All Features articles – Page 315
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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 ...
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Features
New CFE to launch volatility index future
The Chicago Board Options Exchange has had to open a futures trading market in order to launch the VIX Futures based on its VIX Volatility Index product. It is due be launched in March as the first product listed on the new Chicago Future Exchange electronic market. Up to now ...
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Features
Torn by conflicts of interest
It is estimated that up to 90% of a quoted service company’s market capitalisation is due to its reputation. But this reputation can take a knock from clients and investors if people think there are conflicts of interest in the service provided and firms are no longer perceived as independent. ...
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Features
Consumers hold the key
After three years of significant underperformance, Euro-zone equity markets outperformed the US, UK and Japan markets in 2003 as investors switched out of bonds and back into equities. The question is whether this is likely to continue in 2004. Some analysts suspect that the economic and financial recovery expected this ...
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Features
Currency - the performance conundrum
It is regularly stated that very few people can forecast currency movements, yet currency as an asset class is one that seems more capable than most of delivering reliable and attractive returns. Why this should be would seem a mystery until one is told by people like Neil Record, one ...
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Features
Ironing out the creases
In their eagerness to court increasingly powerful consultants, investment management firms throughout Europe have created consultant relations positions. But the consultants themselves are still not convinced that they are getting what they need. Like client relationship managers, consultant relations executives are the first point of contact for consultants looking for ...
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Features
Time to be more creative
The defining moment of 2003 for the Irish fund management industry was the decision by UK insurance giant Aviva to reprieve its Dublin based asset management arm, Hibernian Investment Managers, Ireland’s fourth largest asset manager Aviva had initially considered closing down Hibernian and merging its operations with its London-based asset ...
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Features
Dedicated follower of market trends
When mad cow disease was discovered in Washington state last December, cattle futures collapsed. However, the US dollar also continued its downward slide. As a result, the Mulvaney Capital Management Global Diversified programme, which invests in a mixture of commodities and financials, ended the month 5.35% up. Managed futures is ...
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Features
Drift from equities in mature markets
The head of investment at consultants Watson Wyatt, Roger Urwin, says there is a gradual move to lower equity allocations in mature pension countries. “In countries with maturing pension funds there seems to be a gradual move to lower equity allocations,” says Urwin, global head of the consulting firm’s investment ...
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Features
Dutch pension reforms
As well as trying to mind-read Central Bankers, poring over economic statistics and keeping a keen watch on world events, investors also need to be more than up-to-date with all sorts of rules and regulations, dull though they may be. In a recent piece of careful and thorough research from ...
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Features
Unweighting fixed income logical
The scenario of a pick-up in growth, contained inflation and ample market liquidity suggest a continuation of the trends seen in recent months for financial markets and a preference for equities, particularly high risk markets, over bonds. We can also expect to see greater risks in the second half of ...
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Features
Philips focuses on the possible
Though the Philips Group as a worldwide electronics company operating in over 60 countries worldwide has a total workforce of 166,500 employees, it currently does not have any multinational pension plans. The pension plans the group has across the globe were established as the company grew its activities over the ...
