Asset Allocation – Page 243
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Features
Variety of strategies
The HSBC Asian Equity Fund under HSBC’s SICAV Global Investment Fund series currently has $140m under management, with its Asia Equity OEIC counterpart running £40m. The month of October saw the fund return positive results of 5.47% after a fairly negative year, with the fund’s year-to-date returns currently sitting at ...
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Outsourcing of e60bn mooted
Concerns about the medium term solvency of the Spanish social security system have been actively discussed not only in Spain but also in Brussels. At the end of last year the European Commission said that the Spanish government was not providing enough detailed information regarding the long term sustainability of ...
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Nightmare on ALM street
American defined benefit (DB) pension funds may become the next nightmare for US corporations. David Blitzer, chairman of Standard & Poor’s index committee, predicts that pension contributions will replace stock options as the big corporate accounting issue next year. The almost three year severe stock market downturn has deeply damaged ...
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Out of one comparto and into another
One sign that the new occupational DC plans in Italy are shifting into a higher gear is the beginning of a move from monocomparto schemes, which offer members a single line of investment – usually a balanced portfolio – to multicomparto schemes that offer a choice of investments. Investment choice ...
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Benign Belgian flexibility
Market volatility has not precipitated any sharp changes of direction among Belgian pension funds, according to Hervé Noël the head of portfolio management at Tractebel Pension Funds in Brussels. Furthermore, the regulator, the Office de Controle des Assurances/Controledienst voor Verzekeringen (OCA/CDV) is using a light hand on the tiller. “Until ...
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Blown off course
Professionals in the Spanish pensions market will remember this month as the end of a long process during which Spanish companies were forced, by law, to externalise their pension reserves by establishing a pension fund or an insurance contract. Previous deadlines regarding this outsourcing were postponed due to disagreements among ...
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Managing disability costs in Canada
Like many jurisdictions around the world, Canada is experiencing significant increases in benefit costs, notably medical and disability costs. Several factors contribute to disability cost increases but there are three major factors common to many countries – the ageing work force, stress and depression, and a strained healthcare system. For ...
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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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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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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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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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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 ...
