More comment – Page 46
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Features
Switzerland's pensions debate: Negative for longer
Switzerland is engaged in a debate not just about its pension reforms, but also wider issues of intergenerational fairness and the stability of the second-pillar pension system
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Features
Trump fixation obscures bigger picture
Donald Trump is such a lurid character (to put it politely) that it is all too easy to become obsessed with him. That helps explain why there is so much fraught discussion of him even outside the US
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Features
Emerging markets make no sense
After poor performances over the past three years, which led to large outflows, EM assets are finding their way back into institutional portfolios
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Opinion Pieces
Long-Term Matters: The lost decades
Evidence is emerging that the oil and gas sector knew about the risks of climate change for 40 years and buried this information. Had the world started decarbonising earlier, we could have done more to protect biodiversity and human life
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Opinion Pieces
Letter from the US: Endowment rethink
Should other university endowments follow the Yale model or is it time to rethink how they invest and take a simpler approach, such as an indexed 60/40 portfolio? That is the big question for NP ‘Narv’ Narvekar, who becomes the CEO of Harvard Management Company (HMC) in December.
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Opinion Pieces
Letter from Brussels: Pan-EU private schemes for 2017?
Legislation proposing pan-EU personal pension products (PEPPs) could be tabled in 2017, according to the European Commission
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Opinion Pieces
Guest Viewpoint: Chris Curry - Pensions Policy Institute
The pensions world is constantly changing. In the UK, more DC savers, coupled with recently introduced flexibility of access, will increase the levels of risk and complexity for many
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Features
An industrial revolution
There used to be a stark divide in pensions, particularly in the UK and the US, with a high level of security in defined benefit (DB) and a low level in defined contribution (DC)
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Features
A dollar decline is overdue
For anyone who follows currency trends, and indeed asset markets more generally, the triennial survey from the Bank for International Settlements is invaluable
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Features
Rethinking political risk
In recent conversations with investors about the prospects for global growth, the focus seemed to be more on the upcoming US election and Brexit than on economic fundamentals. It struck me how musings on political risk can influence an investor’s view on long-term market returns.
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Opinion Pieces
Long-Term Matters - Addicted to dumb ideas
With the UK retailer Sports Direct in the news, it is worth recalling what one large investor said only 12 months ago
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Features
Governance Practices: Between rhetoric and reality
Without behavioural change, recent adaptations in the governance practices of European pension plans merely amount to re-spraying an old car when an entirely new model is needed, according to Sally Bridgeland and Amin Rajan
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Opinion Pieces
Letter from the US: Pension equities ebb
The defined benefit (DB) pension funds of the companies in the S&P 500 index are in deficit. At December 2015, these were $376.6bn (€337bn) underfunded, according to Citigroup’s chief US equity strategist Tobias Levkovich.
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Opinion Pieces
Letter from Brussels: A vision for cross-border workers
A former director of the European Association of Paritarian Institutions (AEIP) has proposed a new option for occupational pensions that could help the large number of workers whose careers take them across EU internal borders.
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Opinion Pieces
Guest Viewpoint: Peter Kraneveld - International Pensions Adviser
Pension funds are not about politics, but their investment portfolios include political risk
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Features
Sharp tools needed
Some contend that book reserve pensions took root in Germany because funded pensions, such as they were, had been wiped out in the hyperinflation of the 1920s
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Features
Brexit: Block out the financial noise
If there is one thing the Brexit referendum proved without doubt, it is how difficult people find it to resist confirmation bias
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Features
Pension funds should review LDI strategies
Several UK asset managers that specialise in liability-driven investment (LDI) strategies have underperformed their benchmarks this year. This has put a strain on their pension scheme clients’ funding deficits at the worst possible time
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Opinion Pieces
Long-Term Matters: Have an affair or see a therapist?
An estranged couple, frustrated by their sex life, face a hard choice: have an affair or see a therapist and commit to renewing their relationship.
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Opinion Pieces
Letter from the US: Pensions dreamland?
The two presidential candidates disagree on everything except on Social Security, the US federal programme that guarantees basic pension benefits
