Marko Papc has a unique world view, one that offers investors an original window on geopolitics and the notion of geopolitcal alpha. In Of Contraints and Preference, he shares this world view and explores how a constrait-based approach to looking at the world can produce some powerful investment inghts. 

Preferences are optional and subject to constraints, whereas constraints are neither optional nor subject to preferences. This is the maxim that makes up the constraint framework. It is simple and many will say that they inherently apply it already. But it is difficult remaining disciplined.

Policymakers are like water. Predicting their behavior requires understanding of the relief of a hillside and knowing where water will find constraints to movement. e. Machiavelli was therefore wrong. Fortuna always wins. Policymakers are no better at beating fortuna with virtu than water is capable of willing itself to flow against the grain.

Sp wamt constraits truly matter? Poltical, Economic & Financial, Geopolitical, and Constitutional. Papic demonstrates how to put an investment thesis together by reviewing the world through thiese constraint lenses. In the process, he shows how to use this einformation to make money or protect it.  Like a sports gambler, the investor should not be rooting for one side over the other, but rather thinking about where the bookie/casino (but really, the market) has set the line. And bet against the line. After all, the job of the investor is to not predict who wins, but where the line is set.

MARKO PAPIC is a Partner and Chief Strategist of Clocktower Group, an alternative investment management firm based in California. In 2011, he founded BCA Research's Geopolitical Strategy practice, the world's only dedicated investment consultancy focused on political analysis.

Acknowledgements

Foreword by Steve Drobny

Introduction

Part I – Scaffolding

Chapter 1 – We’re Not in Kansas Anymore

Chapter 2 – The Constraint Framework: Three Pillars

Chapter 3 – The Wizards of Oz

Part II – The Constraints

Chapter 4 – Politics

Chapter 5 – The Economy and the Market

Chapter 6 – Geopolitics

Chapter 7 – Constitutional and Legal Constraints: The Constraint-Preference Hybrids

Chapter 8 – The Time Constraint: When Preferences Run Down the Clock

Part III – Operationalization

Chapter 9 – The Art of the Net Assessment

Chapter 10 – Game Theory – It’s Not a Game!

Chapter 11 – Geopolitical Alpha

Chapter 12 – Conclusion

Bibliography