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The pitfalls of risk modelling

Many portfolio managers use multi-factor models, but these are only as good as the various inputs used to construct them. MSCI looks at how flawed-model construction can result in optimised portfolios that are not efficient. The paper, Is Your Risk Model Letting Your Optimized Portfolio Down?, reveals that faulty risk models tend to underestimate risk

Investors add to credit cycle

Reaching-for-yield — the propensity to buy riskier assets in order to achieve higher yields — is believed to be an important factor contributing to the credit cycle. This Harvard Business School finance working paper analyses this phenomenon in the corporate bond market. The paper’s authors Bo Becker and Victoria Ivashina show evidence for reaching for

Low vol strategies
can go global

S&P Dow Jones Indices’ researchers take a closer look at the long-term effectiveness of low volatility strategies in this paper. Aye Soe, S&P’s director of index research and design, analyses the low-volatility effect in the US equity market, with a focus on the common properties of various low-volatility strategies. Drawing from the extensive academic literature

New ways to calculate portfolio weights

This paper presents two simple algorithms to calculate the portfolio weights for a risk parity strategy, where asset class covariance information is appropriately taken into consideration to achieve “true” equal risk contribution. Previous implementations of risk parity either (1) used a naïve 1/vol solution, which ignores asset class correlations, or (2) computed “true” risk parity

OECD investigates
market fragility

In this fourth part of an OECD working paper, researchers look at the potential that portfolio rebalancing by financial investors can contribute to spreading financial turmoil in a major market event such as the global financial crisis or ensuing sovereign debt crisis in Europe. In International Capital Mobility and Financial Fragility – Part 4: Which Structural

How to find a safe haven in Europe

MSCI looks at how equity investors can find European stocks that offer some protection against the current volatility buffering markets. Zoltán Nagy and Oleg Ruban examine how the Barra Europe Equity model (EUE3) can be used to help identify stocks that are less sensitive to the unfavorable movements in troubled countries. Using the covariance matrix