Browsing: Alternative Investments in Context

By Kevin R. Mirabile, CPA, DPS  The current rationale for investing in exotic alternative investments is based on a combination of stand-alone returns, risks and portfolio effects. Today, exotic alternative investments offer investors an opportunity to achieve many of the stand-alone and portfolio benefits that hedge funds and other typesRead More

By Ashby Monk and Dane Rook, Stanford Global Projects Center To succeed at investing, you must master time travel.[i] You need to be proficient at beaming yourself into a hypothetical future, and then analyzing the best route to get “there” from the actual “now.” And the route itself is crucial:Read More

By Aaron Filbeck, CFA, CAIA, CIPM, FDP – Director, Global Content Development at CAIA Association Well…we made it. This has been the longest decade year of our lives. Whether it’s been personal or professional circumstances, or simply having been an investor in this market, none of us could escape theRead More

Part 4: Real Estate Developers: Hostage of Trophy Hunting Investors & Certification Standards? By Christos Angelis, CAIA – Director at Masterdam This is the fourth article in this series. Please read Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3. THE RELEVANCE OF THE EUROPEAN GREEN DEAL FOR DEVELOPERS Real estate development in the EuropeanRead More

Dr. Greg Filbeck, CFA, FRM, CAIA, CIPM, PRM Investors are increasingly looking toward the private markets as an output for their investment dollars to increase risk-adjusted performance. Historically, such direct investment required an investor to qualify as an accredited investor. Recently, guidelines to qualify as an accredited investor have broadenedRead More

By Mike Nigro, Managing Director and Head of Client Solutions Research at Two Sigma and Doris Bao, FRM, Quantitative Researcher on the Client Solutions Research team at Two Sigma During recent months, the COVID-19 pandemic has reshaped the world, causing devastating damage to the global economy. The world is nowRead More

Micro finance is a very contested subject within the realm of ESG investing. The idea, for which a Bangladeshi, Muhammad Yunus won a Nobel Peace Prize in 2006, is that very small loans to very small-scale entrepreneurs within large populations that have historically gone unbanked, and in particular that haveRead More

By Bill Kelly, CEO, CAIA Association Maybe Howard Marks was right when he wrote about Investing Without People. In that memo he talks about the machine which can largely excel at anything that is quantitative and can be counted: in games like chess and Go, the machine can study andRead More

By Rick Roche, CAIA, Little Harbor Advisors, LLC Part 2 of a two-part series on The Alternative Imperative in the COVID Era. In Part 2, the author tackles notorious technology laggards. This piece transitions to alternative data pioneers (Alt-Venturers) and the 4-1-1 on Alt-Data: Hype or Hope? The author dispelsRead More

By Daniele Bianchi, PhD With the rising prices of Bitcoin and public awareness on blockchain, investors have drawn their attention to cryptocurrency markets, driven by the promise of significant returns compared to the flat or negative yields in more traditional asset classes. But how should investors examine cryptocurrencies in theRead More

Part 2: Real Estate Owners: Moral Obligation versus Economic Benefit CHRISTOS ANGELIS, CAIA – Director at Masterdam This is the second article in this series. For Part 1, please click here. EUROPEAN RENOVATION WAVE The European Green Deal (EGD)[i] is paving the way for stricter regulations and more applied measuresRead More

By Rick Roche, CAIA, Managing Director of Little Harbor Advisors, LLC Part 1 of a two-part series on Alternative Investment Data (Alt-Data) in the COVID Era. In Part 1, the author makes the case for high-frequency, short-interval Alt-Data while discussing three primary drawbacks of interpreting official economic statistics amid aRead More

By Shreekant Daga, CAIA, CFA, FRM – Associate Director of Industry Relations, India at CAIA Association & Guowei Jack Wu, CFA – Director of Content, APAC at CAIA Association Through August-September 2020, CAIA Association hosted a 10-part educational webinar series titled 10 Lessons in Finance. The event brought together academics fromRead More

By Rob Croce, PhD – Managing Director and Portfolio Manager at Mellon & Aaron Filbeck, CAIA, CFA, CIPM – Associate Director of Content Development at CAIA Association In 2000, United States 10-year government bonds rates were 6% and the median U.S. public pension plan had an actuarial return assumption ofRead More

By Mehrzad Mahdavi, PhD, Executive Director, FDP Institute Imagine if your social media posts or articles were generated automatically by AI as if they were authored by you…well, that day is here! The next generation of NLP called “Generative Pre-trained Transformer, third generation”, or GPT-3, was recently released for betaRead More

By Sara Olsen and David Pritchard of SVT Group and Yuwei Shi of Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey *Please take a moment to complete the brief survey at the conclusion of this article. Every investment generates or destroys social and environmental value, aside from financial return. One ofRead More

Part 1 of a multi-part series: The Role of the EU, National Governments & Local Authorities By Christos Angelis, CAIA – Director at Masterdam INTRODUCTION In light of the exciting developments in the European Union regarding the European Green Deal (EGD)[1] presented in the end of 2019, it would beRead More

By Rodney Sullivan, CFA, CAIA, Executive Director, University of Virginia Darden School of Business US recessions are typically accompanied by declines in stock market returns and, of course, 2020 has been no exception. We are once again reminded that investing is not easy leaving many investors to wonder how bestRead More

By Shana Sissel, CAIA, Spotlight Asset Group More than a decade ago the world of alternative investments witnessed hedge-fund-inspired Investment Act of 1940 (40 Act) funds appear on the scene. Much like their private alternative counterparts, liquid alternatives offer valuable diversification benefits within traditional portfolios, but it’s important to keepRead More

By Keith Black, PhD, CFA, CAIA, FDP, Managing Director, CAIA Association The FDP Institute recently spoke with Al Yazdani, the chief data scientist and founder of Calcolo Analytics, regarding his forthcoming article in the Journal of Financial Data Science: “Machine Learning Prediction of Recessions: An Imbalanced Classification Approach.” The authorRead More

By Keith Black, PhD, CFA, CAIA, FDP As the COVID-19 lockdowns start to ease across the country, governmental entities often have phased approaches for opening. Smaller crowds, smaller businesses, and more socially distanced activities are the first to reopen. It may take until 2021, at the earliest, to return toRead More

By Victoria Dobrynskaya, PhD, associate professor of Finance at National Research University Higher School of Economics Investments in reward-based crowdfunding campaigns give backers a variety of benefits, such as enjoyment in participating in a creation of a new product, being a part of a similar-minded community, altruistic pleasure of helpingRead More

By Alan Dunne, Managing Director, Abbey Capital One of the key questions facing investors at the moment is whether inflation or deflation represents the bigger risk for the coming years. Economists are split on this and one of the reasons for the uncertainty is that COVID-19 represents both a supplyRead More

By Nicolas Rabener of FactorResearch (@FactorResearch) INTRODUCTION Investing is akin to fighting in the forever war. There are long periods of peace and prosperity, but investors are frequently drawn into short-term combat, extended battles, and multi-year wars. And the cycle repeats over and over. For some of the foot soldiers,Read More

By Matt Malone, Managing Director, Real Estate and Andrew Korz, Associate, Investment Research, FS Investments As the COVID-19 pandemic has swept across the world, it has become clear that the necessary steps being taken by governments to protect human life have thrust the global economy into a recession. In theRead More

By Bill Kelly, CEO, CAIA Association Since this What About Beta column started about two years and almost 75 entries ago, the goal has always been to take a CAIA article, a relevant news story, or an industry trend and amplify it, replete with an occasional catchy title, and maybeRead More

By Ashby Monk, Executive and Research Director at Global Projects Center, Stanford University & Dane Rook, Research Engineer at Global Projects Center, Stanford University “The world needs institutional investors to save society as we know it.” Say these words to your mother, and she may check your temperature; say them at aRead More

Two scholars at Copenhagen Business School, Denmark  have devised what they call a “text-based sustainability sentiment measure,” that is, a quantification of when and to what extent concerns about climate change are rising amongst investors, with a likely consequence for the success of an ESG-oriented trading policy. The authors areRead More

By Keith Black, PhD, CFA, CAIA, FDP Now that this attention-grabbing headline has drawn you in, let me clarify. Data scientists should not partake in illegal drugs. Data scientists should participate in pharmacological research, as artificial intelligence and machine learning can add value, even when the data scientist does notRead More

By Bill Kelly, CAIA Association CEO Our story starts with a former Eagle Scout known as Barber. While his name had absolutely nothing to do with his ultimate professional calling, Barber Conable did, perhaps unwittingly, become the Sweeney Todd of the defined benefit plan. Barber Conable lived a noble lifeRead More

Keith Black, PhD, CFA, CAIA, FDP, Managing Director of Content Strategy, CAIA Association CAIA Association and FDP Institute recently had a conversation with Mike Chen and George Mussalli. Dr. Chen is the director of equity investments and Mr. Mussalli is the managing director and CIO of equity investments at PanAgora.Read More

Keith Black, PhD, CFA, CAIA, FDP, Managing Director of Content Strategy, CAIA Association Michael Oliver Weinberg and Peter Strikwerda work at the Dutch pension fund APG and serve as the head of hedge funds and alternative alpha and the global head of digital and innovation, respectively. CAIA Association and FDPRead More

It is widely believed that much of the world is now experiencing the late stages of a bull market. There will be a downturn because no tree grows to the sky. Forecasting the nature and severity of the coming downturn is tricky, but perhaps that is not the right question.Read More

John Bowman, CFA, Senior Managing Director at CAIA Association “You’re a kite dancing in a hurricane, Mr. Bond.” (Mr. White to 007, Spectre) Despite the crystal blue island water, softly rolling Caribbean tide, and perfect skies outside the hotel all week, I opened my conference wrap-up panel reminding delegates forRead More

By Bill Kelly, CEO, CAIA Association While this week’s post may harken to a certain book written by John Coates, there is a different play on the metaphor at work here, with our wheezing planet spinning in the center. Consider the wolf: powerful, aggressive, and risk-seeking. The wolf is alsoRead More

By Bill Kelly, CAIA Association CEO In the interest of brevity, I am going to skip the salutation and get right to the heart of the matter. As my name implies, I am Leery of the lofty promises that depend on solving our long-term problems and I do remain inRead More

There is a high rate of failure among quant funds. These include smart beta, factor investing, statistical arbitrage, and CTAs. Such false positive strategies are a widespread industry problem. Since psychiatrists have long traded on the ability of the human mind to find an elaborate narrative in a random inkRead More

By Guest Contributor Aaron Filbeck, CFA, CAIA, CIPM, Associate Director, Content Development The death of the 60/40 may be a welcome change for multi-asset investors who understand that exposure to risk premia is perhaps a far better long-term investment strategy. Diversification remains an important facet of asset allocation, but weRead More

By Bill Kelly, CEO, CAIA Association As a global organization, it is pleasing to know there is always a CAIA Association Member, somewhere in the world, enjoying the dog days of summer. Although we can’t get Portfolio Management Research to recognize the Southern Hemisphere of seasons on the cover ofRead More

By Bill Kelly, CAIA Association CEO The American history buffs out there will know that we are just a few short weeks away from the 246th anniversary of the Boston Tea Party. Back in 1773, the British government was deep in debt and decided the very best course was toRead More

Shakespeare’s Juliet once famously asked “what’s in a name?” If you know the play, she was talking about roses and how they would smell as sweet, even if they had an alternative name. Would her modern-day self not ask the same about data? And what makes today’s alt-data different fromRead More

By Bill Kelly, CEO, CAIA Association As the calendar turns to August we are in the waning weeks of summer in the northern hemisphere. Perhaps it is a good time to turn to the mailbag to see who has been doing what in this halcyon season… From Jerome in DC Read More

By Bill Kelly, CEO, CAIA Association Why are we still talking about this? No, it’s not the central bankers and their insatiable easing tendencies, trade wars with China, or even the Women’s World Cup football match (sorry Netherlands!). These stories all make great headlines, drive news ratings, generate tickertape parades,Read More

By Bill Kelly, CEO, CAIA Association Ask someone of a certain generation to name the most common worldwide distress signal, and they will likely come back with SOS. No surprise then that this same signal, borne from the Morse code, turns 111 years old on this date in history. MostRead More

By Bill Kelly, CAIA Association CEO The satirical movie Network was released almost 40 years ago. The character Howard Beale, played by the actor Peter Finch, is one of the more enduring legacies of this film. He is a news anchor for the UBS Network, and he is to be terminated in two weeks for fallingRead More

By Nicolas Rabener of FactorResearch (@FactorResearch) INTRODUCTION As Amazon has been decimating large parts of the retail industry over the last two decades, ETFs have done the equivalent to the mutual fund industry in the financial world. Today ETFs are covering nearly all areas of the markets, no matter howRead More

By Bill Kelly, CEO, CAIA Association This now famous line was uttered by then citizen Ronald Reagan almost 40 years ago in a presidential debate with the incumbent Jimmy Carter. It was a simple and clever turn of a phrase acting as a counter-punch to Carter’s excoriation of Reagan’s priorRead More

By Diane Harrison Spring represents a fresh opportunity for investors and fund managers to have meaningful discussions about each other’s needs and solutions. Both parties want to arrive at congruence; sadly, the getting there often brings conversational hiccups and missed opportunities. Managers new to the business of talking to investorsRead More

The 2019 edition of McKinsey’s annual review of private investment markets is now available. One of the themes of the new edition is that private markets have gone mainstream. Since 2002, private equity’s net asset value has grown twice as fast as global public equities. Looking at that growth fromRead More

By Bill Kelly, CEO, CAIA Association WWJD has been a motto for certain holy rollers who ask, ‘What Would Jesus Do?’ in any variety of situations. Perhaps this phrase is meant to serve as an ethical guide or a touchstone back to someone who might just know what is right more than you do. ThisRead More