Asset Allocation – Page 214
-
Features
More optimistic than cautious
The outlook for US equities for the coming year is positive. According to Darrell Riley, vice president of T Rowe Price in Baltimore, “the consensus is that S&P index will increase by between 5 and 10% by the end of the year.” He adds: “what is priced into the market ...
-
Features
British miss gravy train
The Parliamentary Contributory Pension Fund (PCPF) was first introduced to provide pension benefits for Members of Parliament (MPs) in 1965. The PCPF is a funded scheme which invests contributions from the exchequer and members. The Parliamentary Contributory Pension Fund (PCPF) has come in for considerable criticism, largely on account of ...
-
Features
Getting the best from custodians
Has your custodian ever lost any of your assets? Probably not. Should you worry about such risks? Surely yes. But how much should pension fund directors get involved in custody issues? In fact, there are normally no major problems that would require the attention of pension fund boards. Custody seems ...
-
Features
JOP goes back to the drawing board
At the Juristernes & Okonomernes Pension Fund (JØP) the search for alpha is on. The DKr21bn professional fund for lawyers and economists is undergoing an extensive restructuring. A full review is in hand, says Henrik Franck, investment director, who joined the fund from BankInvest last year. “Not only is the ...
-
Features
Sectors have arrived
European institutions have little choice but to invest in European equities, be it via a domestic or foreign equity allocation, structured as a euro or pan-European mandate, or the European element of a global mandate. Four years after the birth of the euro, the means by which institutions achieve European ...
-
Features
Key area of fund focus
Managing risk has shot to the top of the agenda for most pension funds this decade. While some capital erosion was unavoidable in the years of tumbling market values, trustees are demanding that everything be done to see that funds are better prepared the next time stocks take a dive. ...
-
Features
Industriens is poised to take advantage of the upturn
The Copenhagen-based Industriens Pensions has an impeccable background as a labour-market fund. Formed just over a decade ago, in a pioneering joint venture move by DI, the Confederation of Danish Industry on the employer side and by CO, the central grouping of trade unions, it covers employees in 8,500 businesses ...
-
Features
Whose hands on the tiller?
The importance of the asset allocation decision has been highlighted by the market volatility of recent years. This has encompassed phases when both equities and bond have moved in the same direction, albeit at different paces (mid to late 1990s) and the more recent past where performance has diverged radically. ...
-
Features
Germany goes for TAA
German institutional investors are increasingly focusing on the possibilities for tactical asset allocation (TAA) within their portfolios. “What we are seeing in the market is that there is a very large interest in TAA,” says Klaus Esswein, State Street Global Advisors’ managing director, based in Munich. “You find immediate interest ...
-
Features
Waving the flag for funding
The idea for a pension fund for members of the European Parliament began on a paper tablecloth in an Athens restaurant. It was sketched by Richard Balfe and a fellow member of the European Parliament (MEP) Anthony Simpson. They felt that MEPs fared worse than their national parliamentary counterparts in ...
-
Features
Why pressure is mounting on DB plans in UK
The last few years have seen troubled times for all involved with the management of defined benefit (DB) pension plans within the UK, with large numbers of employers either closing their DB plans to new entrants or shutting down their plans for future accrual altogether. Based on the National Association ...
