arvy Notes · Methodology

How We Look at Markets — The 4-Pillar Framework

Macro Big Picture · Market Sentiment · Market Breadth/Internals · Technicals. A systematic framework we apply quarterly to global markets — with a live application for Q2 2026.

Written by Thierry Borgeat, Co-Founder of arvy · Reviewed by Patrick Rissi, CFA and Florian Jauch, CFA · 26 May 2026 · 7 minute read

When institutional investors, family offices, and wealth managers speak with us, the most common implicit question is not "what do you think of the market", but "how do you arrive at your view". This note answers that question — in the only way that makes sense for a serious working partnership: by disclosing the framework itself.

Who We Are — Briefly

arvy AG is a FINMA-regulated Swiss asset manager (CISA Art. 24) headquartered in Zürich. We manage a concentrated global Quality equity fund, run app-based Swiss private wealth solutions — and selectively make our research available to institutional partners. The three founders (Thierry Borgeat, Florian Jauch CFA, Patrick Rissi CFA) previously co-managed an institutional equity fund with a Morningstar 5-star rating and approximately USD 200 million in AUM. Our own capital is invested in the same fund as our clients'.

What sets us apart is not the individual model or the individual sector call — it is how systematically we derive those views. That is precisely what the framework on this page describes.

The 4-Pillar Framework

Each of the four pillars answers a distinct question. Only their synthesis produces an actionable market view.

Three properties make the framework relevant for institutional partners:

First — it is redundant. Four independent pillars reduce the risk that any single model leads to the wrong conclusion. When Pillar 1 and Pillar 3 conflict, that is valuable information — not an inconsistency we paper over.

Second — it is explicitly binding. Each indicator receives a clear signal (positive, neutral, negative). That eliminates the standard institutional problem of research notes ending without an actionable conclusion. We can be wrong — we cannot be non-committal.

Third — it makes market phases comparable. Because the methodology stays constant, today's reading can be compared directly against the reading from six, twelve, or eighteen months ago. That brings discipline to a discipline that tends to drift.

We can be wrong — we cannot be non-committal.

The Synthesis — How Four Pillars Become a Call

The individual pillars feed into an overall assessment. That assessment is never binary ("bullish" / "bearish"), but a conditional reading: Which phase of the cycle dominates, which factors should therefore be overweighted, and where do the risks of misreading lie?

One historical pattern the framework repeatedly surfaces: when Pillar 4 (Technicals) is still positive but Pillar 3 (Breadth) is already diverging and Pillar 1 (Macro) signals headwinds, the market is typically in a topping process. That is not a signal to capitulate — it is the signal to mean-revert toward defensive and Quality factors.

This is precisely the constellation we face today.

Live Application: The Q2 2026 Assessment

The table below is the uncut summary of our current reading. It is drawn from the Global Market Assessment Q2 2026, which we produce internally and share with institutional partners.

The reading: Trend (Pillar 4) is still positive — but every internal of Pillar 3 (Breadth) is diverging, Pillar 1 (Macro) is constrained, and Pillar 2 (Seasonality) is unfavourable. That is the textbook pattern of an advanced topping process. We view risk/reward as unfavourable into late summer, with a bias toward under-owned Quality and defensive factors.

The Track Record of This Reading — Three Calls in 2026

The framework is not a theoretical exercise. It produces documented, dated calls. Here are the three inflection points of the year so far:

The three calls show what the framework delivers: it identified the topping process before the April correction. It identified the reaction low with concrete sentiment and breadth signals. And it identified the recent run to 7,200 as a technical high, not a fundamental trend continuation. We do not claim to anticipate every turning point — we claim to recognise the setup in which a turning point becomes structurally probable, before it occurs.

The Quality Lens — What We Do Afterwards

The 4-Pillar framework settles the allocation question: which market phase are we in, which factors should be overweighted? What it does not settle is the selection question: which specific companies should carry the portfolio?

That is where our Quality lens comes in. It does not ask: how fast is this company growing? It asks: how durable are its cash flows, how low its leverage, how high its return on equity across cycles, how attractive its current valuation relative to its own history?

The result is a double discipline: the framework prevents us from adding into a technically constrained market phase. The Quality lens prevents us from positioning ourselves with the fundamental losers of that phase. We have described the allocation logic in detail in the Quality note.

Cash is a fact. Profits are an opinion. Quality does not prevent every correction — but it ensures that what sits in the portfolio survives one structurally.

What Institutional Partners Concretely Receive

Our Investment Research partnership is built for independent wealth managers, family offices, and smaller asset managers who need rigorous institutional research — without building an internal research team. Specifically:

We are small, concentrated, and work with a deliberately limited number of partners. That is a conscious choice — it allows us to serve each partnership with the depth that institutional research requires.