Inflation hedging is back on top of the agenda for investors as conflict in the Middle East drives up energy prices globally, but the FIS Singapore heard that many portfolios are not well-prepared for the broad ways through which inflation can creep through. The new era of significant trade and capital flow shifts driven by modern mercantilism is also throwing out TAA opportunities.
Product providers cite all manner of factors behind the performance of their products but unless those factors adhere to what academics have replicated and standardised, it’s folly for investors to expect persistent returns from them.
Ben Meng isn’t easing into his role. The new CIO of CalPERS faces three new board members, a stressed private equity program and executive turnover, all under the pressure of a 70 per cent funded status and a maturing membership at the $340 billion fund.
Organisations across the globe are collecting data, analysing and re-analysing it more and more every day. As this trend continues, data infrastructure – tangible or intangible – becomes increasingly attractive. Canada’s OPTrust cites this reality as the rationale behind the EdgeCore partnership. It thinks data is its own asset class.
Global markets are more interconnected than ever. That provides many benefits but it also has its drawbacks. Chief among those is the potential for investors to move in lockstep when driven by fear or euphoria, creating feedback loops that can result in crashes.
The UK’s £45 billion Northern LGPS pool has eschewed creating a separate FCA-regulated entity, seeing it as an unnecessary expense. Moves in infrastructure and private equity have also reflected the asset pool’s laser-like focus on keeping costs down.
Most asset owners have to manage several time frames to be long-term investors but most risk-management tools address only one investment period. A new paper by Focusing Capital on the Long Term attempts to solve this problem by providing a new set of tools.
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FIS Asia 2026