Asset Allocation – Page 158
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Features
Equities excel while bonds underperform
October was characterised by the improving performance of the stock markets, as indicated by the above average returns of the S&P 500, while volatility remained at the same level as the previous month, still close to its historical lows. Bond market performance declined again, reaching a low, but still positive, ...
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Features
Building stronger portfolios
Pension funds should build stronger portfolios to brace themselves for worst-case scenarios rather than just researching them a panel discussion ‘Where are the markets moving and how to react’, that was moderated by Karel Stroobants, chairman of Akkermans Stroobants & Partners. “We were too often disappointed by diversification when we ...
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Features
Face of sector to continue changing
IPE asked three pension funds – in the Czech Republic, Denmark and the Netherlands – the same question: ‘What challenges and opportunities do you expect to face in 2007?’ Here are their answers:
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Features
Time to cross the frontier?
There are over 350 frontier stocks that can be considered investible according to Constantine Papageorgiou, so a commitment to this market at an early stage could be well rewarded
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Features
The disruptive power of innovation
In the second of the series, Amin Rajan and Jervis Smith argue that beneath the surface of booming markets fund management is changing irrevocably
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Features
McCreevy endorses second pillar pensions
Ageing populations; shrinking work forces, are putting intense pressure on state pensions. This is driving change throughout the whole pensions system: The relationship between the state and its citizens; the nature of the pensions promises made by employers to their employees; the design of private retirement saving products. The pressure ...
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Special Report
Microfinance enters the mainstream
Over the years, microfinance has emerged as a profitable business opportunity and a way to build local economies. When Dutch pension giant ABP, the scheme for civil servants, placed €5m in the Dexia Micro-Credit fund last year it was a sign of growing interest in this type of investment among ...
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Features
Keeping the focus sharp
The main business of Principal Global Investors, a US asset management company with headquarters in Des Moines, is pension funds. Principal manages the assets of 10 of the 25 largest pension funds in the US and more than two thirds of its $180bn (€134bn) assets under management belong to pension ...
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Features
Reform impetus runs out of steam
After making good progess establishing its third pillar, the Czech Republic now finds itself being overtaken by its neighbours, as George Coats reports
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Features
Predicting a predictable New Year
Forecasting the future of the financial world is fraught with difficulty and the chances of making spectacularly bad predictions are high. Famously, Irving Fisher, a professor of economics at Yale University, said in 1929 that “stocks have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau”. If stoics are to believed and everything is predetermined, divination is at best guesswork and at worst alarmist. However, there may be some value in educated guesses.
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Special Report
Money with a conscience
Robert Rubenstein finds bodies with a social mission reluctant to commit their endowments to social investments
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Features
India: a commitment, not just an asset allocation
Ian McEvatt of Iceman Capital Advisors believes investors should be exposed to India because it has characteristics which distinguish it among developing markets
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Features
Where is India heading?
Indian Fund expert Jacqueline Aldhous, manager of the Forsyth India Fund of Funds, assesses the current market conditions and highlights some of her top fund picks
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Features
Keeping a lid on volatility
While it has a high exposure to equities, the Singapore Management University Endowment fund, safeguards against risk by investing in a wide range of asset classes, writes Richard Newell
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Features
When tradition meets modernity
The University of Melbourne fund is run along US lines with an ever increasing attention to private equity but it is careful to retain a strong sense of the past, writes Richard Newell
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Features
The dynamics of Asia currency
Kevin Hebner argues that the key to investing in Asia, including the currency markets, is a grasp of the underlying market drivers
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Features
Why asset allocation looks more attractive
The changing approach to asset allocation in Spain is assessed by Jose-Luis Masferrer who sees investors becoming more venturesome
