Analysis

The chances of a nuclear apocalypse are allegedly higher now than during the Cold War – but from a financial perspective, investors should “largely ignore existential risk.” A note from Canada-based BCA Research warns that the world now faces a ten per cent chance of a nuclear war – but that the prospect of nuclear…

While proponents believe that cryptocurrencies will inevitably disrupt traditional finance, it’ll be harder than it seems – and less lucrative than they think. As cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum have shot to prominence in the last several years, it’s now being taken as a given that they will eventually disrupt traditional finance. Blockchain technology offers…

While neither Ukraine or Russia are particularly large trading partners for the West, the risks created by the conflict aren’t negligible – and could easily spill over to the global economy. “The potential economic risk (of the Ukraine conflict) has three primary transmission mechanisms: higher global energy prices, further supply chain disruptions and a European…

To fix the Your Future, Your Super (YFYS) performance test, Treasury and regulators need to reconsider their fixation on a “bright line” measure. It’s a testament to the flaws of the YFYS performance test that, several months after it was first applied to MySuper products, the super sector’s intelligentsia are still trying to fix it….

Plenty of big super funds have announced their intention to dump their Russian assets, and the government wants them to. But saying do svidanya is harder than they thought. From a certain angle, there’s a lot of Russia in the super system. Once ruled by unapologetic socialists, they’ve both become capitalistic in the aftermath of…

BlackRock has a message for investors trying to navigate the confusion that has sundered markets in recent weeks: get used to it. Rising inflation was enough to give markets the jitters; tack on a war – and the prospect of an even bigger one, should the situation in Ukraine devolve further – and all the…

Hyperion believes that the sell-off in growth stocks in recent months has become indiscriminate, with the market failing to differentiate between trend setters and trend followers. The last few years has seen the ascendancy of high growth tech stocks in US and global markets, to the extent that many bears now believe it’s a bubble…

As China’s domestic market liberalises and regulatory upheaval eases, quant strategies stand to gain that will gain from the massive inefficiencies in its “opaque landscape.” While many bottom-up investors tout the domestic consumption story as the main reason for getting involved in China A-Shares, its huge, retail-dominated market also makes it perfect for a “nimble,…

As the amount of capital available to them soars and equity markets grow more volatile, companies increasingly don’t want to go public – and don’t need to. The number of publicly-listed companies on US exchanges has roughly halved from 8000 to 4000 in the last 20 years, according to Liberty Street Advisors. And while part…

Commodities and active cross-asset ‘trend-based’ strategies should provide the most effective bulwark against entrenched high inflation if history holds true, an award-winning study has found. Based on almost 100 years of market data from the US, UK and Japan, the paper, titled ‘The best strategies for inflationary times‘, picked up the 2022 Bernstein Fabozzi/Jacobs Levy Awards as…

The near-centenarian investor believes that institutions like BlackRock and Vanguard will wield outsize power in the market, and that our latest period of “wretched excess” will end with a bang. As passive investing becomes the go-to for a new wave of dumb money, Wall Street’s masters of the universe have been replaced with the emperors…

The last two years have seen an “anomaly” in equity markets where stocks with no dividends were king. But those who “kept the faith” might finally be rewarded. The concept of duration, while intrinsic to fixed income, doesn’t get much of an innings in equities. But John Tobin, managing director and portfolio manager at Epoch…