Analysis

Laurence (Larry) Fink, the founder, chairman and chief executive of BlackRock, by far the world’s largest asset manager, has used his annual letter to corporate CEOs to stir the pot about holding a long-term course in a technologically and politically disrupted world. Fink said that the vast majority of BalckRock’s clients were investing for long-term…

The demographic shift leading demand for retirement products, the trend to factor investing strategies and questions over market-cap benchmarks are combining to raise awareness for the importance of franking credits. But it’s not as simple as it seems. A new paper from implementation manager Parametric, ‘A Fresh Look at Franking’, revisits earlier work which showed that…

Lazard Asset Management is optimistic that emerging markets can weather the storm posed by the new Trump presidency and that the fundamental strength of their economies should outweigh the policy uncertainties of the new US Government. Hopefully. A new paper by the Lazard Asset Management emerging markets (EM) team, based in New York, which covers…

Research Affiliates, the US-based proponent of new-style passive strategies such as ‘fundamental’ indexing, has produced a paper outlining how investors can overcome potential principal-agent issues. The paper, ‘How Not to Get Fired with Smart Beta Investing’, says that adopting longer evaluation periods for a manager’s assessment is one way to reduce these issues. Research Affiliates has…

It seemed to wane last year, at least in the media, but according to US research house Greenwich Associates blockchain technology is moving from ‘proof of concept’ to ‘production’. Kevin McPartland, the head of research for market structure and technology at Greenwich Associates, says in a paper published last week that “smart contracts” look to…

State Street Associates, the academic research arm of the big custodian bank and fund manager, has published two studies on the behaviour of sovereign wealth funds with asset allocation and their thinking behind a shift towards private markets. The asset allocation study shows a big move towards alternatives and unlisted investments and increased exposure to…

Reflation has arrived along with broad economic recovery globally but consensus views on the outlook remain too cautious, according to BlackRock. Animal spirits are returning to the markets. The consensus numbers are further from BlackRock’s ‘Macro GPS’ forecasting model, which incorporates big data signals, than at any time since 2013, the BlackRock Investment Institute says…

The global high-yield bond market’s recent growth, particularly outside the US, is presenting active managers with a wider opportunity set for potential alpha and diversification, according to a research paper by specialists at Eaton Vance Investment Management. The paper, entitled ‘Capitalising on the Growth of the Global High-Yield Market’, says that non-US issuers of high-yield bonds…

PIMCO, the big US-based global bond manager, is de-risking its credit portfolios following a re-assessment of potential macro-economic trends ahead of the inauguration of Donald Trump as president later this month. In a research note written by Mark Kiesel, PIMCO’s CIO for global credit, the manager says that the potential for both left tail (higher…

Fund managers and institutional investors which have been committed to impact investing in their portfolios lifted their exposures to the emerging asset class from US$25.4 billion to US$35.5 billion between 2013 and 2016. A report – ‘Impact Investing Trends: Evidence of a Growing Industry’ – published by the not-for-profit research and support group Global Impact…

By Greg Bright Exclusive stories about people losing their jobs dominated our readers’ selection of most-widely read news items during 2016. Unfortunately, job losses in the funds management industry are likely to remain a feature of the changing landscape in the coming year, and probably more.  This is our year in clicks. It’s a combination…

The funds management industry has known for a long time that human foibles – behavioural biases – can make or break an investment strategy. Now, however, State Street has put together a body of research which goes way beyond behavioral finance in the study of the human element to investments. After about 18 months of…