Monthly Archives: May 2016

Mckinsey: The long and the short of stock-market volatility

AIWMI, Asset Allocation, CAIM, CCRA, CIIA, CIRA, CIWM, Equity, Equity Research

Short-term measures of volatility can fluctuate wildly. But over the long term the market has been remarkably stable.

Markets are volatile. Or are they? After bouncing around 2,100 for six months, the S&P 500 began to swing more dramatically last August. With 100- to 200-point shifts between a high of about 2,100 and lows approaching 1,800, the index has been erratic for some time. That has many managers—as well as many analysts and investors—pondering whether the markets have entered an era of structurally higher volatility relative to the previous century. Read more

Asset Allocation: Saying no to infrastructure

AIWMI, Asset Allocation, CAIM, CCRA, CIIA, CIRA, CIWM, CPWM, Credit, Equity, Equity Research, Investment Banking, Investments

Norway has bucked the trend and decided against moving its sovereign wealth fund into unlisted infrastructure. Rachel Fixsen investigates why 

Norway’s decision to keep unlisted infrastructure out of its sovereign wealth fund (SWF) has raised questions about the investment case for the asset class.

At the beginning of April, the Norwegian Ministry of Finance declared that it would not permit unlisted infrastructure investments in the SWF because the potential benefits were unclear. The Government Pension Fund consists of the former oil fund, the NOK7.47trn (€802bn) Government Pension Fund Global (GPFG), and the much smaller, domestically-orientated NOK198bn Government Pension Fund Norway (GPFN).

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MSCI Webinar : USING SYSTEMATIC EQUITY STRATEGIES, May 19, 3pm HKT

AIWMI, CIRA, Equity, Equity Research, Investment Banking, Investments, MSCI, Webinar

Irrespective of their investment process, all managers need to understand their risk exposures, build efficient portfolios and differentiate themselves from their competitors.

Please join us for a webinar where we will discuss the role of Systematic Equity Strategy (SES) factors in global portfolios and show how active managers can use these factors to differentiate and enhance their investment processes.

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Agenda Topics

• Why SES factors matter to active managers
• A survey of the global SES factor set available to investors through the Barra Global Total Market Equity Model
• Uses for SES factors:

  1. Granular attribution of risk and return in active portfolios including better monitoring of exposure to crowded strategies
  2. Getting exposure to SES factors through factor tracking
  3. Enhancing a fundamental or quantitative investment strategy

Webinar : A Practitioner’s Guide to Sophisticated Sector Strategies, 18 May, 2pm ET

AIWMI, Asset Allocation, CAIM, CIIA, CIRA, CIWM, CPWM, Equity, Investments

Sector strategies often revolve around the market-cap-weighted S&P 500®, but they don’t have to stop there. Small-cap, global, and equal-weighted sector approaches can also prove to be effective risk-on/risk-off strategies.

Hear perspectives from top practitioners, as well as renowned investment strategist Sam Stovall, on topics including:

  • Whether 2016 will be a year to “sell in May and go away”
  • The ins and outs of rules-based sector strategies that have historically beaten the benchmarks
  • Understanding the risk and return implications of equal-weighted sector strategies
  • Using the GICS® sectors of the S&P Global 1200, the S&P SmallCap 600®, and the S&P MidCap 400® to respond to global trends and leverage less-seen opportunities

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Speakers:

David Haviland, Managing Partner, Beaumont Capital Management

Malia Morales, CIMA, CRPC, Senior Vice President, Private Wealth Advisor, Senior Portfolio Manager, Tactical Associates/Merrill Lynch

Philip Murphy, Vice President, North American Equities, S&P Dow Jones Indices

Roger Scheffel, Chief Investment Officer, Wilbanks Smith & Thomas Asset Management

Sam Stovall, Equity Strategist, S&P Global Market Intelligence

Randy Swan, President, Swan Global Investments

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[Invitation] Moody’s Global Teleconference Series: The outcome of rating reviews of 16 oil-exporting countries (11:00 Dubai / 15:00 Singapore / 16:00 Tokyo / 17:00 Sydney), 17 May 2016

CIRA, Credit, Equity, Equity Research, Investment Banking, Investments, Treasury
Moody’s Global Teleconference Series: The outcome of rating reviews of 16 oil-exporting countries : Tuesday 17 and Wednesday 18 May 2016
Moody’s Investors Service will be hosting two teleconferences to discuss the outcome of its reviews for downgrade of the ratings of 16 oil-exporting sovereigns in the GCC, the CIS, Africa and elsewhere. Moody’s had initiated these rating reviews on 4 March to assess the impact of lower oil prices on oil-exporting sovereigns.

The teleconferences will cover the analytical considerations that drove the following rating actions:
» The ratings of 10 oil-exporting sovereigns have been downgraded, concluding the reviews for downgrade.
Of these, 4 were assigned stable rating outlooks and 6 received negative outlooks.
» The ratings of 6 oil-exporting sovereigns have been confirmed with a negative outlook, concluding the reviews for downgrade

Please click on your preferred date and time below to register.

APAC / Middle East: 17 May 2016 – 15:00 SGT /1600 JST / 11:00 GST / 17:00 AEST
This session will be led by:
» Atsi Sheth, Associate Managing Director, Sovereign Risk Group (Moderator)
» Steffen Dyck, Vice President – Senior Credit Officer, Sovereign Risk Group
» Mathias Angonin, Analyst, Sovereign Risk Group
» Dietmar Hornung, Associate Managing Director, Sovereign Risk Group
» Aurelien Mali, Vice President – Senior Credit Officer, Sovereign Risk Group

Americas / Europe: 18 May 2016 – 15:00 BST / 16:00 CEST / 10:00 EDT
This session will be led by:
» Yves Lemay, Managing Director, Sovereign Risk (Moderator)
» Steffen Dyck, Vice President – Senior Credit Officer, Sovereign Risk
» Dietmar Hornung, Associate Managing Director, Sovereign Risk
» Jaime Reusche, Vice President – Senior Analyst, Sovereign Risk
» Lucie Villa, Vice President – Senior Analyst, Sovereign Risk

This call will last approximately 60 minutes and registration is required.
Register below for APAC/Middle East on Tuesday 17 May
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Register below for Americas/Europe on Wednesday 18 May
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An Introduction to Stress Testing: Oil Prices, Default Probabilities and Credit Spreads

Uncategorized

Over the last 18 months, the dramatic fall in oil prices has triggered a dramatic widening of credit spreads and default probabilities for oil-related firms. To a slightly lesser degree, the same kind of macro factor sensitivity in the credit spreads and default probabilities in firms closely associated with other basic commodities. This note explains the “reduced reduced form” modeling approach used in Kamakura’s KRIS default probability service to link forward looking macro factors to simulated default probabilities. We refer readers interested in more detail to the recent note from Kamakura “Bank of America and CCAR 2016 Stress Testing: A Simple Model Validation Example” and the references at the end of this note.
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Top Free Financial Tools and Resources Every Finance Professional Must Know

AIWMI, CAIM, CIRA, Credit, Equity, Equity Research, Investment Banking, Investments, Real Estate, Treasury, Uncategorized

Finance and investment jobs are perhaps some of the world’s most mind-crunching careers.

These professions carry with them a lot of complicated processes and activities. A lot of terms and formulas are so hard they can quickly be forgotten. One can easily get lost somewhere in the middle.

That’s why, over time, financial tools are being made to make things easier.They either aid in creating dynamic worksheets or maybe as simple as helping professionals in monitoring market developments.But, these financial tools are provided for a cost… but not always.

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