Following the Global Financial Crisis (GFC), European and Japanese equity markets have consistently underperformed the US. Since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, this performance gap has widened to a historical high. As the dust settles and the global quantitative easing cycle comes to an end, it is important for investors to evaluate which markets offer the best relative value.

Investing in a global universe of stocks and bonds can present the investor with a challenging analysis as to the impact these holdings can have on the world’s most vulnerable ecosystems and people.

This edition of From The Yardarm examines how effectively ESG ratings firms assess sovereign ESG factors, especially concerning the environment. We will discuss climate initiatives formed by the United Nations and examine how sustainability regulations and investors' behavioral biases are potentially increasing risk rather than reducing it.

By 2050, nearly 10 billion people will live on our planet. In order to sustain this population and our growing demand for resource-intensive animal-based foods, the World Resources Institute estimates that crop production will need to increase by 56% from a 2010 baseline.

Sustainable investing has come a long way. In its early days, investment managers, like Saturna Capital, created faith-based investment processes, focused on excluding companies or industries that conflicted with the tenets of an investor’s faith. This led to proactive investing, a process that encourages companies, sectors, and regions to engage in better business practices.

Recently, sustainability-related investment trends have come into the political spotlight, leading to heightened regulatory attention. As the financial industry tries to address these challenges, it may be timely to look to other financial frameworks. One such framework represents approximately 1% of global financial assets, and it could offer valued guidance for the ever evolving financial industry, particularly as it relates to the broad sustainability community: Islamic finance.

Traditional Islamic-compliant mutual funds have served Muslim investors well in the four decades since the first was launched in Malaysia. By fostering partnership in shared risk and reward (musharaka), and by allowing investors to diversify their assets while avoiding haram activities — typically alcohol, tobacco, gaming, financial services, pork processing, and pornography.

While the Quran encourages trade and investment – and provides guidance for how Muslims should approach these activities – formalized financial processes did not begin to develop until the mid-20th Century. In this piece, we discuss the evolution of Islamic screening and step through various methodologies present in the market.

The telecom industry has seen tremendous worldwide growth in recent years as consumers use an increasing number of applications and services. Despite meaningful subscriber and data growth over the last decade, US telecom industry revenue has grown only modestly. We believe several factors explain the disconnect: competition, regulations, and disruption from over-the-top providers.