The active versus passive investment debate has raged within academic circles for decades without resolution. Unfortunately for the world’s asset owners, this has left them wondering what game—Chase alpha? Ride beta?—they should be playing.
The consensus: The rise of derivatives and, more recently, extreme equity volatility have driven many asset owners into the arms of risk parity vendors. The debate: Is this a good thing?
The organization is putting pressure on governments and policymakers
to try to avoid relying on current market values when determining
contributions and to allow "appropriate levels of over-funding in good
economic times," among other recommendations.
Europeans (effete liberals!) love it. Public pensions and foundations (goody-two-shoes!) like it. Yet, to American corporate defined benefit plans, socially responsible investing—bearded hippies!—has been anathema to their very existence. Will this ever change?
After a 2.1% loss on its global assets in 2008, the China investment Corp. will likely post its best yearly gain in 2009, boosted by rebounding markets and investment in commodity-related companies.
De Salins, CEO of France's €35 billion Fonds de Réserve pour les Retraites (FRR), spoke with ai5000 in his Paris office about liquidity issues, asset allocation, and, above all, the nuances of responsible investing.
President Obama's signature on the Dodd-Frank financial regulation bill
gives the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and Securities
& Exchange Commission (SEC) oversight of the roughly $600 trillion
OTC derivatives market while forcing most swaps to be cleared on a
regulated exchange.
McFate, after spending two decades in the insurance industry, became the chief investment officer for Xerox in late 2006. In early May, she sat with ai5000 to discuss the intertwined topics of market uncertainty and risk management.
Upin -- formerly at the Stanford Management Company and Sequoia
Capital and now Chief Investment Officer at Menio Park-based Makena
Capital Management -- spoke with ai5000 in defense of the much maligned
endowment model.
PIMCO is the latest vendor with plans to offer protection against violent market swings following the 2008 collapse and warnings by commentators such as Nassim Taleb of “Black Swan” fame.
In a a Keefe, Bruyette & Woods survey of chief investment officers
overseeing US institutional portfolios, investors are showing a growing
interest in “barbell” allocations to indexed equities and high-alpha
alternatives.
Under
the Public Records Act, the First Amendment Coalition (FAC) filed the
suit against the pension demanding access to records revealing factors
influencing CalPERS' financial commitment in 2006 to the Page Mill
Properties II project.
