Investment Strategies – Page 15
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Asset Class Reports
US Equities: Storm clouds gather over US economy
Shaniel Ramjee worries that markets are misreading the seriousness of the US fiscal position – a situation complicated by a looming budget cut of $1.2bn
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Special Report
Smart Beta: A smart beta taxonomy
Daniel Leveau and Des Morris categorise the alternative indexing universe and recommend that investors build diversified, smart-beta portfolios. By focusing on risk and return, they should achieve the desired results
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Special Report
Smart Beta: How equal-weighting wins
Yuliya Plyakha, Raman Uppal and Grigory Vilkov discover a surprising crop of non-systematic alpha generated by the monthly rebalancing process
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Special Report
Smart Beta: Debt and demographics
Investors should look for risk to be compensated by attractive premia. But Christoph Gort argues that market-cap weighted bond indices fail to deliver this. New index methodologies will allow for more efficient global bond investing
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Special Report
Pay proposals in the shareholder spring
Shareholders are beginning to flex their muscles by voting against inflated executive remuneration packages in listed companies, says Nina Röhrbein
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Features
Smooth operators
The Swiss are taking pains to make their banks as risk-free as possible to ensure client loyalty, finds Iain Morse
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Asset Class Reports
US Equities: Squeezing the last drops
US corporate margins have expanded impressively since the crisis. Joseph Mariathasan asks where the next wave of growth is going to come from
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Features
Restless continent
Africa is set for a busy year of elections – and it has already experienced an old-fashioned coup. Charlotte Adlung assesses the political risks behind the investment opportunities
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Special Report
Smart Beta: New generation of choices
The ‘smart beta’ revolution is taking investors from one ‘passive’ solution – the cap-weighted index – to many. Rachel Fixsen looks at the questions this raises
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Special Report
Smart Beta: Re-balance of payments
Market-cap equity indices have come in for stiff criticism over recent years, but Martin Steward finds their shortcomings are nothing compared with the bond market. A new breed of indices attempts to address their worst failings
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Interviews
De-leveraging, beautiful and beastly
Bridgewater’s Pure Alpha is famed as the world’s largest hedge fund, earning $13.8bn for investors in 2011 alone. But today, over coffee in a luxury London hotel, the focus for Bob Prince, co-chief investment officer of the Connecticut-based firm, is on a beta strategy called ‘risk parity’.
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Features
Avoiding the shadows
Iain Morse reports on the growing use of real-time collateral management
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Interviews
On avoiding hostages to fortune
There is no disputing Northern Trust’s powerhouse status in global custody and asset servicing in Europe. In the UK alone, a big custody contract was renewed by the London Borough of Hillingdon’s pension scheme in 2012, and, along with several similar renewals, it added €19.5bn in custody assets for 13 new clients during 2011, including major names such as the Lothian Pension Fund, the Lancashire County Council Pension Scheme and the Superannuation Arrangements of the University of London (SAUL). Transition management mandates were won from the likes of the Northumberland County Council and Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea pension funds. Losses – such as the East Riding Pension Fund custody mandate that went to State Street – were rare exceptions in the effort to remain a go-to service provider.
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Features
Boarding time approaches
For liquid investors with an eye on the medium term, investing in the maritime industry could be just the ticket, argues Marcel C. Saucy
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Asset Class Reports
Private Equity: Pioneering spirit
In frontier markets, private equity is often the first source of investment for business. However, as Joseph Mariathasan reports, there are pitfalls as well as the opportunities
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Asset Class Reports
Private Equity: Harvesting illiquidity premia
Private equity outperforms public equity – not least thanks to its illiquidity premium. But, as Cyril Demaria writes, using public equity as a benchmark for valuation can make it difficult to harvest this benefit
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Asset Class Reports
Private Equity: Escaping the crowd
Overview Supplying the mid-market Joseph Mariathasan finds a changing environment altering how established managers approach the market – which in turn alters the market itself
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Asset Class Reports
Private Equity: ‘If you can’t meet demand, you’re finished’
Martin Steward meets Silk Invest, feeding Africa one investment at a time
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Features
Private assets on public markets
Listed private equity struggles to drum up interest even from private investors. Anthony Harrington asks, does it have any role to play in institutional portfolios?
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Special Report
Moves in microfinance
Despite suffering some negative perceptions, the asset class is cleaning up its act and gaining new fans, says Nina Röhrbein
