political risk
Geopolitical strategist Peter Zeihan sees a world undergoing rapid and disruptive geopolitical change. He focused in on some of the key forces driving that change and the emerging conflicts they are spurring in the question-and-answer session that followed his presentation at the 69th CFA Institute Annual Conference.
With the heady returns delivered by most major financial markets in 2013 in the rear view mirror, investors are now tasked with worrying about what could go wrong in the year ahead. A plurality of respondents to our global poll, 36%, cited political or geo-political risks (including government stasis or military conflict) as the greatest threats to market stability, sentiment almost certainly influenced by chronic political dysfunction in Washington, D.C., ongoing unrest in the Middle East, and growing tensions in Asia Pacific.
Willis Sparks, an analyst in the global macro practice at Eurasia Group, a global political risk research and consulting firm, recently laid out some of the political fault lines that will shape politics and international finance in the coming years.