At 7.30am, it was a serenely calm Saturday morning on Abu Dhabi's Saadiyat Island (pictured below), a mere 10 minutes' drive from the financial district.  London, Paris or Frankfurt in November anyone?  No, I didn't think so.

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This coming week will be anything but calm.  There are really only two subjects that everyone will be talking about: (1) the US midterm elections, and (2) what next in the Iran war.  

Performance - Let's get performance out of the way first, after a few bumpy sessions towards the end of the week.

I had Justin Oliver (Global Growth Fund) in Abu Dhabi last week sitting down with clients.  He paints a positive picture of the world looking beyond the immediate jittery news flow.  The reality is that, on a price-to-earnings (PE) basis, US equities are cheaper now than they were at the beginning of the year, because corporate earnings just keep growing.  That is hardly a recipe for poor future returns.

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