it seriously and implemented the social-distancing and other rules that the authorities asked them to follow. As a result of a relatively limited impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the Danish economy (especially, compared to the devastation it caused in other countries), investors moved their funds into Danish stocks. As a result, MSCI Denmark was the best performer for more than eight months from March 30, 2020 to December 3, 3020. On December 4, 2020, the MSCI Korea index overtook MSCI Denmark as the global leader, only to be overtaken by MSCI Taiwan on December 8, 2020. As of the end of the trading day on Friday, December 11, MSCI indices of these three countries were separated by just 1.3%. MSCI Korea’s total returns (price appreciation and dividends) for 2020 were 37.2%, MSCI Taiwan’s – 36.9% (-0.4%), and MSCI Denmark’s – 35.9% (-1.3%). At BBIS, we think (but do not guarantee) that one of these three countries would take the 2020 performance crown because the rest of the indices are pretty far behind. The difference between MSCI Denmark and MSCI China, which is currently in fourth place with a total 2020 performance of 26.2%, is 9.7%.
 
Both Korea and Taiwan use computerized systems for contact tracing that allowed these countries to avoid major shutdowns of their economies. In these countries, when people are traced to be in contact with a person who was tested positive for COVID-19, these people are to take a 14-day quarantine. Under this model of fighting the epidemics, most of these countries’ economies, including businesses, remain open. As a reminder, long shutdowns often lead not only to lower growth over the current year or next year, but also to a lower long-term economic growth trajectory for countries that implement them. All over the world, founders of smaller companies, which are more likely to go bankrupt during the shutdowns because they often have less financial reserves needed to survive a long shutdown, may not start new companies in the future. By using their technologically advanced strategies of fighting COVID-19, governments of both Korea and Taiwan have managed to protect their economies and businesses from the devastating impact of shutdowns. As global investors are concerned with the new waves of COVID-19 hitting countries around the world during the winter of 2020, they have moved their funds into stock markets of the two leaders in fighting epidemics. These countries developed these skills based on both mistakes and best practices of fighting the SARS outbreak in 2002-2003, less than 20 years ago. Many other countries, especially at the beginning of the pandemic, benchmarked their strategies to the ones used to fight the Spanish Flu epidemic in 1917-1918, more than a century ago.
 
There were also dramatic developments at the bottom of the table. Driven by a lower dollar trend, higher expected demand for commodities, and low stock markets valuations, MSCI Colombia had the best performance in December, so far. It grew by 18.1%, which allowed the market to leave the dreaded 50th last place in the BBIS universe. While Brazilian and Russian stock market valuations were not as attractive as those of the Colombian stocks, the lower dollar trend and higher expected demand for commodities led them to post double-digit positive returns in December.

 
 
Disclaimer. Opinions expressed in this report are of Beyond Borders Investment Strategies, LLC (BBIS) and are for information purposes only. This report does not represent investment advice. BBIS holds investment positions in single-country equity ETFs of some or all countries mentioned in the report. Past performance is not indicative of future results.”

BOSTON, MA – 11/12/20 – Vitaly Veksler, CEO and Portfolio Manager at Beyond Borders Investment Strategies, LLC (BBIS) published a new version of the firm’s presentation with a section titled, “Outlook and Catalysts for BBIS’ Strategies Potential Outperformance in the Future” on October 23, 2020. Today he wrote the following post on the section on LinkedIn.
 
“At Beyond Borders Investment Strategies, LLC, we believe that International and Value stocks may outperform the US and Growth stocks in 2021, thus, reversing two recent stock market trends.

Recent Trends – US and Growth Outperformance: During crises, investors tend to invest in stock markets of the US and other safe-haven countries (i.e. Denmark, Switzerland), or countries that do well during a specific crisis. Since January 2018, the world has faced two global crises in a row – the US-China Trade War and COVID-19 pandemic. Not surprisingly, US stock market indices (S&P 500 & MSCI USA) did well during the period. In 2020, Chinese stocks outperformed most other stock markets due to China’s proficient handling of the COVID-19 epidemic, but MSCI China still earned less than both US indices since Jan 1, 2018. Stock markets of Taiwan and Korea, countries that created modern methods of fighting epidemics after SARS hit their region in 2002-2003, did well in 2020. The US, safe-haven countries, China, Taiwan, and Korea have high weights of Technology stocks in their indices. Technology is the largest sector of the Growth universe. As a result, US stocks outperformed the majority of other countries’ markets, and Growth stocks outperformed Value stocks from Jan 1, 2018 to Oct 31, 2020
 
Potential Catalysts for the Recent Trend Reversal: However, two major events over the last week might serve as catalysts for reversing the US and Growth outperformance. First, the attractiveness of the US as a business and investment destination might have taken a hit as a result of the presidential elections. The US faces higher probabilities of steeper corporate and personal taxes as well as of increased regulation of businesses by the government. As a result of these potential developments, jobs and investments may move to more business-friendly destinations, thus, slowing US economic growth in 2022 and beyond. Second, the recent news about significant progress in the development of COVID vaccines may convince investors to move their capital from stock markets in the countries, which did relatively well during the pandemic and became expensive in the process, to badly-beaten and cheap (Value) stock markets. We also do not think that the stock markets of other market leaders during the pandemic (i.e. China, safe-haven countries) would maintain their leadership in 2021.”  
 
To learn more about our views, Please Read the Outlook section of the attached BBIS Firm Presentation (Slides 21-30).
 
Please let us know if you have questions about Beyond Borders Investment Strategies, LLC by sending a message to [email protected].

BOSTON, MA – 09/30/20 – Beyond Borders Investment Strategies, LLC (BBIS) released a video presentation by Vitaly Veksler, BBIS’ CEO and Portfolio Manager, on the firm’s country selection and rotation strategy in equity markets of emerging market countries. The presentation was recorded on June 19, 2020 and was intended to be shown to students taking an emerging market investment class taught by Dr. Peter Marber at the Johns Hopkins University’s Carey Business School. Due to the COVID-related scheduling change, the presentation was postponed.
 
In the presentation, Vitaly Veksler gave an overview of BBIS and the firm’s investment strategy. He focused on such topics as the reasons for the firm’s existence, impact goals of managing portfolios built from single-country equity ETFs of crisis-stricken countries, main features of the investment strategies, and competitive advantages of BBIS’ investment process. He also talked about a couple of past trades that had expected and unexpected results.
 
After the presentation, Vitaly stated, “It is both a compliment and an honor to be recognized by knowledgeable and well-respected investment colleagues. Peter Marber is definitely one of the smartest emerging market investors whom I know. He is a Wall Street Journal veteran, professor, and writer focusing on global and emerging market investing. During his career, Peter has managed billions of dollars for some of the world’s largest financial groups. Prior to co-founding Aperture Investors, where he serves as the Chief Investment Officer for Emerging Markets, Peter was the Head of Emerging Markets Investments at Loomis, Sayles & Co. and served as Chief Business Strategist at HSBC Global Asset. He authored or co-authored five books on emerging market investing.
 
He also taught classes at such leading universities as Columbia, NYU, and Harvard. I had the pleasure of auditing his class “Emerging Markets: Investment Theory and Practice” at Harvard in 2013, the first year it was taught. Later, I really enjoyed speaking about BBIS and its investment strategy to students taking the class four times. It was great to record the presentation for Peter’s students at another top-tier academic institution: The Johns Hopkins University, his alma mater. It is rewarding when such a respected professional selects your firm’s investment strategy as a differentiated one from many strategies offered by much larger and better-known firms and invites you to talk about it to his students!”
 
Click Here to listen to the presentation. Thank you.

Please let us know if you have questions about Beyond Borders Investment Strategies, LLC by sending a message to [email protected].

BOSTON, MA – 03/05/20 – Beyond Borders Investment Strategies, LLC (BBIS) announced that Vitaly Veksler, BBIS’ CEO and Portfolio Manager, spoke yesterday to students taking the “Global Economic Challenges and Opportunities” class at the MIT Sloan School of Management.
 
Vitaly Veksler said the following in a message on LinkedIn, “I had the privilege of speaking in the “Global Economic Challenges and Opportunities” class taught by a highly accomplished Professor Kristin Forbes at the MIT Sloan School of Management last week. In addition to MIT Sloan, Professor Forbes worked for the White House's Council of Economic Advisors and served as an advisor to the Bank of England.” Professor Forbes was the Chief International Economist in the George W. Bush’s administration and most recently advised the Bank of England. She was named an Honorary Commander of the Order of the British Empire by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II for her services to British economic policy. Each year, Professor Forbes invites just one investor to talk to her class. It was the privilege to be invited to the class taught by such an accomplished professional.

Vitaly’s presentation was titled, “Global Hot Spots: Investor Views”. During the talk, he concentrated on the first “investment” goal of BBIS: earning attractive returns for investors by using our proprietary country selection and rotation investment process. (As a reminder, Vitaly discussed BBIS’ second and third goals “social impact” goals when he spoke on the Impact Investing panel at the MIT Sloan Investment Conference at the end of February. Below is a link to a news release covering that event: http://bbistrategies.com/our-publications--events/vitaly-veksler-spoke-on-the-impact-investing-panel-at-the-mit-sloan-investment-conference).
 
Among other topics discussed in the “Global Economic Challenges and Opportunities” class, Vitaly analyzed the COVID-19 outbreak’s economic and market impact as an example of a negative shock affecting most countries around the world. He gave several examples of past trades when the firm had invested in stock markets of countries during political, economic, and financial crises. He also presented an in-depth analysis of Chile, a country that he considered from an investment standpoint. The country, which was a “safe haven” of the emerging market universe over the last three decades, was going through a major political and economic crisis caused by mass demonstrations and riots in late 2019 and early 2020. The country’s stock market valuations were low in March 2020. Vitaly shared with students investment tools, some of which he learned in Professor Forbes’s class in 2009, the first year when Professor Forbes taught the class.

Vitaly finished his visit to MIT Sloan by answering a number of questions focused on practically all parts of the presentation. He said in his LinkedIn message, “It was a pleasure to answer insightful questions asked by Professor Forbes and the students.”
 
Please let us know if you have questions about Beyond Borders Investment Strategies, LLC by sending a message to [email protected]. Thank you!