BOSTON, MA – 08/30/15 – Beyond Borders Investment Strategies, LLC announced today that Harvest Exchange interviewed Vitaly Veksler, the firm’s CEO and Portfolio Manager, for its Community Spotlight section. 

Vitaly Veksler said, “It was an honor for me to be interviewed about my firm’s investment strategy, philosophy, and factors differentiating the firm from other international equity managers by Harvest Exchange. Harvest is one of the world’s largest online platforms for sharing investment content that has proven its value to investors and, as a result, has experienced exponential growth over the last several years. The Harvest community currently includes more than 300,000 individual and institutional investors. I joined the community and started reading articles written by other investors in 2013, the year it was founded. My first report appeared on the community’s website in March of 2014, when the community included just 11,000 investors.”
 
To read the interview, please Click Here

Please let us know if you have any questions about Beyond Borders Investment Strategies, would like to talk to Vitaly Veksler about macroeconomic or investment topics, or would like the firm to manage a portion of your portfolio by sending a message to [email protected]. 

BOSTON, MA – 07/15/16 – Beyond Borders Investment Strategies, LLC (BBIS) announced today that the firm’s international equity portfolio further outperformed its benchmark, MSCI All Country World (ACWI) ex USA Value Weighted Index, during the second quarter of 2016.  The value of the portfolio increased by 2.34%, while the value of the benchmark dropped by 1.48%.  Since the beginning of 2016, the portfolio outperformed the index by 12.28%.  In absolute terms, the value of BBIS’ portfolio increased by 10.86% since the beginning of the year. 

To read the full report in the PDF format, please Click Here

BOSTON, MA – 06/01/16 – Beyond Borders Investment Strategies, LLC announced today that Vitaly Veksler, the firm’s CEO and Portfolio Manager, was elected to the Board of Directors of the Boston Security Analysts Society (BSAS), a founding society of CFA Institute.
 
BSAS has more than 5,500 investment professionals who work for over 650 firms locally and globally. 92 percent of BSAS members hold the Chartered Financial Analyst designation from CFA Institute. CFA Institute, the global not-for-profit organization with nearly 140,000 members, awards the CFA Charter and the CIPM designation, and administers the Claritas Investment Certificate. CFA Institute sees its mission in leading the investment profession globally by promoting the highest standards of ethics, education, and professional excellence.
 
Vitaly has been active at BSAS since 2012 when he joined the Strategist / Economist subcommittee of its Programs committee. Next year, he became the Chair of this subcommittee, a group of ten or so talented investment professionals. He has been leading them in organizing events with investment strategists, portfolio managers, analysts, and academics. Over the last three years, the Strategist / Economist subcommittee organized more than 30 events for BSAS members. Vitaly has also participated in organizing BSAS conferences on asset allocation and sustainable investing.  
 
In addition to organizing events, Vitaly has also been a speaker or moderator during several BSAS events on such topics as impact of energy prices on the global investment landscape, comparison of governance in investing in emerging markets and developed markets, sovereign and country risk and its impact on stocks and bonds.
 
Vitaly has also been interested in helping the new generation of investment professionals achieve success in the industry. In 2013, as an industry advisor he led the first-ever team of Tufts University students to the Boston final of the CFA Institute Research Challenge. The Challenge is an annual global competition for university students dedicated to promoting best practices in equity research among the next generation of analysts.
 
For his contributions to BSAS, Vitaly became the first-ever recipient of the BSAS Outstanding Volunteer award in June 2015. To read the news release on this topic, please Click Here

To see profiles of BSAS Board of Directors, please Click Here

BOSTON, MA – 04/15/16 – Beyond Borders Investment Strategies, LLC announced today that the firm’s portfolio outperformed its benchmark, MSCI All Country World (ACWI) ex USA Value Weighted Index, by 8.26% during the first quarter of 2016. The value of the firm’s investment portfolio increased by 8.32% during the quarter, while the index’s value increased only by 0.06%. 

Table 1. Returns of Beyond Borders Investment Strategies’ Portfolio vs. Index, Q1 2016







To read the full report in the PDF format, please Click Here

Vitaly Veksler, the firm’s CEO and Portfolio Manager, said that he was pleased with the firm’s performance in the first quarter of 2016. “We managed to outperform the index during three very different market environments over the last three months: an extremely difficult January when the index plummeted by 7.8%, a neutral February when the index was slightly down, and an extremely positive March when the index shot up by almost 9.4% (see Table 1 above for the firm portfolio’s returns vs. index returns). Our biggest outperformance came in January due to the fact that single-country equity ETFs in our portfolio were trading at such low valuations that they simply did not have much room to decline in-line with our benchmark index that included stocks that traded at high valuations. Our sizable cash position also helped our portfolio’s performance.”
 
In March, Beyond Borders Investment Strategies had the best monthly performance so far. The value of the firm’s portfolio increased by more than 10.5%. We attributed our portfolio’s strong performance, as well as that of our benchmark, to the fact that stock markets of emerging market countries, especially commodity-producing ones, started to rally after five tough years of relative underperformance. By beginning of March, equity valuations of many emerging markets were so low that they were ready for a powerful rally, if a catalyst or catalysts would appear. In our opinion, four catalysts had significant positive impact on performance of emerging markets. Two of these catalysts happened in emerging markets themselves and two in developed markets, which are the largest destinations for exports from the emerging markets.
 
Negotiations on Oil Production Cuts: Negotiations between OPEC and Russia on cutting oil production, which several articles focused on in late January, became a powerful catalyst for stock markets of oil-exporting countries (e.g. Russia, Brazil). These markets rallied as the price of Brent crude oil increased by 42% from January 27 to March 31.[1]
 
Slow but Positive Growth in the US: In late February, releases of the US economic statistics demonstrated that the economy grew faster than expected in the last quarter of 2015.[2] According to the releases, the US GDP was expected to grow at around 2% in 2016, which alleviated concerns about potential contraction of the US economy.[3] Consumer spending grew in January at the fastest level in eight months as a strong job market and robust wage gains boosted consumers’ willingness to spend.[4] This news calmed investors’ nerves after the stock market correction in January and early February of 2016, when the price of the S&P 500 index dropped by 10.5%. This news, in our opinion, also seriously lessened concerns about potential recession in 2016.[5] The expected growth of the US economy is especially positive for emerging markets where most of their exports are destined for the US (e.g. Colombia).
 
Economic Stimulus Package Expansion in Eurozone: In early March, the governing council of the European Central Bank (ECB) led by its President Mario Draghi announced a package of measures that would help the Eurozone to maintain positive economic growth and avoid deflation.[6] These measures included an increase in cash infusions as part of the quantitative easing program by one third, a decrease to zero of the benchmark interest rate on the main refinancing operations that provide the bulk of liquidity to the European banking system, and a reduction of the rate that banks may use for overnight deposits with the Eurosystem, the monetary authority of the Eurozone, to negative 0.4%.[7] All these measures were aimed at encouraging commerce and lending in Europe. Importantly, the ECB policymakers stated that the interest rates are expected to remain at present or lower levels for an extended period of time.[8]
 
Forecasted Infrastructure Growth in China: Also in early March, Prime Minister of China’s speech to the annual National People’s Congress in Beijing became one of these catalysts. In this speech, Li Keqiang announced that the country’s growth target would be 6.5%-7.0% in 2016 and 6.5% per year from 2016 to 2020.[9] From our standpoint, this level of growth is only possible if China continues to invest in construction of massive infrastructure projects. It seems that we have been right on this topic since we expressed our opinion about it two years ago.[10] Among other infrastructure construction projects, China’s 13th five-year economic plan for the 2016-2020 includes such large capital projects as construction of 50 new airports and a second train line to Tibet.[11] These construction projects are extremely positive for exporters of copper (i.e. Chile, Peru) and steel (i.e. Australia, Brazil) as these commodities would definitely be used in the construction.
 
In addition to these global or multi-country catalysts, there were a few country-specific catalysts that made individual equity markets rally. For example, Brazilian stocks climbed on the news of the corruption scandal in Brazil getting closer and closer to President Dilma Rousseff. It looked like the majority of investors and business people did not believe that the scandal and the government’s unfriendly attitude towards businesses would allow this president to lead the country out of the current recession and attract much needed investments. 
 
Please let us know if you have any questions about Beyond Borders Investment Strategies, or would like to talk to Vitaly Veksler about macroeconomic or investment topics, by sending a message to [email protected].  Thank you.


[1] Datastream. The price of Brent crude oil increased from $27.76 on January 27, 2016 when the first article on the negotiations appeared to $39.41 on March 31, 2016. One of the first reports on this topic was: Jack Stubbs and Katya Golubkova, Reuters, Russians Want to Talk to OPEC about Output, Pipeline Chief Says, January 27, 2016.

[2] Harriet Torry, The Wall Street Journal, US Economy Starting 2016 on Solid Footing, February 26, 2016.

[3] OECD, Interim Economic Outlook, February 18, 2016.  The report forecasted that the US economic growth will be 2% in 2016.

[4] Harriet Torry, The Wall Street Journal, US Economy Starting 2016 on Solid Footing, February 26, 2016.

[5] Datastream. The S&P index’s price dropped by 10.5% since the beginning of the year (2,043.94 as of the end of the day on December 31, 2015) through the end of the day on February 11, 2016 (1,829.08).

[6] Alessandro Speciale and Jeff Black, Bloomberg, Draghi Expands ECB Stimulus with More QE and Lower Rates, March 10, 2016.

[7] Ibid.

[8] Ibid.

[9] The Economist, The National People’s Congress: Unlucky for Some, March 12, 2016.

[10] We talked about Beyond Borders Investment Strategies’ reasoning for why we believe that China would continue to rely on its tried and true exports- and investment-driven economic growth model while its leaders talk about transition to the consumption-driven growth model in our report Buy Chilean Equities: Impact of Copper Oversupply is Overblown that was published in March of 2014: http://bbistrategies.com/our-publications--events/research-report-buy-chilean-equities-impact-of-copper-oversupply-is-overblown

[11] The Economist, The National People’s Congress: Unlucky for Some, March 12, 2016.

BOSTON, MA – 01/19/15 – Beyond Borders Investment Strategies, LLC announced today that it updated its investment adviser disclosure brochure with Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) on Friday, January 15.  To access the brochure, please Click Here 

FINRA is an independent, not-for-profit organization authorized by the US Congress to protect America’s investors by making sure the securities industry operates fairly and honestly.  Among other functions, FINRA writes and enforces rules governing the activities of more than 3,955 securities firms with approximately 643,320 brokers.  Below is a link to FINRA’s description: http://www.finra.org/about

Please let us know if you have any questions about Beyond Borders Investment Strategies, or would like to talk to Vitaly Veksler about macroeconomic or investment topics, by sending a message to [email protected]. 

BOSTON, MA – 12/08/15 – Beyond Borders Investment Strategies, LLC announced today that The Boston Security Analysts Society (BSAS) featured Vitaly Veksler, the firm’s CEO and Portfolio Manager, in its Member Profile category in the organization’s monthly newsletter for December 2015. 

Vitaly Veksler said that he was very pleased to be associated with BSAS, the Boston chapter of the CFA Institute. “It was flattering and humbling to be featured in the Member Profile category in the newsletter distributed to more than 5,400 BSAS members. One of the main goals of the CFA Institute and BSAS is to develop knowledgeable investment professionals with strong integrity. This goal is very close to my heart.”

To access the profile, please Click Here 

Please let us know if you have any questions about Beyond Borders Investment Strategies, or would like to talk to Vitaly Veksler about macroeconomic or investment topics, by sending a message to [email protected]. 

Thank you and have a Happy Holiday Season!

BOSTON, MA – 11/09/15 – Beyond Borders Investment Strategies, LLC announced that Vitaly Veksler, the firm’s CEO and Portfolio Manager, delivered a presentation on his firm’s Global Economic Outlook for 2016 at Leerink Partners on November 6.  To read a slide with the presentation’s top ten takeaways, please Click Here

Leerink Partners is a leading investment bank that focuses on healthcare industry and has offices in Boston, MA; New York, NY; San Francisco, CA; and Charlotte, NC.  More information on the company could be found on www.leerink.com.  Vitaly presented to members of the firm’s Research team at the Boston and New York offices.  On Leerink side, the meeting was organized by Alice Avanian, Managing Director and Associate Director of Research.

Vitaly presented his firm’s views on global economic trends that affect economic growth around the world.  His firm’s views on some of these topics were different from the current consensus.  For example, he explained his reasoning for his firm’s higher-than-consensus oil price forecast for 2016.  Vitaly also focused on the impact of global and country-specific trends that could serve as catalysts and risks to economic growth of the world’s top 10 economies (US, China, Japan, Germany, UK, France, Brazil, Italy, India, and Russia).

Please also let us know if you would like to see our Global Economic Outlook presentation or would like to schedule a conversation with Vitaly Veksler by sending a message to [email protected].  Thank you.

BOSTON, MA – 10/27/15 – Beyond Borders Investment Strategies, LLC announced that Vitaly Veksler, the firm’s CEO and Portfolio Manager, delivered a presentation titled Beyond Borders Investment Strategies: The Global Equity Conundrum at Harvard University on October 25.  The presentation took place during Emerging Markets: Investment Theory and Practice class taught by Peter Marber, Head of Emerging Markets at Loomis Sayles & Company.  During the presentation, Vitaly talked about reasons for investing in international equities, quantified advantages of using country rotation techniques for global portfolio investing, and explained elements of Beyond Borders Investment Strategies’ investment process and risk management.  

Vitaly also talked about competitive advantages of developing global and international portfolios using single-country equity exchange traded funds (ETFs) over two methodologies that have been dominating global and international investing over the last decade: individual stock picking used by mutual fund managers and investing using ETFs based on broad global and international indices.  During the presentation, Vitaly answered dozens of questions posed by students, who traveled to Cambridge from different parts of the United States and from other countries.  To read several Twitters about the presentation posted by one of the students, please:

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Below are several photos taken during the presentation.

BOSTON, MA - 08/14/15 - In this report, Vitaly Veksler, Beyond Borders Investment Strategies' CEO and Portfolio Manager, explains the firm's application of the "quantimental" investment style that incorporates elements of quantitative and fundamental investment styles to investing in international equity markets.  He explains reasons for using this style and demonstrates several examples of ETF trades that the firm made using it.  To read the full report, please Click Here