Asset Allocation – Page 239
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Features
Consumer 'will not crack'
Battered and bruised after almost three years of collapsing markets, equity investors have just experienced the largest quarterly decline in US, UK and European shares since 1987. Japanese stocks have also reached a new 19-year low. Consequently, bond yields have been falling sharply as investors have sought shelter. So, why ...
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Features
Covip lays down the law
Much of the future of Italy’s new complementary DC plans lies in the hands of the Commissione Vigilanza sui Fondi Pensione (Covip), which was set up to regulate them. Covip has been severely criticised by pension funds for what they see as the excessive bureaucracy of the approval process. It ...
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Features
Euro-zone could be weakest link
Historically, there has been a rather close relationship between the relative performance of US equities against bonds and the year on year change of the OECD leading indicator. This should not come as a surprise because, after all, the behaviour of investors is, to some extent, a function of their ...
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Features
Portugal goes on hold
The start of the year in Portugal was marked by political uncertainties marked by the resignation of prime minister António Guterres following local election defeats. This, added to the disappointing performance in the financial markets and the unhealthy Portuguese economy, has resulted in a difficult period for the development of ...
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Features
Staying out of the headlines
Eighteen months ago employee benefits accounting was considered a fairly dull subject, of little interest to anyone not directly involved in annual reporting activity. In recent months employee benefits accounting has received huge media interest and all stakeholders are now paying attention. What catapulted employee benefits accounting to the top ...
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Special Report
Message from on high
Hermes, the pensions management firm, wholly-owned by the BT pension scheme, is living up to its moniker with the unveiling of its new corporate governance charter – ‘The Hermes Principles’, which it believes could send an important message to institutional shareholders about how they invest in companies. The 10 principles, ...
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Features
Time for 'the negative option'
Italy has staked the future of its fledgling second pillar pension system on defined contribution (DC) schemes. The legal framework for the system was set up as part of the pension reforms of two former prime ministers Giuliano Amato in 1993 and Lamberto Dini in 1995. However, it has been ...
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Features
Russian pensions 'opening up'
Pension system reforms in Russia and the CIS could open doors to those countries for foreign fund managers. Russia has been tackling the issue of non-state pension funds reform for 10 years. Introduced only in 1991, by 1993 there were already 1,000 non-state schemes. As tough requirements were introduced, however, this figure shrank. As of 2001, there were 268 non-state pension funds in Russia with e1.6bn in total assets.
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Features
Price of refusing placements
Go executive, go north, west, east or south, if your master bids you. This is one of the uncompromising findings of an expatriate survey among major multinationals by consultants Mercer of a group of major multinationals, most of which were companies with headquarters in continental Europe or the UK. According ...
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Features
Spotting the turning points
When will share prices in the US finally hit bottom? Faced with the endless questioning from investors, equity strategists have trawled through the data, and some have come up with reasons to be optimistic. “Identifying turning points is clearly very difficult,” says Sam Mercer-Nairne, US fund manager as SG Asset ...
