All articles by Martin Steward – Page 3
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Special Report
Active Management: Feast and famine
The ability to generate alpha might be a skill, but the amount of alpha available from the market is not a constant. Martin Steward asks how we might measure the alpha opportunity and whether investors should vary the risk budget they allocate to active management as a result
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Special Report
Active Management: Diluting by concentrating
Concentrated portfolios can look like a proxy for high-conviction and high-alpha portfolios. Martin Steward asks if the two things necessarily follow one another
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Features
That’s about the size of it
In late September, one of the world’s largest pension funds ditched its hedge funds, and one of the world’s largest mutual funds lost its manager. One decision made sense, but not for the reasons most commentators put forward. The other made sense, despite all the focus on the nonsense surrounding it.
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NewsIPE Views: 'De-carbonising’ portfolios doesn’t mitigate risk – it adds it
IPE’s Martin Steward wonders whether a habit of thought is developing that fails to recognise ‘de-carbonising’ as a risk and starts to regard it as a certainty
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Features
Divergence trades, depression trades
“It’s one of our big themes,” said Kathleen Hughes, head of European institutional sales at Goldman Sachs Asset Management, talking about central bank policy divergence over meet-the-press drinks in early September, four hours after European Central Bank president Mario Draghi had taken the deposit rate further into negative territory and announced plans to purchase covered bonds and asset-backed securities. The euro had a terrible day; Goldman Sachs had a pretty good one.
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Asset Class Reports
High-yield Bonds & Loans: Covenants and calls
Joseph Mariathasan and Martin Steward ask whether investors’ traditional protections are getting squeezed out in the convergence of high yield bond and loan markets
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Special Report
Real Assets: Material changes
Is there is a tension at the heart of this month’s special report? On the one hand, we write about markets undergoing significant change. On the other, we deal with issues arising from the pursuit of dependable, boring, long-term cash flows from real assets.
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Special Report
Real Assets: Let's roll
Backwardation is back in commodity futures curves. Martin Steward asks, can investors at last expect to be paid for taking risk in the asset class, or is it a flash in the pan?
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Asset Class Reports
High-yield Bonds & Loans: Low yields, high alpha
With spreads so tight, high-yield has become even more of a bottom-up stockpickers’ market than usual. Martin Steward looks for themes in the top-performing portfolios
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Asset Class ReportsHigh-yield Bonds & Loans: Revolution from above and below
Few markets outside the emerging world have changed to the extent that European high-yield has over recent years. Joseph Mariathasan and Martin Steward find transformation coming from the massive to the micro, from above and below
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NewsReformed Irish SWF could still be used to pre-fund pension liabilities
John Corrigan, head of the NTMA, will ‘not discount’ possibility of ISIF paying state’s pension bill
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NewsShock exit of PIMCO founder Bill Gross sets markets achatter [updated]
Fixed income legend looks forward to returning ‘full focus’ to fixed income markets, giving up ‘complexities that go with managing large, complicated organisation’
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NewsIreland's new SWF will take 'years' to deploy capital fully, says NTMA head
Recruitment to begin for Ireland Strategic Investment Fund committee
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NewsEuropean Commission's Lueder sets out strategy for asset management
Head of asset management unit signals step away from regulatory zeal, new horizons in China
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Special Report
Special Report - Securities Services: Margin of error
It’s tough making an honest euro in custody banking. Users of these services might be forgiven for thinking that wherever banks can bury sharp practices in obscure parts of their businesses, they will – and the findings of the UK finance regulator’s recent investigation into transition management won’t put their minds at rest.
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Asset Class Reports
Emerging Market Debt: Carry through the crises
Navigating the switch from fundamentals-driven volatility to carry-driven calm in 2013-14 has been a challenge for emerging market debt managers, Martin Steward writes. The eruption of political crises simply adds to the complexity
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Features
I’ll have my bond; I will not hear thee speak
The court scene from The Merchant of Venice dramatises the balance between justice and equity. Argentina’s conflict with its ‘holdout’ creditors, which led to default on its New York-law bonds, suggests that it ought to be required reading for sovereign debt investors.
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NewsDeAWM shows institutional 'commitment' with two appointments
Asset manager creates new head of insurance and pensions solutions role
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NewsUS consultant Meketa Investment Group opens London office
European research hub set to begin offering consulting services from 2015
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Special Report
Pension Fund Governance: Objectives then implementation
Martin Steward talks to Roger Urwin about the thinking behind Towers Watson’s ‘transformational change’ projects with the world’s leading large institutional investors
