The wisdom of Goldman Sachs' understated partner
When Peter Oppenheimer, the impish chief global equity strategist and head of macro research for Europe at Goldman Sachs, gave a talk to students at the London School of Economics (LSE) last week, he invited his father. When he spoke in Hampstead about the launch of his new book a few weeks previously, he invited his children and the juniors on his team. Oppenheimer, who's been a Goldman Sachs partner for nearly 20 years, is gently familial. Relatives and colleagues are part of his gang.
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Goldman Sachs likes a culture carrier, and Oppenheimer is good at the heft. More academia than ostentation, he came into banking accidentally. «I had no idea really what I wanted to do,» he confessed to students at the LSE. «I had very little interest in finance, but I did want to make some money.»
Oppenheimer's accidental financial services career began in 1985, just before Margaret Thatcher's «Big Bang» shook up London banking, and when gilt brokers still wore top hats to work and «jobbers» still made markets. In the nearly four decades since, he's presumably made quite a lot of money and has witnessed at least nine crises in financial markets.
Right now, Oppenheimer thinks we're in the «optimism» stage of a market cycle which typically moves between despair, hope, growth and optimism. This doesn't mean that despair necessarily follows, but it does suggest a new cycle is beginning. Monetary policy is giving way to fiscal policy, demographics are changing, labour markets are tightening. Oppenheimer says we're starting the «post-modern super cycle.» It's one in which returns will be harder to come by. «Big inflection points are unfolding before us. It's exciting, but can also be a bit
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