All Features articles
View all stories of the same content type.
-
FeaturesResearch: Resilience is the new watchword
In the first of two articles, Pascal Blanqué and Amin Rajan ask whether the current volatility in asset prices is a buying opportunity or the halfway stage in a prolonged bear market?
-
Features
Is sustainability mispriced?
Living in the developed world over the past 50 years, life has been stable, even idyllic, for most people. That is certainly compared with their grandparents and previous generations who lived through two world wars and the Spanish flu. But, as COVID-19 has shown so cruelly, there are existential dangers that can lie hidden. These can rip the established world order asunder if not tackled beforehand.
-
Features
Perspective: Markowitz is still modern
Thirty years after he was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, Harry Markowitz’s groundbreaking work from the 1950s still powers financial innovation
-
Features
Guest viewpoint: Sir Ronald Cohen
We are on the threshold of another major shift in institutional portfolios. Impact transparency is changing the rules for both investors and businesses.
-
Features
Briefing: Feast or famine
With the end of the COVID-19 pandemic still out of sight, any forecast of the size of economic damage it will inflict has to be viewed with caution. Yet there seems to be a consensus that default rates on leveraged loans will stay elevated throughout 2021 and beyond.
-
Features
US endowments: Success breeds success
Perhaps no single group of institutional investors elicits as much fascination and admiration as US university endowments – in particular those of the Ivy League, and among that elite group the Yale and Harvard endowments in particular.
-
Features
Fixed Income, Rates, Currencies: Vaccine boosts bullish markets
The swings in outcome predictions as the vote counting began in the US election were large. From the realisation that there was no blue wave of Democrat success, to a possible re-election for Donald Trump, to a Joe Biden win but with a Republican Senate, it was tricky to comprehend the investment implications.
-
Features
Letter from Australia: Reforms not super for default funds
A string of government reforms due to come into effect from July 2021 has caught the superannuation sector off-guard.
-
Features
Strategically Speaking: BlueBay Asset Management
Nowadays, it seems fair to ask asset managers whether they believe they can fulfil their clients’ needs while at the same time doing their bit to fight COVID-19.
-
Features
Briefing: An unfortunate lack of ambition
The second Capital Markets Union (CMU) Action Plan of the EU Commission lacks ambition. This at a time when the EU Commission wants to set an industrial policy for the EU to bolster competitiveness in key sectors. It also comes shortly before the UK’s departure from the EU. Yet a vision of what the EU wants to achieve, by when and how, is missing.
-
Features
Ahead of the curve: Grasping intangible assets
Even the name hints at the challenge: intangible assets are hard to value. Recently, investors have looked to these assets to explain a decade of underperformance by value stocks. But new research suggests no tangible performance benefit from adjusting for intangibles.
-
Features
Long term matters: A time to be hopeful and active?
Jaap van Dam, principal director of investment strategy at PGGM, is right: pension funds need to understand politics. We have two additions. First, the ‘outside-in’ focus – how politics affects portfolios – is a great starting point. But investors cannot stop there, they have considerable influence on politics whether for good or bad.
-
Features
Accounting Matters: Accounting for the Wedge
The reason why defined benefit (DB) scheme sponsors account for inflation is because International Accounting Standard 19, Employee Benefits, tells them that if they make a benefit promise that is linked to price increases, the effect of that commitment has to be accounted for. The starting point for what by any standards is a gargantuan actuarial task is to look at yields on inflation-linked bonds.
-
-
-
Features
IPE Quest Expectations Indicator - December 2020
US COVID-19 case numbers were rising rapidly at the time of writing. Western European figures suggest that the lockdowns are repelling the second wave. Japan’s statistics suggest a third wave is coming. Only an efficient vaccination and a high participation in inoculation programmes can end the threat posed by COVID-19.
-
Features
Letter from US: COVID-19 places new demands on university endowments
COVID-19 has hit a special category of institutional investors in the US hard – college and university endowments. In fact, higher education institutions are facing a decline in revenues because of fewer students enrolling and paying tuition, as well as current students asking for more financial aid. Colleges and universities are withdrawing substantial amounts from their endowments to cover these extra expenses. How is this affecting endowments’ investment strategies?
-
Features
Biden signal is green for ESG
For many, US president-elect Joe Biden spells hope. From an ESG-perspective, there are two main aspects to this phenomenon.
-
Features
Perspective: Manager selection in a pandemic
The social distancing restrictions imposed to contain COVID-19 have made external asset manager selection more demanding, but investors are adapting
-
Features
Guest Viewpoint: Five reasons to invest in pensions technology
The world has changed exponentially in 2020, leading many multinationals to ask valid questions about how they can enhance their global operations.
