A Boutique Investment Management Firm

Providing investment advisory solutions for institutional and private clients

Market Perspective

Market Update

November 15th, 2023

With yesterday’s favorable CPI report and the weaker October labor report released early this month, markets are growing convinced that the Fed has completed the rate hike cycle.

Assuming the last rate hike of the current cycle occurred on July 26th, we are now 111 days past that event.  The chart below produced by Bloomberg shows the median path of the S&P 500 around the last rate hike of each cycle since 1971.  The data is segmented into cycles that produced recessions and those that did not.  The S&P 500 is currently about 1.5% below its level on July 26th when the Fed last hiked interest rates.  Before the upswing began on October 28th the S&P was down 9.8% from its level on July 26th, almost exactly in line with the median performance of the S&P 500 following the last rate hike in the cohort of cycles where recessions resulted from the rate hikes.  In contrast, the median S&P 500 advance at this length of time from the last rate hike was approaching 10% in the cohort where recessions did not occur. 

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Investment Solutions

Liniam Capital is an Registered Investment Advisory firm located in Minneapolis, Minnesota and as such is a fiduciary that acts solely in our clients best interest. We take a comprehensive macro and fundamental approach to the markets and utilize a full suite of investment tools, asset classes and security types used to enhance income and total return, manage volatility, limit downside and preserve liquidity. Portfolios are actively managed to achieve investment performance excellence for both our Institutional and Private clients.

Highly customized approach structured to address client’s income requirements, liquidity needs, risk tolerance and total return expectations. 

An active equity strategy that seeks to outperform the broad equity market over the long term, while generating superior income with less volatility. 

An active fixed income strategy that seeks to generate superior income and total return performance relative to the broad domestic bond market. The strategy generates additional income through utilizing covered call strategies and/or adopting cash secured put-write strategies.

This strategy provides investors an alternative to a traditional asset allocation approach by allocating to asset classes and securities based on our macro views and expected returns over a tactical horizon. The objective is to outperform an allocation mix of 60% stocks and 40% bonds with smaller periodic drawdowns, less volatility and low correlation to markets throughout a market cycle.

Our Team

Mark Austin

Principal, Chief Executive Officer

Mark has worked extensively with pension funds, endowments, foundations, corporate funds, and high net worth investors in a variety of business development, client service, and product management capacities in his over 30-year career in the capital markets, Mark’s experience spans a range of asset classes, including domestic and international equity, fixed income, private equity, real estate, infrastructure, and liquid alternatives.
Prior to founding Liniam Capital, Mark was a Managing Director at North Sky Capital and has held positions at FAF Advisors/US Bank, Piper Capital Management, and Investment Advisers, Inc. He also served as the President of the North Hennepin Community College Foundation.
Mark earned his MBA from the University of St. Thomas and his B.S. from the University of Minnesota.

Keith Hembre, CFA

Principal, Chief Investment Officer

Keith is a seasoned investment professional with more than 25 years of experience in leadership roles within the investment management industry. Prior to joining Liniam he was the Chief Economist and Investment Strategist at Nuveen Asset Management and at FAF Advisors/US Bank prior to that. In these roles he was responsible for leading the Quantitative Strategies Teams at those firms that were responsible for managing asset allocation, absolute return, equity options and index products and strategies. He has a passion for economic and market analysis, has served on the Economic Advisory Committee for the American Bankers Association and was named the most accurate economic forecaster by BusinessWeek magazine in 2007.
He holds the Chartered Financial Analyst designation, a B.A. in economics from the University of Minnesota and an M.S. in economics from Baylor University, and completed the program on Investment Decisions and Behavioral Finance at Harvard University.