All Features articles – Page 86
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Features
The big picture
The dovishness of the developed markets (DM) central banks continues to be one of the main themes for capital markets.
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Features
Liability-Driven Investment: This sprint finish could get brutal
Things seem to have gone pretty well for UK pension schemes during 2013. A combination of rising bond yields and an equity market rally meant that, at the least, funding levels didn’t get any worse, and at best got schemes two or three percentage points closer to the finishing line.
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Features
Carrot or stick: the shift to passive
Earlier this year, the UK pension and asset management industries watched as the government revealed its vision for the 89 Local Government Pension Schemes (LGPS) in England and Wales.
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Features
Rates of change
Carolyn Tavares argues that the roller-coaster start to 2014, with its disconnect between economic indicators and bond yields, makes the case for holding to strategic, funding level-based de-risking programmes
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Features
Counting on the krona
Erik Callert, chief investment officer of SPP Livförsäkring, tells Jonathan Williams how an overhaul of its portfolio left it better equipped to deal with Solvency II
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Features
Inflated expectations
Investors often assume that inflation protection comes as standard with infrastructure investments. Vivian Nicoli warns that it depends on a number of variables and may come at the price of lower expected nominal returns
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Features
Triumph of hope over experience
Book review: Money Mania: Booms, Panics and Busts from Ancient Rome to the Great Meltdown, Bob Swarup (Bloomsbury, £20)
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Features
Focus Group: Do you get what you pay for?
Asset management offers poorer value for money than other service industries, if IPE’s latest Focus Group survey results are anything to go by.
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Features
Focus Group: Do you get what you pay for?
Asset management offers poorer value for money than other service industries, if IPE’s latest Focus Group survey results are anything to go by. Eighteen out of 36 respondents feel that it is worse while only 10 feel that it is better. Passive management is considered best in terms of value for money and investor-friendly fee structures, followed by benchmarked long-only active management and smart beta. Private equity and especially hedge funds are seen as the worst offenders.
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Features
High frequency problems
High frequency trading (HFT) has scuttled into the limelight this year since the publication of Flash Boys, Michael Lewis’ recent book on the subject. While most people agree that faster, smarter trading is generally good, and that rigged markets are an entirely bad thing, there is by no means agreement where HFT fits in.
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Features
Fuelling risk
Investors need to consider the extent to which their portfolios are exposed to rising climate-change risk, writes Mark Nicholls
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Features
Investing in a slow-growth world
Demographic trends probably mean slower economic growth in the developed world. Katherine Davidson argues that a thorough understanding of demographics will be essential for generating alpha in this environment
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Features
Nudging its way to reform
Nearly two years after the German pension association aba threw its weight behind the introduction of auto-enrolment, little has happened to increase the coverage of the second pillar.
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Features
Look to the north
In the Netherlands we are sensitive to environmental problems and are aware of our vulnerability as a low-lying nation to rising sea level. After all, you have to if a fifth of your land and a fifth of your people are below sea level.
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Features
Pressure on, pressure off
The 22 July deadline for implementation of the Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive (AIFMD) is looming. As with other EU financial legislation, AIFMD will be enforced via national regulators and with varying approaches, so this will not be consistent across EU member states.
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Features
Three is a magic number (again)
Last month I wrote about how bond-market valuations are supported by the shape of the yield curve. This month (inspired by a presentation by BNP Paribas’ Kokou Agbo-Bloua I saw recently) we will turn to equities.
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Features
Exploding the asset allocation myth
The old dictum of ‘fix asset allocation and the numbers will follow’ no longer works, says Amin Rajan, and a world-class strategy is now worthless without world-class execution
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Features
Viva Aviva? Well, maybe
Gail Moss looks in detail at Aviva Staff Pension Scheme’s £5bn longevity risk transfer which, although still part of a relatively small club, could open the door to similar deals
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Features
Bond platform rivalry heats up
Pension funds and other institutional investors are searching for alternative ways to find liquidity in fixed income. Bond platforms are vying for the job, writes Maha Khan Phillips
