A Boutique Investment Management Firm

Providing investment advisory solutions for institutional and private clients

Market Perspective

Big Picture Market Thoughts

September 19, 2023

Our belief is that the equity market most likely reached a cyclical peak in January 2022 due to historic levels of overvaluation, extremely bullish investor sentiment and positioning, and the acceleration in inflation that brought about the most aggressive Fed tightening cycle in the past 40 years.

The rally in equity markets from October of last year through July of this year coincided with falling inflation, hopes of a timely reversal of Fed policy, and economic data that turned out to be more resilient than was generally anticipated. The rally was more powerful and longer lasting than we expected given the compelling alternative that fixed income securities provide today. If there is no economic hard landing, there is little reason for the Fed to reverse the rate increases of the past year, leaving fixed income yields quite attractive relative to the dividend and earnings yields generated by equities at today’s prices. If there is a recession, earnings and equity prices should materially decline due to the contracting economy.

Aggressive Fed tightening cycles of this magnitude have produced a recession in every instance in the post-war period, although it often takes a year or more for the change in monetary policy to fully affect economic conditions. We have yet to experience the full effect of the Fed’s tightening cycle.

Read our full report here

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.

Customized Solutions

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

Equity Premium Strategy

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

Bond Premium Strategy

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.

Absolute Return Strategy

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.

Minneapolis, MN
(612) 760-2321

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