Asset Allocation – Page 261
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Features
High-yield at low ebb
The Merrill Lynch High Yield Master Index in September suffered its biggest monthly fall since its inception. It declined –6.42% during the month, taking its third-quarter fall to –6.07%, which in itself was the biggest such drop since the third quarter of 1990. In addition, the spread versus Treasuries at ...
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Features
Markets have embraced 'V' shaped recovery
Equity markets, which plunged in the aftermath of the terrible events of 11 September, have more than made up the lost territory in the past few weeks. On the surface, this suggests that nothing material happened on the day of the attacks. Obviously, this is wrong. The world has changed ...
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Features
Pension funds hit hard by equities slump
The growth of an equity culture has been one of the success stories of continental European investment over the past 10 years, and pension funds have been an important part of this. Funds in Scandinavia, Switzerland and the Netherlands in particular have steadily increased their exposure to equities to take ...
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Features
Ready for European tour?
The announcement by the €552m VKG-CPM Belgian pension fund for doctors, dentists and pharmacists that it had established a new healthcare sector pension fund, ‘Amonis’, with potential membership of 250,000 employees across the country, was not only one of the most significant in the Belgian pension market in recent times, ...
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Features
Eyes fixed on reserve fund
This year has seen a slowdown in the creation of new pension funds in Portugal. The awaited reform of the social security system, the real key to the future development of the industry, has not yet materialised, and although the debate is still alive, so far no major steps have ...
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Features
Ready to go pro-cyclical
Global equity market return has now been negative for six quarters in a row, except for the first quarter of 2001. This means that the downturn is almost as long as the 1973–74 oil crisis. The effects of the attacks are very difficult to quantify but growth forecasts are reduced ...
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Features
Living with increased volatility
Over the past 10 years, capital markets have been subject to a series of shocks. In the foreign exchange markets, the prime examples have been the ejection of sterling from the European Exchange Rate Mechanism and the collapse of a number of the Asian currencies in 1997. In the bond ...
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Features
It's not all one-way traffic
Key to the issue of outsourcing is whether to manage assets in-house or to appoint a third party investment manager. According to George Urquhart of the WM Company, internal managers are finding themselves under pressure from tight human resource budgets while trustees and plan sponsors are under pressure from consultants ...
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Features
Top funds good all the time
The Danish Pension funds had a rather unusual year in 2000 where the factors determining performance differed significantly from the previous years. The steep falls on the international equity markets were countered by very healthy rises in the Danish equity market, which – measured by the Total index – rose ...
