When does momentum shift to a risky bet?

Two finance professors at the London School of Economics have introduced a new way to measure the amount of risk arbitrage in markets. Their novel measure, dubbed “comomentum”, exploits time variation in how momentum stocks excessively “comove” together to reveal how crowded the classic price momentum trading strategy is at any point in time. They … Read more

Breaking bad habits: why investors aren’t good at asset allocation

Institutional investors act like momentum investors, chasing returns, even over longer time horizons according to Asset Allocation and Bad Habits, a new research paper that looks at the impact of past returns on asset allocation. The paper commissioned by Rotman-ICPM and authored by Amit Goyal professor at Univeriste de Lausanne, Andrew Ang professor at Columbia Business … Read more

Long-term investors should favour value: LSE academics prove why

The ultimate combination of value and momentum strategies depends on the investors’ time horizon, with a new institutional theory rationally explaining these anomalies by investor flows. Dimitri Vayanos, professor of finance at the London School of Economics explains why this theory can add to the practical debate of what is the best asset mix for … Read more

LSE fiduciary investor think tank

Investors were challenged to think differently about their portfolios by the latest academic thinking from the London School of Economics at a one-day investment roundtable in London last week.   Chief investment officers from UK and European public and corporate pension funds convened at the London School of Economics for a highly interactive one-day investment … Read more

Is in-house management the future for large asset owners?

The allure of potentially higher net returns from portfolios precisely tailored to values, beliefs and risk appetite is hard for any asset owner to ignore, yet needs to be balanced against the many challenges associated with managing assets in-house. To this end, it is worth outlining the key benefits that in-house asset management can offer. … Read more

Addressing shortcomings in current corporate reporting

Investors don’t have access to all the information they need today. Raj Thamotheram, Mark Van Clieaf and Alan Willis ask: why aren’t investors (and their clients) demanding it? Without relevant, timely and reliable information, investors are unable to make informed long-term investment decisions. The efficiency of capital markets in allocating invested funds – the only real value of … Read more