The following 10 investment themes were described by Giles Keating, Credit Suisse head of the GESG and head of Global Research, in a video statement for In Focus magazine. Keating sets out to explain 10 core investment themes ranging from high-risk, but potentially high-return options, through to some of the more secure "stay safe" investments. To view the video, click on the icon in the above photo.

Theme One: Frontier Markets

The argument within the frontier markets theme is to look beyond both the developed and the emerging markets toward the frontier markets, which are markets where both the economy and the actual financial markets themselves are not very developed. This includes some markets in Africa, some markets in the Indian sub-continent, such as Pakistan, and some of the smaller markets in Asia and in Latin America. The Gag's feeling is that there is good long-term potential in these markets, despite the fact that at any given moment those markets can be very risky and uncertain. But for investors who really want to dig into some of the potentially highest growth and perhaps some of the most interesting areas in investment, frontier markets can be a very interesting.

Theme Two: Asian Currencies

In 2007 the big story was the strength of the Euro against the dollar, in 2008, the GESG believes the bigger foreign exchange theme is likely to be the strength of the Asian currencies and some of the emerging market currencies, although there could still be a little bit more strength of the Euro. Many of those currencies have become somewhat undervalued, and have not kept up with the strength of the Euro, for example. In the long term, there is value in those currencies. In a shorter-term sense, many of these countries are still experiencing very good growth - it may slow very slightly, but it's still a very strong growth rate - and in a context of rising food inflation and in a time when other commodities are high, these countries tend to suffer from inflation risk. That's an added incentive for them to allow their currencies to rise. On top of all of that, the Chinese Authorities are allowing their currency, the renminbi, to appreciate faster than in the past, and that faster rate of increase is likely to act as a kind of benchmark encouraging some of the other Asian currencies to rise.

Theme Three: US Presidential Elections

Obviously, the primaries are filling our screens and newspapers at the moment. What does this mean for investors? Election years actually tend to be rather good for the stock market. That aside, if we drill down into some of the individual themes, one of the areas we think we should be watching closely is the broad health care area. Traditionally, democrats tend to be better news for generic drug producers; republicans tend to be better news for some of the big pharmaceutical companies. Both sides have a more ambiguous effect on some of the other health care sectors such as hospitals. This is a theme where the fortunes of these sectors can come and go, depending on the way that the election seems to be going, and depending on how themes, such as health care, are treated by the candidates.

Theme Four: Inflation-Linked Bonds

US inflation-linked bonds did very well in 2007. In fact, they were one of the best performing asset classes. That's not surprising, because inflation-linked bonds do well in an environment where real interest rates tend to go down because of economic weakness, and when inflation remains an issue. Those conditions probably apply in the Euro zone in the first half of this year. There are signs that the economy is beginning to slow - not deeply, but it certainly slowing - and meanwhile inflation remains high. Those good conditions for inflation-linked bonds that we had in the US last year are likely to be repeated in the Euro zone this year. Inflation-linked bonds also provide a good hedge within an overall portfolio because they tend to be relatively uncorrelated with many other assets.

Theme Five: Chinese Brand Names

Select Chinese stocks are beginning to build up a strong consumer presence both within the Chinese market and over the longer term at the global level. Chinese consumer spending is also growing very rapidly and in the short and medium term, Chinese consumers can rise from recent levels of around about 5 percent or 6 percent of the global figure, and reach perhaps 20 percent or more by the end of the next decade. That creates an enormous opportunity for Chinese companies to establish and build on their presence in their home market and to really create strong brands, or to acquire or build brands at the global level. Chinese brands are very powerful long-term investment theme which investors can be looking at this year and, of course, we have details available of those companies likely to benefit from this theme at: www.credit-suisse.com/research

Theme Six: Climate Change

Climate change remains a very important theme for everybody in the world. It has become a very clear political and economic theme. At Credit Suisse, we created an alternative energy index 18 months ago. The stocks in this index have performed extremely well over the last 18 months out-performing the general stock market. At the beginning of 2007, we've added a water index which obviously keys into the same broad theme of climate change, but focuses on companies involved, one way or the other, in the business of water, providing fresh water and other water related activities. Again, that index has performed well and has beaten the general stock market indices. As we go through 2008, we believe this is still a really crucial theme, both at the general level and for investments. We think those two indices mentioned continue to provide a very good guide for investors. Within the alternative energy area, solar power has done well recently that it might see a modest set-back, but we think that the long-term story is still there.

Theme Seven: Commodities

Commodities have been a very important resource of investment returns over the last two or three years. We do believe that the commodities super cycle is still in place and will be driving prices higher beyond 2008, as the world economy continues to expand and as we continue to see the process of people moving into cities. Many more people in cities than in the country side seems likely over the next couple of years. That, of course, creates enormous pressure for the use of physical resources, whether it is energy raw-materials or food stuffs. Within the broad commodity trend, we think it's important to choose carefully. For example, oil and other energy prices and base metal prices such as copper and other metals that are used in manufacturing and construction can be under significant pressure over the next few months, reflecting this short-term downswing in the world economy. These are very cyclical commodities. Meanwhile, we think some of the precious metals - not just gold but also things platinum, for example, can continue to do well. We also think the up-trend in the soft commodities, the food stuffs, is likely to continue to be strong. The bottom line is the long-term story on commodities is still very much in place. But it is important to be selective and to be aware of some of the cyclical effects which can temporarily cause a departure from that longer term up-trend.

Theme Eight: Community Investment

Many of us make donations to charity. Out eighth big investment theme for 2008 relates to that concept of charitable giving. We call it community investment. It could also be called inclusive finance and it's related to socially responsible investment. These all about is looking beyond charitable giving - which is, of course, very important - to forms of investment which can help to achieve some of the same objectives which people aim for with their charitable giving. For example, microfinance lending can be very powerful in helping to reduce poverty by providing access to very small loans - 50 or 100 dollars - to people in emerging markets, to help them set up or continue with their small businesses and to give them empowerment and help them pull themselves out of poverty. But there are many other roots as well, for example "bottom of the pyramid" investing where one can invest into companies which are aiming to sell a very large amount of products at very low prices to the lowest income people in the world - and they can still make profits, because, although the goods are good quality and sold at very low prices, they're being sold in vast numbers. One can even look beyond that toward supporting not-for-profit organizations and also to various forms of socially responsible investments. With this in mind, we think this is a big theme, just as investors have moved beyond the narrow categories of bonds and equities in which most portfolios were focused about 20 years ago. We feel that investors are beginning to move beyond simply thinking about charitable giving into a broader range of using their funds in ways which can be very powerful in helping to achieve objectives, such as the reduction of poverty, but which are still investments even if they perhaps don't deliver quite as high a return as a less socially oriented investment might.

Theme Nine: Cheap Distressed Assets

Cheap distressed assets can include real estate assets, banks, financials and certain kinds of debt. As a result of the credit crises and the resulting financial problems that we've been through over the last six months or so, we've seen sharp falls in many assets. This includes commercial real estate, many assets connected with residential mortgages, and of course stocks, bank stocks, and bank debt. The idea behind this theme is to ask whether in some cases the valuations may be approaching distressed levels, in other words, a level where the prices have more than fully discounted the very real problems that are faced by these assets. In many cases, we are looking at various valuation measures standing at very low levels. For example, price earnings ratios that are perhaps standing at a 60 percent discount to their historic averages. We perhaps are looking at spreads on banking sector bonds that are wider than on those of many corporations. We may be looking at the share prices of banks which are really discounting now, and where perhaps that bad news flow is just beginning to come a little bit less rapidly and even gradually begin to give way to some better news. It may be just slightly early for some of these assets. On the other hand, investors who wait too long to take advantage of these opportunities might find that things will turn around quite rapidly. Therefore, we think this distressed area is a very important one for people at least to now begin to think quite hard about.

Theme 10: Quality Credits

Quality credits focus within fixed income portfolios, which many investors regard as the lower risk part of their investment holdings. Within these core portfolios, as opposed to riskier parts, we feel that investors should stay safe, and should be focusing on bonds where the cash flow of the issuer looks to be pretty secure at as the economy is slowing. We also feel that it is important for investors to focus on shorter-dated debt because longer-dated yields have come down a long way and in many cases, including quality bonds, are actually standing below nominal gross domestic product (GDP). That is often a signal of a risk that those yields are likely to rise, which of course would tend to bring the bond prices down. The message is to be safe, to stick within core fixed income portfolios, to stick to higher quality bonds within a reasonably short cash flow stream, and to stick with shorter durations.

Good luck with investing in 2008. While it has obviously been a year that has gotten off to a difficult start, the GESG thinks there are many opportunities out there such as those mentioned above. - Giles Keating, Credit Suisse head of Global Research