Browsing: ESG

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

A recent literature review conveys the state of scholarly understanding of ESG alpha.It also discusses how machine learning may help alternatives managers to track, and at the right time to pounce upon, a critical tipping point. Joachim Erhardt, a managing director at Landesbank Baden-Württemberg (LBBW) and an independent scholar, startsRead More

KPMG and CREATE have collaborated on a new report on the involvement of hedge funds in sustainable investing, which they define as investing that aims at three interlocking results: avoid harm and mitigate ESG risks; benefit all stakeholders; and contribute solutions to societal problems. The involvement of hedge funds inRead 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

By Bill Kelly, CEO, CAIA Association PPE has entered the global vernacular, courtesy of another (deadly) acronym now known as COVID-19. The latter needs no additional introduction, as the former (Personal Protective Equipment) has been one of the many combat weapons to staunch the relentless march of what is now a global pandemic. Of the many things we are learningRead More

Three executives at AQR Capital have proposed a new variant on modern portfolio theory, an elaboration of the classical idea of an efficient frontier. The idea, going back to Markowitz’ 1952 paper, is that there exists a set of possible portfolios such that each achieves the best possible risk-return tradeoff.Read More

A recent paper by two legal scholars warns of the absence of transparency, of the opacity, that investors may face in ESG funds and ESG exchange-traded funds. “Buyer Beware: Variation and Opacity in ESG ad ESG Index Funds,” is the work of Dana Brackman Reiser and Anne M. Tucker, whoRead More

Unicorns (privately owned start-ups with a valuation of at least $1 billion) have long been the great sought-after beasts of the VC and PE worlds. But are they good for the planet? The unicorn boom was driven by the combination of easy credit and old-fashioned hype, combined with the wayRead More

By Nicolas Rabener of FactorResearch @FactorResearch INTRODUCTION Investors seeking exposure to global equities with a low carbon footprint could consider the iShares MSCI ACWI Low Carbon ETF (CRBN) or SPDR MSCI ACWI Low Carbon ETF (LOWC). CRBN has $500 million of assets under management, compared with $90 million for LOWC.Read More

In 2015 the United Nations defined 17 Sustainable Development Goals [no poverty, no hunger, health & well-being, etc.] along with 169 targets that were devised to allow for quantitative measurement of progress. It also set 2030 as the bull’s eye for the attainment of the goals. Since governments alone areRead 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

The Republic of France, in March 2019, decided that it would no longer consider fuel made from palm oil to be a “biofuel,” effective as of January 2020. So that  redefinition is now in effect. Meanwhile, the EU recently set tariffs on palm oil coming in from Indonesia or Malaysia:Read More

By Aaron Filbeck, CFA, CAIA, CIPM, Associate Director, Content Development at CAIA Association Building the Burger I love when our industry uses analogies to describe investment concepts, so I must applaud one of the introductory pieces to JPMorgan’s 2020 Global Alternatives Outlook. In their introduction to the report, the authorsRead More

Sustainability-sensitive investing has a net positive impact on performance, according to a paper released by Robeco. According to the paper written by Chris Berkouwer, a Robeco equity analyst, ESG was responsible for 20% of the outperformance of a Robeco fund over a period of three years. His findings are presentedRead More

The Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB), a non-profit organization has developed industry-specific standards across environmental, social, and governance topics, working toward a consensus on the sorts of disclosures that the issuers of securities should and will make to their investors. In November 2018, SASB released complete standards for 77 industries.Read More

A recent MIT Sloan research paper looks at the degree to which various environmental, social, and governance (ESG) ratings diverge and why. The paper is the work of Florian Berg and Roberto Rigobon, both of MIT Sloan, and Julian F. Kolbel, who is affiliated with the University of Zurich’s departmentRead More