All Features articles – Page 406
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Features
Why indices are becoming similar
In the 1990s, index providers started to notice a chasm between the story their benchmarks were telling and the environment investors were dealing with. Not all of the market capitalisation the indices represented was actually available to buy. Because of this, in the past three years every one of the ...
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Features
Style begins to take root in Europe
Style indices are relatively prevalent in the US, with Dow Jones, Russell, S&P/Barra and MSCI all offering style indices based on their standard index products. The European markets have been less well served in this respect. Until recently, MSCI was the only major provider to offer a pan-European product within ...
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Features
Tightening the contributions belt
In this month’s Off the Record we get down to the nitty-gritty of pensions – who pays what in contributions and how long it is likely to stay that way? How are contribution levels set, when do they change, and are the current market conditions forcing a reappraisal of the ...
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Features
Could be the start of something big
The first Eurozone inflation indexed bond (OATei) auctioned in October by the French Trésor has been very well received. Demand was seen not just from within the domestic market but also from the rest of Europe and as well as the UK and the US. As well as the Anglo ...
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Features
Boots kicks shares into touch
The £2.3bn (e3.7bn) pension fund of the Boots group has sold its entire equity and short-term bond investments and switched its allocation to sterling long-dated fixed rate bonds in a shift that the fund says will save it around £10m a year in management fees. In a letter to pension ...
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Features
Myners opens Pandora's box
When Paul Myners allocated just a couple of pages to the issue of brokerage commissions in his recent report into the UK institutional market, he cannot have anticipated the hornets’ nest he was to disturb. Although he focused on commissions, it has brought the issue of trading costs as a ...
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Features
Brightening up the dull world of fixed income
Investors in European bonds now have a new tool at their disposal. With the iBoxx family of bond indices, the bond market finally has access to a reliable and transparent benchmark, claims the newly formed company behind the index. “It’s something that’s completely different in the grey world of fixed ...
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Features
Wake-up call for cash holdings
We live in risk-averse times. Consumer confidence in the major economies is either weak or falling, risk premiums have risen following the terrorist attacks of 11 September and the IMF has warned of a global recession. In such a difficult economic environment the management of low-risk asset classes, such as ...
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Features
Travelling cautiously
Outside the window of Ton Groeneveld’s office in Utrecht, the trains run past constantly, a perpetual reminder if he ever needed it of what his job is all about. He is chief investment officer at SPF Beheer, the management company that was formed in 1994 to administer the e10bn Railways ...
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Features
UK sees rapid pace of change
The pace of change in the UK pensions market over the last 30 years has been more dramatic than in any other major institutional market, claims Greenwich Associates, the Greenwich, Connecticut-based research and consulting firm. Of particular note in the UK, says Greenwich, is the shift by schemes in their ...
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Features
Waiting for signals to change
UK equities have recovered some of the losses they suffered following 11 September and there are signs that the domestic economy is more robust than previously feared. But investors’ hopes for a more geographically widespread upturn in economic fortunes could paradoxically dent share index levels in the UK. This is ...
