In the US, defined contribution plans have grown in importance but are relatively new to economic and regulatory uncertainty. In an environment such as this, Watson Wyatt suggests specific practices for managing fiduciary liability and optimising plan value for participants, with the possible result of revising the plan’s investment structure.
In line with its recently-approved leverage policy, the $181 billion fund for Californian public employees, CalPERS, has reviewed its derivatives policy for global equities, with notional leverage constrained to a new limit of 10 per cent of the value of the global equities portfolio.
Getting past past performance
In his top1000funds.com blog on outlying investment issues, Jack Gray Adjunct Professor of Finance at the Paul Woolley Centre for Capital Markets Dysfunctionality at the University of Technology, Sydney, contemplates the allure of past performance.
As the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ponders various alternative rules on an appropriate limit on short selling in distressed markets, a survey of members by the CFA Institute Centre for Financial Market Integrity shows the least preferred method is a ban on short selling in a particular security for the remainder of the day when its price falls by 10 per cent.
The £23 billion ($37.7 billion) Universities Superannuation Scheme is the UK’s second largest pension fund and a signatory to the UN’s Principles for Responsible Investment. Kristen Paech talks to the fund’s co-head of responsible investment, David Russell, about the role institutional investors are playing in effecting environmental, social and governance change.
Last week, Professor of Finance at Griffith Business School at Griffith University, Michael E. Drew*, was the only academic invited to present at the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Department of Labor Joint-Hearing on target date funds. He writes exclusively for conexust1f.flywheelstaging.com on his submission, which questions the conventional use of age-based approaches to asset allocation, and the implications for pension funds.