All IPE articles in November 2014 (Magazine)
Articles from the November 2014 edition of IPE magazine.-
Features
Dollar storm ends 10-year FX calm
A full decade of range-bound trade in the dollar has dulled pension investors’ sense of the risks of currency exposure. As Christopher O’Dea reports, all that’s about to change
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Asset Class Reports
Beleggersberaad 2014: Managers sing praises of frontier markets
Emerging market debt (EMD) has matured and could now act as a “useful addition” to a pension fund’s fixed income portfolio, according to Roy Scheepe, senior client portfolio manager at ING Investment Management.
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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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Features
ECB exercise to beef up ABS
The ECB hopes its plans to invest heavily in the asset-backed securitisation market will encourage other investors and ultimately help boost real economy lending, writes Anthony Harrington
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Country Report
Pensions In Nordic Region: Time for action on carbon
Investors like AP4, AP2 and the Church of Sweden are ahead of the game in portfolio decarbonisation, writes Caroline Liinanki
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Special Report
Active Management: Alpha? Bravo!
One of the interviewees who contributed to this month’s special report recalls meeting someone with an unusual business card. Instead of a run-of-the-mill job title – ‘Managing Director’, say – this person styled himself ‘Alpha Generator’.
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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: False economies?
An influential consultancy tasked with finding savings in the UK’s local government pensions scheme has put forward the idea of pooling its funds into passive investment. Brendan Maton looks at the issues and the sector’s response
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Special Report
Active Management: The active-versus-active debate
Tracking error has often been used as shorthand for ‘activeness’ in portfolio management. Eric Colson explains the weakness of that approach, and how active share is a much stronger predictor of active performance
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Special Report
Active Management: Passive skeletons in the active closet
Charlotte Moore tests the limits of quantitative measures of ‘activeness’ in portfolio management, and finds that a good dose of qualitative common sense is a vital part of the manager selection process
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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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Special Report
Active Management: The portfolio tax
C Thomas Howard argues that active equity fund managers are superior stock pickers but destructive portfolio managers, to the extent that stockpicking skill is completely wasted
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Special Report
Active Management: Understanding investment skill
Rather than outcomes-oriented measures, Michael Ervolini argues that to assess active managers’ skills they need to be isolated by comparing their portfolios with alternative, ‘adjusted’ portfolios
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Special Report
Active Management: DIY active
Charlotte Moore looks at the smart beta phenomenon and asks, is it really ‘smart beta’, or rather ‘cheap active’?
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Asset Class Reports
In-house strategies offer greater advantages
On The Record: Do you use external hedge funds?
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Country Report
Pensions In Nordic Region: Retirement age rise
Reeta Paakkinen outlines reforms to Finland’s pension system, that will increase the retirement age and the accrual rate for earnings-related pensions
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Special Report
Special Report - Emerging Markets: Corporates come of age
A structural advantage is baked into emerging market corporate debt, but exploiting it is dangerous without intense credit work. Caroline Saunders finds a market coming out of childhood but not yet an adult
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Features
Ahead of the Curve: Contagion spreads
Achilles Risvas assesses the potentially devastating knock-on effects of a fall in bond prices and a flight from credit
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Features
Asset Allocation: The big picture
There is an uncomfortable sense that many market outlooks and forecasts are too sanguine about future risks and the course of US interest rates. Some asset classes are already being severely buffeted.
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Country Report
Pensions In Nordic Region: Rethinking traditional allocations
Casper Hammerich outlines some of the key findings on asset allocation from the ninth Nordic Investor Survey
