The average corporate defined-benefit plan in the US has outperformed the Callan DC index by 1.61 per cent since 2006, although this is partly due to a difference in fee reporting.
Tail hedging can balance risk: PIMCO
Executive vice-president and head of client analytics at PIMCO, Sebastien Page, who is tasked with bringing the intellectual and analytical capital of the manager to clients in a new consultant-type role, says tail-risk hedging is an effective way to reduce volatility and enhance returns.
France’s FFR halves equities, weights bonds
Equities allocations have been slashed as a result of government changes to the liabilities of the Fonds de Reserve pour les Retraites (FFR) which prompted changes to the fund’s investment policy.
Japan disaster registers shocks on the Macro Scale
The natural disaster in Japan, that has tragically killed more than 3,000 people, caused millions of dollars damage and thrown the Middle East off the front pages, could also mark a pivotal moment in investments, with markets back to being triggered by macro concerns.
Inflation spectre should scare investors back to text books
Inflation is a big risk for most pension funds around the world. The question is: what do you do about it? The interesting point, though, is if inflation is a ‘fat tail’ risk, maybe it’s already been too widely signalled.
Funds count costs of external asset management
Cost is the flagrant motivation in the trend for US pension funds to move assets in-house, but as this article explores, budgets also need to extend to the demands of investment research, travel and staff incentive compensation.
