A Different Kind of Disruption Editorial, Financial Crisis, Innovation Is there an upside to the widespread disruption we see as the coronavirus rips through the world population? Teik Heng Tan explores the intersection of chaos and innovation throughout history. Read More
VFMC Shifts Internal Equities to Benchmark Unaware Asset Owners, Chief Investment Officers, Equities, Innovation VFMC has changed the way its internal equity invests, shifting towards a benchmark unaware strategy, away from the previous Top 50 stocks approach, CIO Russell Clarke says. Read More
Energy Transition Well Underway: SSGA ESG, Innovation In a new report, State Street Global Advisors concludes that global demand for fossil fuels will peak this decade. We speak to Carlo M. Funk to hear how this might impact institutional investors. Read More
CalSTRS Evolves Risk Mitigation Strategy Asset Owners, Factors, Quant & Systematic, Financial Crisis, Innovation CalSTRS portfolio manager Carrie Lo looks back on how markets tested the risk mitigation model. But the US pension fund stuck with it and has now expanded the strategy, adding systematic risk premia strategies to the portfolio. Read More
NZ Super adds Commodity Tilting Asset Allocation & Strategy, Asset Owners, Innovation New Zealand Super’s strategic tilting program has added significant value to its portfolio and now it is ready to add a new asset class to its framework. Read More
AustralianSuper Scales up Machine Learning Asset Owners, Equities, Factors, Quant & Systematic, Innovation AustralianSuper started its first machine-learning strategy only two years ago, but already it has become a near core strategy and has a substantial amount of money running in it. Read More
In Defence of Life-cycle Strategies Asset Owners, Chief Investment Officers, Innovation, Retirement Australian Catholic Super CIO Michael Block addresses some of the criticism of life-cycle strategies and argues that we should take a closer look at the concept behind it. “To always place a member who is 20 years old with a 60-year old member in the same strategy is clearly ridiculous,” he says. Read More
No Data Lakes Please! Factors, Quant & Systematic, Innovation Gideon Smith believes machine learning will offer investors plenty of opportunities to create a special sauce for their investment process. But if you think it is simply about capturing large amounts of data, then you’ve got it wrong, he says. Read More
Taking Risk Parity In-house at PSERS Asset Allocation & Strategy, Asset Owners, Financial Crisis, Innovation, Women in Finance The US$ 55 billion Pennsylvanian pension fund PSERS embraced risk parity in an effort to address the asset allocation challenges laid bare by turmoil during the global financial crisis. Read More