Many investment portfolios are not positioned for the major shifts in consumption that will occur in the next 10 years, according to Anatole Kaletsky, chief economist and co-founder of GaveKal Research.

At the recent G20 meeting in Pittsburgh there was growing support for the idea that the world had to rebalance its out-of-kilter economy, with the surplus countries in emerging markets needing to spend and the deficit countries in developed markets needing to save. But even if your portfolio has a large allocation to Asian equities, you’re probably holding the wrong stocks, argues Kaletsky.

This is because fund managers have tended to focus on the big manufacturing exporters in Asia, rather than domestic demand-oriented stocks such as retailers and food and beverage companies.

“We will see a dramatic decrease in consumption in the UK, US, and Southern European countries like Spain and Italy, offset by a dramatic increase in consumption in countries running a surplus, otherwise we could face a decade or more of extreme global deflation,” Kaletsky said at a London seminar for investment firm Ashburton last week.

Kaletsky said the Chinese had accepted they could not continue to rely on exporters to achieve the desired 8 percent growth in GDP per annum and therefore domestic demand would have to pick up the baton. Conversely, he sees the US economy being export-led for the next five years, meaning that US portfolios tilted towards the big consumer stocks will underperform. “Very few portfolios are positioned for this shift,” he said.

More than a “nice to have,” investor sentiment is running heavily on the side of environment, social and governance (ESG) factors, according to the latest Thomson Reuters Perception Snapshot.

Feedback from 25 global buy-side investors found that 84 percent evaluate ESG criteria to some degree when making an investment decision.

The remaining 16 percent say ESG issues are not considered until a company’s ability to generate high returns is hindered by these factors.

Some of the selected comments:

“ESG only plays a role to the extent that it is an overhang on the stock. There is no moral component to investing. We are value neutral when it comes to our investment decisions, but we are not value neutral in our lives. We have a fiduciary duty to our clients, to the people who give us money to manage to maximize returns, which means that we can not be limited by our own personal morality. If I see a cigarette company that looks interesting I may invest in it even though I might not like it
personally.” - U.S. Hedge Fund Investor

“I am convinced that companies that follow the philosophy of social and economic responsibility are performing better in the long-term than those that do not.” - European Core Growth Investor

The report dovetails with Tuesday’s push by U.S. President Barack Obama to push for tougher industrial standards aimed at lowering greenhouse gas emissions.

Obama ordered the U.S. auto industry, where the hand of government is firmly in control (GM and Chrysler, but not Ford) to make more fuel-efficient cars to cut emissions and increase gas mileage.

The House of Representatives started its debate on the 946-page Democratic bill on Tuesday. Republicans are arguing the legislation would burden the economy with higher energy costs.

Does that matter, when scientists reported on Tuesday that global warming’s effects this century could be twice as extreme as estimated just six years ago?

Massachusetts Institute of Technology scientists estimate the Earth’s median surface temperature could rise 9.3 degrees F (5.2 degrees C) by 2100. That’s up from the 4.3 degrees F (2.4 degrees C) estimate in 2003.

The U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said seas would rise by between 18 and 59 cms (7-24 inches) this century. But it pointed to big uncertainties about ice sheets in Greenland or Antarctica — one IPCC estimate was that this ice could add up to 20 cms to sea level rise.

Thirty-first U.S. President Herbert Clark Hoover once said: “Blessed are the young, for they shall inherit the national debt.”

Governments around the world are borrowing heavily to finance their fiscal expansion – unprecedented in size and scale – to prevent severe economic downturn.

However, outspoken independent economist Roger Nightingale thinks fiscal stimulus will not work.

He predicts a severe, Japanese-style recession to hit major and developing markets.

“There is no way out of this problem. Fiscal policy won’t help it at all,” he told a conference in London.

“It’s taking from one type of people and giving it to another… It’s net zero. It’s taking from non-banks and giving to banks. It’s taking from the innocent and giving to the guilty. It’s Robin Hood in reverse.”

Every month, the financial services company State Street studies the trillions of dollars in institutional investor money it looks after as custodian and tries to gauge where things stand. Over the years, it has come up with a map consisting of five different regimes, or moods, to reflect this. They range from the bullish “Liquidity Abounds” in which investors buy equities and focus on growth, to the uber-risk averse “Riot Point”.

Guess what? Investors moved into “Riot Point” last month after flipping about for four months in the slightly less bearish but still risk averse “Safety First” regime. This essentially means that they gave up in October – which is not a particularly stunning finding given that many stock markets had their worst performance in decades.

So now comes the bad news. In the 11 years State Street has been drawing its map, the longest period of risk aversion as measured by investors being in “Riot Point” or “Safety First” was the nine months between February and October 2001. This almost exactly coincided with the then-U.S. recession.

State Street gently points out that the U.S. economy has yet to formally enter recession this time.

Politicians are busy blaming betting in financial markets for the recent market turmoil, with Jean-Claude Juncker, chairman of euro zone finance ministers, urging investors to stop playing a “casino game” with their shares this week.

But dare-devil operators in financial markets have shown no sign of halting their innovation in financial instruments, which are enabling investors to bet on everything from Academy Award winners to space travelling.

One of the most traded contracts on trading platform Intrade is the outcome of the U.S. Presidential election, due in just over a month.

The Barack Obama contract, based on the U.S. dollar, rose 1.5 points to 62.5, with 5,857 contracts traded on Tuesday. The level is just below a record high set in mid-July.

The John McCain contract fell half a point to 37.6, having hit an all-time high only a few weeks ago.

Die-hard Hillary Clinton fans are still betting on the New York senator to win the presidential election, with the Clinton contract rising 0.4 point to 3.2.

Barack Obama contract:

As George Bush might say, the EU is addicted to Russian energy. While no member wants to kick the habit totally, Brussels would like the bloc to reduce its growing dependence.

Even before Moscow invaded Georgia, the main non-Russian route for exporting Central Asian and Azeri crude and gas to Europe, the EU watched Russia’s regular cuts in energy supplies to neighbours with concern.

But EU members have been reluctant to take the hard measures that would allow them to bypass Russia, so analysts think their reliance on Moscow will grow.

What should European countries to ensure it has sufficient oil and gas in the future? 

Should EU nations be prepared to put cash behind its energy diversification goals?

Is a common EU energy policy even possible when oil and gas is so important that no country seems prepared to risk its own energy security for that of the bloc?