Life settlement is the ultimate diverse asset June 29, 2010 ONE of the steps to fund management nirvana is ensuring that your portfolio is fully diversified. And after the financial crisis, the life settlements market could be the perfect uncorrelated asset. The market works like so: people – typically who reside in the US – sell their life insurance policies to the secondary market, which [...]
Investors prefer bonds June 29, 2010 ALTHOUGH European institutional investors are recognising the fragile green shoots of recovery, fixed income remains their safe haven of choice, according to the annual European Institutional Asset Management Survey conducted by IPE and Invesco, which was published earlier this month. Unsurprisingly, asset allocators across Europe slashed their equity exposure in 2008 and 2009 and retreated [...]
DON’T SING JERUSALEM TOO SOON June 29, 2010 DICK TURPIN MANAGING DIRECTOR, ARTEMIS WHAT a relief. Saving £100m, three-quarters of the government’s 820 websites are to go. Whitehall is reluctant to name the doomed. But it is widely believed that www.lovechips.co.uk – run by the marketing department of the Potato Council – is unlikely to survive the cut. As in the body politic, [...]
FUND MANAGEMENT NEWS June 29, 2010 SOURCE LAUNCHES VIX FUTURES ETF European institutional investors will benefit from the launch of the first volatility-linked ETF in Europe to track the S&P 500 VIX Short-Term Futures Total Return index. The performance of the index does differ from the Vix but historically the two have had a strong positive correlation. Issued by Source in [...]
ECB expiry hits euro June 29, 2010 IT IS crunch time for the European Central Bank (ECB) and the single currency this week. As of tomorrow, Eurozone banks will no longer be able to tap the central bank for unlimited long-term loans. It has already indicated that it will not renew its €442bn 12-month long-term refinancing operation (LTRO) and is likely to [...]
Inefficient FX markets offer an opportunity June 29, 2010 THE currency market is the most liquid in the world. Turnover tops $3.1 trillion a day, which dwarves both the equity and bond markets. Given the ubiquity of currency trading, it’s easy to assume that the FX markets would be efficient. But that is not the case. American Century Investments, an investment management firm, believes [...]
DEBT WORRIES RAISE MARKET INSTABILITY June 29, 2010 GEORGE TCHETVERTAKOV HEAD OF MARKET RESEARCH, ALPARI GOVERNMENT bond yields in developed countries have been steadily falling over the course of 2010 alongside a broad retrenching of risk preferences. Fiscal austerity measures are being implemented across Europe following the emergence of plausible default risk. The cuts planned in most EU countries are being supplemented by [...]
austerians take on the keynesians June 29, 2010 BORIS SCHLOSSBERG DIRECTOR OF CURRENCY RESEARCH, GFT WILL the new Austerians or the old Keynesians win the public policy debate on economic growth going forward? The contrast between the two became evident last weekend at the G20 summit when the UK and the US moved in opposite directions. The new Austerians were led by the [...]
THE TIPSTER June 29, 2010 AS RISK aversion rises and US yields fall back, we have seen the yen gain ground especially against the high yielders, particularly the Australian dollar and New Zealand dollar. This could start to make Japanese exporters uncomfortable as we head back towards the flash crash lows of 6 May at ¥ 87.95 against the US [...]
A perfect storm threatens law firms June 29, 2010 IF any lawyers thought that the effects of the downturn on law firms are over, then they would have got a rude shock last week when Halliwells announced that it was going into administration. It was a clear sign that law firms have to change if they want to survive. While many have bumbled along [...]