One correctly could suggest the world entered a darker phase over the past week. One also correctly could observe that the skies have proceeded to darken since the dawn of the post-Soviet era. The breadth of those two observations reflects a proper range of thinking regarding geopolitical risk and investment management. Though the thrum of growth generally masks these ever-present risks, they sometimes break through and volatility surges. That in mind:

• Markets don’t like or dislike uncertainty. Rather, markets “price” uncertainty
• The greater the uncertainty, the higher the cost of that uncertainty, the larger the discount to assets exposed to that uncertainty
• We think investors are wise to maintain both a deliberate short-term interest in and a positive long-term bias regarding potential impacts of an uncertain future on portfolios