he forces of innovation and disruption, and changes in investors’ discount rates, drive significant rotations in markets. Neither can be reliably forecast. The corporate life cycle concept describes how companies’ returns on capital progress through five stages: Accelerating, Compounding, Fading, Mature and Turnaround. A company’s position tells you how it is exposed to the forces of innovation and disruption , how it can create wealth and how its valuation might respond to changes in investors’ discount rates. In global equities, portfolios balanced through this lens are resilient to market rotations and have more of their risk concentrated in stock specific risk which is aligned with stock pickers’ edge. This lens keeps allocators’ eyes on the prize: a balanced global equity core portfolio that can perform through changing markets.