Partner, River Valley Asset Management

River Valley Asset Management

Partner

Singapore-based boutique asset management firm

River Valley Asset Management is a Singapore-based boutique asset management firm. Our team at RVAM strongly believes in being a trusted steward of our clients' wealth across generations.

Each of our fund managers has years of rich portfolio management experience over multiple market cycles at world-class investment houses. We bring our clients the combined strength of our investment team to manage their financial portfolios and to provide bespoke guidance on all aspects of their financial health.

We offer multi-asset class expert investment advice to accredited investors who are family offices, high net worth individuals and institutional investors to preserve and grow our clients' wealth.

The fund management team of the company includes Homiyar Vasania, Anand Ramachandran and Jamshed Desai.

Thematic (Sector/Industry)

As the year dawned, crystal gazing into 2018, we highlighted the dichotomy between bottom up opportunities which continued to excite us and weighed it versus risk from optimism and excessive valuations in narrow segments of market. Our view was that the ride will not be smooth and volatility is likely to rear its head and as investment managers our focus should be on managing the downside risk. Never did we imagine that the first three months of the year will throw up all kinds of new challenges as markets battled with policy uncertainty.  At <a href="http://www.rivervalleyasset.com/" target="_blank">River Valley Asset Management</a>, we continue to believe that rising debt burden puts a natural cap on the extent to which growth can accelerate as also the ability of interest rates to keep rising without causing collateral damage. The last decade has been a period of passing the parcel on debt growth - as households and financial sector deleveraged post the financial crisis, government's stepped in with a borrowing binge and as official sector debt started petering out over the last three years, we are back with rapid growth in financial sector leverage. Through all this growth rates have been tepid. With such a backdrop, if rates start rising the debt service burden could become a constraint on growth acceleration, in absence of productivity.

As the year dawned, crystal gazing into 2018, we highlighted the dichotomy between bottom up opportunities which continued to excite us and weighed it versus risk from optimism and excessive valuations in narrow segments of market. Our view was that the ride will not be smooth and volatility is likely to rear its head and as investment managers our focus should be on managing the downside risk. Never did we imagine that the first three months of the year will throw up all kinds of new challenges as markets battled with policy uncertainty.  At River Valley Asset Management, we continue to believe that rising debt burden puts a natural cap on the extent to which growth can accelerate as also the ability of interest rates to keep rising without causing collateral damage. The last decade has been a period of passing the parcel on debt growth - as households and financial sector deleveraged post the financial crisis, government's stepped in with a borrowing binge and as official sector debt started petering out over the last three years, we are back with rapid growth in financial sector leverage. Through all this growth rates have been tepid. With such a backdrop, if rates start rising the debt service burden could become a constraint on growth acceleration, in absence of productivity.   

Volatility, Debt Burden and Investment Strategy

Managing Director, MTS Research

Peter Beuttell

Managing Director

MTS Research

MTS Research Limited is an independent investment research company specialising in technical analysis. 

MTS Research provides technical analysis services in the form of regular publications and consultancy advice, catering for a number of different investment approaches from absolute or relative returns to long-only and long/short.  The company has a global client base of blue-chip financial institutions ranging in size and stretching from Los Angeles to Tokyo, via New York, London, Frankfurt and Hong Kong.  

MTS was founded in 1989 at the request of Morgan Grenfell Investment Services Limited (MGIS), the ERISA arm of Morgan Grenfell Asset Management (subsequently Deutsche Asset Management), by Peter Beuttell, a Portfolio Manager at MGIS between 1987 and 1989. 

Peter is a qualified Chartered Accountant and self-taught market technician with over 30 years experience.  At MGIS, Peter managed money in European, Australasian and Far East markets for US clients, such as American Airlines and American Petrofina.  He achieved first quartile perfomance on their behalf by blending fundamental and technical analysis in his investment decision-making.  

After an initial focus on the EAFE markets (Europe, Australasia and Far East), the company has recently expanded its coverage to include the Americas, thanks to the recently-completed two-year Knowledge Transfer Partnership with the University of Plymouth.  The resulting software – the Technical Overlay Program (TOP) – allows fund managers to access an immediate Technical view on any market, sector, stock, bond yield, currency or commodity within their selected universe.

MTS Research consists of a team of five based in Penzance and London. 

Technical Analysis

The markets’ response to the February sell-off has been poor, producing in many cases what looks like a bear market rally.  Europe in particular contains a number of toppy patterns, which have begun to break downwards, and the sharp drop in the FANG stocks could also be part of top-building.  We came into 2018 looking for the end of the post-2009 bull market, and a number of indices are signalling just that.

The markets’ response to the February sell-off has been poor, producing in many cases what looks like a bear market rally.  Europe in particular contains a number of toppy patterns, which have begun to break downwards, and the sharp drop in the FANG stocks could also be part of top-building.  We came into 2018 looking for the end of the post-2009 bull market, and a number of indices are signalling just that.

S&P 500: A Dozen Reasons for Not Being Too Complacent Here

With our post-2009 wave counts nearing completion (and acceptably complete in NASDAQ 100), we have been watching nervously to see if the S&amp;P would produce a sharp sell-off along the lines of Q2 2000 or Q3 2007, providing an initial warning that it might have begun top-building.  The recent decline certainly qualifies.

With our post-2009 wave counts nearing completion (and acceptably complete in NASDAQ 100), we have been watching nervously to see if the S&amp;P would produce a sharp sell-off along the lines of Q2 2000 or Q3 2007, providing an initial warning that it might have begun top-building.  The recent decline certainly qualifies. 

MSCI AC Asia Pacific Excluding Japan Index / Technical Analysis

MSCI AC Asia Pacific Excluding Japan Index

This year’s surge in MSCI Asia Pacific ex Japan is ending the rally pattern which began in Q2 2016.  Whilst the larger pattern off the Q1 2016 low is still incomplete, the overbought condition could produce as much as a 5-7% pause in the uptrend, and the coming months should therefore be characterised by volatile upward drift as the larger degree waves finish off.  In support of this view, Trend Strength remains above the zone which has coincided with the peaks of the past 20-odd years, and at…

This year’s surge in MSCI Asia Pacific ex Japan is ending the rally pattern which began in Q2 2016.  Whilst the larger pattern off the Q1 2016 low is still incomplete, the overbought condition could produce as much as a 5-7% pause in the uptrend, and the coming months should therefore be characterised by volatile upward drift as the larger degree waves finish off.  In support of this view, Trend Strength remains above the zone which has coincided with the peaks of the past 20-odd years, and at…

Asia Pacific Ex Japan: Pattern and Momentum Update

In the mid-October piece "The Message from Medium-Term Momentum", I argued that it was too strong for a near-term top, and illustrated three indicators which gave off warning signals at prior important tops over the past 20 years.  At the time, only one of the three contained a signal.Nearly two months on, and no further warning signals have appeared, as you will see in the first chart, but a correction has begun from the area of the 2007 high.The Elliott wave pattern of the past year is a 3rd…

In the mid-October piece "The Message from Medium-Term Momentum", I argued that it was too strong for a near-term top, and illustrated three indicators which gave off warning signals at prior important tops over the past 20 years.  At the time, only one of the three contained a signal.Nearly two months on, and no further warning signals have appeared, as you will see in the first chart, but a correction has begun from the area of the 2007 high.The Elliott wave pattern of the past year is a 3rd…

Asia Pacific Ex Japan: Just a Normal Correction, but up to 40 Points in MXAPJ.

China

The MSCI AC Asia Pacific excluding Japan Index is a free-float weighted equity index. It was developed with a base value of 100 as of December 31, 1987.

MSCI AC Asia Pacific Excluding Japan Index (MXAPJ INDEX)

MSCI AC Asia Pacific Excluding Japan Index (MXAPJ INDEX)

Volatility, Debt Burden and Investment Strategy

As the year dawned, crystal gazing into 2018, we highlighted the dichotomy between bottom up opportunities which continued to excite us and weighed...

River Valley Asset Management

S&P 500: A Dozen Reasons for Not Being Too Complacent Here

The markets’ response to the February sell-off has been poor, producing in many cases what looks like a bear market rally. Europe in particular...

Peter Beuttell

S&P 500: The First Phase of Top-Building

With our post-2009 wave counts nearing completion (and acceptably complete in NASDAQ 100), we have been watching nervously to see if the S&P...

Peter Beuttell

Asia Pacific Ex Japan: Pattern and Momentum Update

This year’s surge in MSCI Asia Pacific ex Japan is ending the rally pattern which began in Q2 2016. Whilst the larger pattern off the Q1 2016...

Peter Beuttell

Asia Pacific Ex Japan: Just a Normal Correction, but up to 40 Points in MXAPJ.

In the mid-October piece "The Message from Medium-Term Momentum", I argued that it was too strong for a near-term top, and illustrated three...

Peter Beuttell