All articles by Rachel Fixsen – Page 207
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Features
Off the floor
With the FTSE 100 index poised to push up through key resistance levels, sentiment in the London equities market has brightened. But strategists are not holding their breath. Share prices in the UK are unlikely to make any lasting upside progress just yet. The fact that prices have come off ...
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Features
Looking for yield pick-up
o Anna Lees-Jones, manager of the M&G Corporate Bond Fund, puts the fund’s success down to its research resources. She has access to the group’s 28 different credit analysts, all of whom are career analysts, having worked in the industry for at least 10 years. “That’s a huge advantage to ...
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Features
Asset to be avoided?
Despite a widespread flight to cash within the international investment community in periods over the last two years, by and large, pension funds have remained loyal to equities markets. With the FTSE All-World index down 38% since November 2000, many investors have seen cash as a safe haven. But while ...
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Features
Rising tide of cash
What are the reasons why pension funds might hold cash, and how do consultants suggest their pension fund clients manage these holdings? “The starting point would be an ALM study, to find out if cash has a place in the strategic asset allocation,” says Peter Eerdmans, senior analyst at Watson ...
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Features
Where ETFs fit portfolios
Exchange-traded funds have been one of the success stories of the last decade. These neatly packaged products, which give the performance of an entire index in a single stock, have grown in popularity with retail and institutional investors alike since they came into existence. Like an index fund, they give ...
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Features
Tasters of world fund styles
o The Merrill Lynch Global Equity Fund currently has more than half of its $302.3m in assets invested in US stocks. But because the fund takes a bottom-up approach to stock selection, says Graham Bamping, retail investment director at Merrill Lynch Investment Management, geographical distribution is not the driving force ...
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Features
Limits to indexing
With passive investment on the rise, providers are seeking to make indices out of anything that will fit. Equities are now indexed by sector, sub-sector, region, style and environmental record, and fixed income indices can be tracked successfully by institutional and retail investors alike. Commodities too, can now be held ...
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Features
Spotting the turning points
When will share prices in the US finally hit bottom? Faced with the endless questioning from investors, equity strategists have trawled through the data, and some have come up with reasons to be optimistic. “Identifying turning points is clearly very difficult,” says Sam Mercer-Nairne, US fund manager as SG Asset ...
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Features
No overnight US success story
The huge success of exchange-traded funds comes as no surprise to the people who pioneered the product. But over the nine-year history of the portfolio tool, there have been times where many doubted ETFs would ever gain more than peripheral acceptance. Paul Aaronson, now executive managing director of Standard & ...
