Armistice appeals
The fourth annual Qatar Economic Forum kicked off on Tuesday with a slew of calls for warring parties around the world to cease and desist in order to allow the world to get back to the business of… business.
There's effectively been a U-turn from what had seemed to be a trajectory toward geopolitical stability, said Ken Griffin, chief executive officer of hedge fund Citadel. "We are living in a different world than what we fantasized just a few years ago."
From the Russia-Ukraine war to Gaza to the US-China tensions, the main takeaway for money managers is the need to manage the danger of tail risks, or shocks.
"There are just larger tails that didn't exist seven or eight or 10 years ago," Griffin said. The only way of mitigating that is to calibrate exposure to countries, industries and sectors and construct portfolios that have payoffs correlated to tail-risk events, he said.
The central bank chief of the forum's host nation, Sheikh Bandar bin Mohammed bin Saoud Al-Thani, summed it up: "We need to see political stability in the regions, in different regions, to see more growth in the economies."
Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani, Qatar's prime minister, singled out the Israel-Hamas conflict in particular for his region: "The ceasefire is required now. We need to stop the killing." Qatar acts as a mediator for indirect talks between Israel, Hamas and Western powers.
Turning to Europe, Polish President Andrzej Duda said he's counting on Ukraine to get US equipment in time to ward off a looming spring offensive by Russian forces. Ukraine's potential defeat would be an event that would destabilize the world, he warned.
"The free world can't allow Russia to win in Ukraine," Duda said. If so, it will attack other eastern European nations, perhaps NATO members in the Baltic states or Poland, he said.
Without a "quick resolution" to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, oil prices are "likely to stay high," Franklin Templeton Investments Chief Executive Officer Jenny Johnson said.
Speaking on a day when the US unveiled a fresh round of tariff hikes on China, "there's no question" this is reshaping global supply chains, while she downplayed dangers to the Chinese economy.
For Singapore's investing giant Temasek Holdings Pte, all the geopolitical tensions leave it favoring companies with large, domestic-focused businesses.
As for "geopolitics and the impact of that," Temasek Chief Investment Officer Rohit Sipahimalani said that "we are addressing that by looking really at large domestic markets or things that are self-contained within an economic ecosystem so we're less impacted by that."
Tune in to QEF updates on LinkedIn here, and on X here.
There's effectively been a U-turn from what had seemed to be a trajectory toward geopolitical stability, said Ken Griffin, chief executive officer of hedge fund Citadel. "We are living in a different world than what we fantasized just a few years ago."
From the Russia-Ukraine war to Gaza to the US-China tensions, the main takeaway for money managers is the need to manage the danger of tail risks, or shocks.
"There are just larger tails that didn't exist seven or eight or 10 years ago," Griffin said. The only way of mitigating that is to calibrate exposure to countries, industries and sectors and construct portfolios that have payoffs correlated to tail-risk events, he said.
Ken Griffin, right, speaks to Erik Schatzker, editorial director at Bloomberg New Economy, during the Qatar Economic Forum. Photographer: Christopher Pike/Bloomberg
The central bank chief of the forum's host nation, Sheikh Bandar bin Mohammed bin Saoud Al-Thani, summed it up: "We need to see political stability in the regions, in different regions, to see more growth in the economies."
Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani, Qatar's prime minister, singled out the Israel-Hamas conflict in particular for his region: "The ceasefire is required now. We need to stop the killing." Qatar acts as a mediator for indirect talks between Israel, Hamas and Western powers.
Turning to Europe, Polish President Andrzej Duda said he's counting on Ukraine to get US equipment in time to ward off a looming spring offensive by Russian forces. Ukraine's potential defeat would be an event that would destabilize the world, he warned.
"The free world can't allow Russia to win in Ukraine," Duda said. If so, it will attack other eastern European nations, perhaps NATO members in the Baltic states or Poland, he said.
Jenny Johnson, CEO of Franklin Templeton Investments, during a Bloomberg Television interview at the Qatar Economic Forum. Photographer: Christopher Pike/Bloomberg
Without a "quick resolution" to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, oil prices are "likely to stay high," Franklin Templeton Investments Chief Executive Officer Jenny Johnson said.
Speaking on a day when the US unveiled a fresh round of tariff hikes on China, "there's no question" this is reshaping global supply chains, while she downplayed dangers to the Chinese economy.
For Singapore's investing giant Temasek Holdings Pte, all the geopolitical tensions leave it favoring companies with large, domestic-focused businesses.
As for "geopolitics and the impact of that," Temasek Chief Investment Officer Rohit Sipahimalani said that "we are addressing that by looking really at large domestic markets or things that are self-contained within an economic ecosystem so we're less impacted by that."
Tune in to QEF updates on LinkedIn here, and on X here.
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