How Guild Investment Management Helps Investors Thrive in Volatile Markets

Via Katrina.Tuliao & Pixabay

If you watch the news on any given night, there are plenty of prognostications of doom and gloom. However, the simple truth is that we’ve been in one of the longest bull markets for nearly a decade now, and in recent months, it’s only gotten stronger.

Obviously, past performance doesn’t guarantee future returns, and where the market goes from here is anyone’s guess. But there are a select few market experts with a history of effectively navigating through both bull and bear territory. So, what are they saying?

“We are very optimistic right now,” says Tim Shirata, Executive Vice President of Guild Investment Management in a recent interview with Equities.com Broadcast Contributor Silvia Davi. “We don’t take any specific political view, but with deregulation, and also with lower taxes, we believe that financial services can really benefit in this current macro-environment.”

How does Guild find successful companies and sectors for their clients? “We take a top-down-to-bottom-up approach to investing,” says Shirata. “We’re tactical, we’re global, and we’re opportunistic. So, for example, we take a top-down view. We find the sectors, the industries and companies that are going to benefit in this macro-environment. Then we do bottom-up research, finding specific companies that are going to benefit in this environment, talking to their competitors, talking to their customers to find the ideal company to invest in.”

Currently, many of the most lucrative opportunities seem to be in financial services, according to Shirata, “because of deregulation and lower taxes, a lot of money is being poured into there, and we believe that it’s still going to benefit in this environment.”

Of course, one area that has continued to lag despite the booming bull climate is the IPO market. However, Shirata believes that may soon change. “We’re optimistic in terms of starting a new business,” enthuses Shirata. “These small businesses now, they’ve been regulated, they have all this restriction, and now it’s been lifted, so now they have this opportunity to thrive in the market.”

There are also a few distinct regional sectors that Guild has been keeping a close eye on. “We’ve researched Asia, Europe,” Shirata says. “We are looking at Brazil right now. So for example, the Brazilian government bond is something we’re looking at right now. We’re positioning our clients in Brazilian government bonds.”

Recently, Guild has begun to reach a new, broader audience through a partnership with Equities.com. Through the partnership, Equities.com and Guild offer investors access to Guild’s weekly Global Market Commentary, which focuses on macro trends and top-down analysis to uncover big-picture market opportunities.

“We really wanted to help investors succeed, so we designed our premium service, which is a subscription service that allows investors to receive weekly commentary that we publish on a weekly basis, a recommendation tracker, and also conference calls to offer direct access to portfolio managers, research analysts, and also our staff,” Shirata says. “So we’ve partnered with Equities.com with their premium subscription, so their investors can get insights from investors with our 45-plus years of management experience.”

As markets become more and more unpredictable, investor uncertainty grows and the need to preserve capital becomes an increasingly significant issue. As experienced investors know, avoiding major losses is more important to long-term wealth than a few big wins. It’s a concern that Guild is keenly aware of, and one that they can easily assuage with one simple fact: their history of success.

“Many people want to have control over their own financial future, and what’s very important is that they want to make money, but they don’t want to lose money at the same time,” Shirata says. “So, for example, in 2008, in our commentary, years and months prior to the decline, we warned investors that 2008 could happen. So, we got tactical in our positions, and in 2008 we remained relatively flat for that year. So, helping subscribers, giving these insights prior to these events happening really protects them from the downside. But also, we believe in growth, so return of capital appreciation as well as capital preservation is very important to us.”