The changing nature of volatility in financial markets and a more client-centric approach that allows allocations to be tailored is helping more institutions adopt a total portfolio approach (TPA) to investment management.

In a discussion at the Fiduciary Investors Symposium at Stanford University,  a number of large asset owners outlined their efforts and the challenges they are tackling to achieve a comprehensive total portfolio view amid an evolving investment landscape.

“What we have figured out is that volatility is changing and you have to be more dynamic,” said Pedro Guazo, the CEO for investment management at the US$95 billion United Nations Joint Staff Pension Fund (UNJSPF). “You have to adapt your portfolio, still respecting a disciplined approach, but also understanding your total risk in the total portfolio.”

Guazo says the fund is aiming to have a convergence of both systems, by starting with the total portfolio approach information, then using it for tactical deviations to the strategic asset allocation (SAA).

He says the comprehensive approach has excited his investment team, because they will have more flexibility for deviations or take more risks, while the risk management people are also big defendants because the approach is a good model to start bottom-up and include responsible investment factors that they consider important for portfolio creation.

AIMCo’s director of investment strategy research Jean David Tremblay-Frenette says the US$170 billion Canadian pension fund’s client centric approach required the move towards TPA because it allows tailoring of allocations for clients on the basis of liquidity, maturity profiles, and other specific considerations

“The TPA approach is the way to go, to be able to have that unified view of all those risks and different factors on a client by client basis,” he said.

Unified Approach

The total portfolio approach involves taking a unified view of all the risks and returns of the entireportfolio. The approach focuses on the fund’s absolute return goals, in contrast to the strategic asset allocation, which seeks to outperform benchmarks.

TPA does not use a specific model, but instead comprises a range of approaches that can be tailored to each asset owner’s long term investment thesis.

A recent global study by the Thinking Ahead Institute found TPA can add between 50 and 150 basis points of return above the SAA. Its exponents emphasise that the two portfolio allocation approaches are targeted at different problems.

The study found the trend towards TPA is continuing, with 20 of the 26 funds survey stating they were either at their maximum TPA or moving more towards TPA. The approach has also been successfully deployed for years by both Australia’s sovereign wealth fund, the $272 billion Future Fund, as well as Kiwi sovereign fund New Zealand Super.

James Wingo, the head of the quantitative analytics at the US$46.7 billion pension fund, South Carolina Retirement System Investment Commission, says its important to ensure a unified view through TPA is by focusing on regular interactions between the risk and investment teams.

“One of the big things as we move beyond the basics, is really creating that culture and fostering a common language between investment and risk teams in order to have good conversations around risk and around TPA and understanding what risks in different parts of the portfolio are impacting others.”

Governance, technology challenge

 The biggest challenge that fund manager’s struggle with in implementing a total portfolio approach is adapting the institutions culture and governance, as well as the use of technology.

AIMCo’s Tremblay-Frenette said as an asset manager, he is targeting consistency, swiftness and accuracy to ensure capital allocation across both public and private assets, but that has been difficult from a cultural standpoint, because of different operational teams or even investment teams.

“This becomes a real challenge, because everyone has their own little version of what the total portfolio, or even the portfolio component they’re responsible for is looking like,” he said.  

“We’d want to really veer away from that state of the world towards a place where we feel we can truly come up with insights on the total portfolio, because the whole package is really what matters here.”

 Allen Zimmerman, the head for Americas at technology provider SimCorp., says part of the governance problem is the data problem, taking the example of an institution running a private book completely separate from where it runs a public book, meaning it struggles to confirm in real time that all investment guidelines are being adhered to.

“Absolutely correlations are important from that total portfolio perspective, because oftentimes people think that they’re making an investment and it’s a diversifier. Sometimes they don’t recognize that it’s actually an amplifier. Sometimes you take a specific bet and you don’t realize that it’s primarily a FX risk,” he said.

“The only way to do this is to start bringing things together, whether this be because I’m looking at correlations or, how risks are always changing.”

Public authorities need to develop regulatory frameworks that create incentives and provide policy support in order to attract long-term private capital for infrastructure needed for the ongoing energy transition, the Fiduciary investors Symposium at Stanford University has heard.

The discussion considered how a wealthy economy like the US state of California has struggled to address the under-resourcing of infrastructure during an increasingly urgent climate crisis, and what could be done to attract adequate funding.

“You can’t just throw money at the problem. There needs to be some thoughtful analysis in assessing whether or not these policies are really working,” said Malia Cohen, the Controller for California, who is the state’s chief fiscal officer and responsible for its financial resources.

Cohen said a major hindrance has been the democratic process, because you have to solicit feedback from everyone. While these are very important policy discussions, what slows the process down is the solicitation, the feedback, the thought process, and sometimes even inflexible rules for how things get built or torn down, she said.

The policies continue to be strict and old, and are not dynamic, which affects public entities’ ability to make changes.

“When that changes, I think you will start to see a fundamental change on how projects get built, how money and investment, particularly investment in infrastructure, is also moving. It’s very political on who, what companies, what countries we’re partnering it with,” Cohen said.

Private Success

IFM Investors’ chief strategy officer, Luba Nikulina, said her organisation is an example of how pools of private capital can successfully work with governments on policymaking to try and shake the inflexible, rigid, old structures.

IFM was formed decades ago when 27 Australian superannuation funds came together to participate in the privatisation of airports in the country. The group now manages more than $200 billion and holds infrastructure assets in more than 20 countries.

Nikulina said IFM is actively engaged in dealing with another big challenge of energy transition in Australia, one of the most carbon-intensive countries in the world.

“For private capital, especially the superannuation industry, to engage with the government, with policymakers, and essentially help the country to figure out how to transition to a low carbon future, but also do it in a socially responsible way ensuring that no one is left behind in this transition, is incredibly important,” she said.

IFM is doing this by helping develop the energy transition blueprint for the country, which defines priorities where, if and how the government steps in; then private investors, including IFM’s owner funds, will be prepared to provide capital, while maintaining fiduciary responsibility for the retirement savings of working people.

One interesting example has been the development of a sustainable aviation fuel industry in Australia, to reduce the carbon footprint by using fuel produced from agricultural waste.

IFM, which is also a major infrastructure investor in the UK, is also looking to transport its Australia experience and energy blueprint to the UK, the London-based Nikulina said, adding she had met new British Prime Minister Keir Starmer during his first week in office.

The fund is also building the second-largest solar plant in the US, in Chicago.

Public Policy, Education are Crucial

Cohen said it is important that public entities provide policy and regulatory support by developing a regulatory framework, by creating incentives that will encourage the private sector to come in to the conversation.

“What does that actually look like? That could be subsidies. It could be grants, it can be tax credits. And these are all things that the government has done in the state of California to a certain degree,” she said.

“What we have not done is applied it to lofty goals such as reducing our carbon footprint.”

The other important parts of the conversation are equity and eduction.

Inequity is important because there have been people who have been injured by many policies that business and government have inflicted upon them in the past, Cohen says.

Similarly, when initiatives are put in front of voters, on, it is crucial those voters are educated on why it is on the ballot and why or how it is important to them personally and the society at large, she said.

Nikulina said, as an investor, the critical ingredient will vary, depending on the industry.

“I wish there were a silver bullet where I could say, here is the solution, please use it,” she said.

“Unfortunately, it requires engagement pretty much sector by sector, company by company. And this is what we are doing in Australia, in the UK.”

The big trends of demographics, digitisation and de-globalisation are throwing up plenty of opportunities for investors in spite of a risky international environment, according to the president of Franklin Templeton Investments.

Jenny Johnson, who has led the US$1.37 trillion global investment firm as CEO since 2020, told the Fiduciary Investors Symposium at Stanford that it is not possible to predict geopolitical risks, so figuring out the big trends that bring opportunities is important.

“The key is to recognize you’re not going to be able to call in advance the risks that are out there. They’re going to pop up unexpectedly and make sure that you’re prepared with a diversified portfolio,” Johnson said. “But where you are making those investments and bets, make sure that you’re doing it in places where there is a natural trend.”

Johnson was in a conversation with Dr. Condoleezza Rice, 66th US Secretary of State, and Tad and Dianne Taube director of the Hoover Institution at the Top1000finds.com Fiduciary Investors Symposium.

Johnson highlighted the massive opportunity from the younger population in the global south, where a billion people are entering the middle class. Other big opportunities that investors can take advantage of will come up with the ongoing technological innovation, despite the accompanying pitfalls.

Rising de-globalisation and the split between US and China after COVID is also prompting companies to diversify their supply chain.

“You look at the FDI investment in places like Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia – places that probably were historically somewhat overlooked, other than kind of for commodities, and you see real investment opportunities,” Johnson said.

Geopolitical Risks

Despite ongoing tensions between the US and China, the world’s second largest economy continues to hold attraction for investors across the globe, thanks to its huge domestic consumer opportunity for growth.

The challenge is going to lie in finding those investment opportunities, Johnson says. For example, making tech investments may be difficult because there will be this bifurcation with the US.

“But there are other places in China, and it’s still a huge market that has opportunity. I just look at it and say, as a global company, you can’t ignore the second largest economy in the world. And I do tend to think that the politicians will ultimately try to be practical.”

The discussion also covered another major global geopolitical risk – the Russia- Ukraine conflict.

Secretary Rice believes Ukraine would ultimately have to consider the importance of territorial integrity to resolve the long-drawn conflict. She cited the erstwhile West Germany as well as South Korea, which prospered economically despite the lack of territorial security, as examples of one of the pathways the current dispute could take.

“Understanding how important territory is or is not to a prosperous, united and secure Ukraine, I think the Ukrainians will have to determine that,” Rice said. She noted, though, that both South Korea and West Germany had received an American security guarantee.

Optimism on AI

Franklin Templeton has expanded rapidly in recent years, helped by a string of acquisitions including Legg Mason, Lexington Partners, and Putnam Investments. Johnson says the asset manager has been really careful about keeping the integrity of its investment teams and tries to integrate other things that are external.

“The first step is, you make sure the investment teams feel comfortable, that they remain independent. And the second piece is you provide them opportunities to see the benefit of being part of a bigger firm. AI is obviously one, but other things we do, these CIO forums and conversations that folks have from different perspectives, that has been really valuable.”

As one of the largest investment managers globally, it is also focusing on innovation to ensure that it keeps up with clients demands.

Earlier this year, Franklin Templeton announced a partnership with Microsoft to build an advanced financial AI platform that will help its distribution team. It is working on another partnership with a different tech firm for its investment teams.

Johnson says these AI models have to be trained on data, which will make it harder for smaller asset management companies to compete, because data is really expensive, and they will be limited in the data they have internally,

“We are leading in areas like blockchain and digital assets; you couldn’t do that if you didn’t have scale. And I do think it’s going to be harder and harder for smaller managers as AI becomes more important to actually be able to compete,” she said.

The transformational effect of artificial intelligence has already been felt across a number of industries. Its impact is now also being felt in financial markets and particularly in the function of investing within asset management.

David Wright, co-head of Quest, quantitative business strategy, at the Switzerland-based Pictet Asset Management, told the Fiduciary investors Symposium at Stanford University that current techniques being used included large language models, natural language processing, and machine learning to make predictions.

Wright quoted a recent global survey by Mercer that showed nine out of 10 investment managers were either already using AI or planned to use AI in the future as an indication of the potential uses for both quantitative and fundamental managers.

“On one side, you’ve got tools that can help be more effective, be more efficient, and focus where the investor want to spend their time,” he said.

“At the other end, you’ve got the quant space, where you’re starting to see front-to-back machine learning-based models to forecast returns.

“It comes together a little bit in the middle as well, with kind of quasi-tools. These are often natural language processing, where you want to assess sentiment, or you want to summarise documents.”

He gave the example of a Pictet team developing an in-house, large language model to summarise all the 10-K financial documents – comprehensive financial reports required by the US Securities and Exchange Commission to be filed annually by public companies – that they otherwise would have to go through by hand, bringing it down to a summary that takes only 10 to 15 minutes to read.

Quant Race

Wright says machine learning has been looked at in some capacity for 10 to 15 years on the quantitative side of the industry, with the equivalent of an arms race in the quest for data, technology, and computing speed.

With significant progress being made, there have been a lot of headlines and even academic papers over the past couple of years suggesting stock picking can be done by large language models. Wright says this is not credible yet, but machine learning is starting to really have an impact on stock picking elsewhere in the investment world.

“The reason this is possible is that the opportunity has really accelerated for quantitative investing over the last 10 years,” he said.

“There’s so much more data, there’s much faster computing speed, computer storage is much cheaper. The barriers to doing machine learning today are much lower than they ever were historically.”

Some recent applications of AI lend themselves to the more traditional stock picking fundamental managers as well.

That includes being able to make more accurate return forecasts, particularly over shorter horizons, because it can incorporate a much larger number of features or signals or data sources.

“What machine learning can allow you to do in the quant space is overcome one of the key challenges that we have, and that is the trade-off in modelling between complexity, accuracy and errors,” Wright said.

Fully Transparent

One of the key challenges with machine learning relates to transparency, with asset managers generally wary of not being able to fully understand where the returns are coming from, or where the investment positions come from

Wright says his team used some academic work focused on currency markets undertaken in the US, and wrote a paper that took that work and transported it over to the equity market.

“Where we stand today with our live models is that every single position in our portfolio, we can take it back to which features drove that, what is the interaction effect between those features, and then we can explain to our clients and attribute the performance to the features.” he said.

“It gives them a lot of comfort that we can truly understand what we’re doing. We can move from a black box to a fully transparent crystal box.”

With that growing comfort level, institutions are looking for machine learning models to help them generate pure alpha, stripped of common factor returns. They want active returns that are independent from the market regime, customisable approaches that can be implemented in different types of strategy, and transparency and interpretability.

“The alpha is getting harder and harder to come by in the market,” Wright said.

“Trading off analyst sentiment in the market now is much less effective than it ever was historically. But if you understand how an analyst forecast interacts with how close it is to the company reporting its results, there is alpha to be made from that.”

A higher interest rate environment, increasing divergence among major central banks, and geopolitical uncertainty are some of the major risks that top asset owners are bracing for in coming years.

In a discussion at the Fiduciary Investors Symposium at Stanford University, long-term investors including APG Asset Management, MFS Investment Management, CPP Investments, considered the top macroeconomic themes that will play out over the next few years and what their implications will be for investors.

“Our expectation is that we’re moving into a higher-interest rate, higher-inflationary environment. Yes, rates are likely to come down from where they are currently, but we’re unlikely to go back to where we were in the period following the global financial crisis,” said Jonathan Hubbard, managing director in MFS’ investment solutions group.

Hubbard said he believes the driving elements behind the current persistence in inflation are less well understood, given that it follows more than a decade of zero interest rate environments after the GFC. Despite central banks kicking off a monetary easing cycle, that could mean periods of rolling inflation.

Inflation is also top of mind at Canadian pension fund CPP, head of portfolio design and construction Derek Walker said, with the potential that we have entered a world where inflation is either higher or more volatile.

“The reason that is relevant for us, as it will be for asset allocators in general, is that diversification benefits that we see between fixed income and equities are very strongly driven by that,” he told the audience of pension and sovereign funds.

“In those environments where it’s primarily growth that’s driving that correlation, we see a more negative correlation. But when it’s primarily inflation and real rates increasing, then that tends to be a positive relationship. So it has big implications from a diversification standpoint.”

Policy Divergence

APG global head of fixed income Ann Marie Griffith said one of the key issues that central bank policies have largely been co-ordinated since the global financial crisis, with rates coming down to very low levels.

However, now we’re seeing dispersion. The Federal Reserve delivered a supersized 50 basis point rate cut on Wednesday, the Bank of Canada has already eased three times, the Bank of England once and, two cuts have come from the European Central Bank.

“But what we’re really seeing is these central banks reacting to facts on the ground in their particular countries or regions, instead of acting in concert. So that’s creating a bit more volatility within markets and then across markets,” Griffith said.

She pointed out that some other countries such as Japan and Brazil, are actually thinking about raising rates as they deal with issues such as weakness in their own currency, and wage and inflation pressures.

“These are very sort of unusual activities, considering where we’re coming from since the financial crisis, but definitely creating a lot more volatility and a lot more interesting opportunities in portfolios.”

Another issue that is finding resonance is re-globalisation where global trade relationships, global supply chain structure and logistics are all changing.

What started in 2017 with the Trump administration tariffs were underscored during Covid, where companies couldn’t access their supply chains in different countries; then was impacted by the Russian invasion of Ukraine; and is currently being felt through the war in the Middle East, which is impacting shipping channels.

“Put that all together, and as a COO of an organisation, does it make sense to have outsourced all of this business and manufacturing?” Hubbard said.

“So we’re starting to see some of that come back to the US. But we’re also starting to see some of those trade relationships change and I think the beneficiaries will be countries in Asia, some countries in South America.”

Strategic Allocation, Tactical Play

Asset owners are looking to deal with the volatility in different ways. As a long term investor, CPP’s first line of defence is around building a resilient and robust strategic allocation, Walker said. That also involves stressing portfolio allocation to a number of different scenarios.

 “So making sure that we are not allocating capital in assuming a very benign inflation and rate environment. We kind of put more weight on a higher rate, higher inflation environment.”

APG’s Griffith noted that there is still a very compressed spread environment, with potential for the Federal Reserve to be a little bit slower than the market has anticipated.

“We’re probably still a little bit biased to have risk on in the portfolios, but much more closer to home, and also trading up into more liquid, larger names and trying to create a little bit of extra liquidity in the portfolios to take advantage of some of the volatility that we may see in the coming months.”

Hubbard said while short-term market trends took precedence, he was advising clients to continue to focus on the long term.

“Don’t give up on diversification. I think that there’s too big of an opportunity set outside the US. Maintain that as part of your strategic assets allocation, even if it doesn’t work out this year or next. I think over the longer term, there are definitely great opportunities.”

While financial markets grapple with the impacts of this week’s interest rate decision from the US Federal Reserve, what matters more is how markets got to this point and how this will impact the next three-to-six-month window.

The Fed announced a rate cut of 50 basis points on Wednesday, lowering the target range for the federal funds rate of 4.75 to 5 per cent.

At the Top1000Funds Fiduciary Investors Symposium at Stanford University, just hours before the Fed’s decision Bridgewater Associates portfolio strategist, research group, Alex Smith tipped a cut but noted the real consequence would not be the specific decision the Fed made, but how markets had arrived in this position.

“I don’t think it matters,” Smith said.

“I guarantee they’re going to cut. Is it going to be 25 [basis points]? is it going to be 50, 37.5? I don’t know. What’s really interesting is how are we in a position where I can guarantee you they’re going to cut.”

He noted that almost 17 years ago to the day, the Fed cut 50 basis points ahead of the Global Financial Crisis, and he questioned whether it had any impact in the following months.

But looking at the situation now, the focus is on why the Fed cut, what the implications are, and what it effects it will have. “That’s the next three to six months,” Smith said.

“But then stepping back, how is that similar to and different to what we’ve experienced before? There are some similarities – old-school interest rate policy; we call it ‘monetary policy one’.

“[This is] the traditional way we learned how the Fed operated, but with a twist and that twist is what we call ‘monetary policy three’ which is what we call fiscal policy. These two things are operating at the same time and it’s going to create a pretty different backdrop for investors.”

When rates are lowered to stimulate the economy during a downturn, it typically leads to greater borrowing, and that borrowing produces spending.

“One person’s spending is another person’s income, and you get the cycle going,” Smith said.

“It leaves a residue and that residue is debt. The debt went higher and higher and higher and the debt itself was a deflationary force. That’s why inflation is going down and it reached a level in 2008 where private sector debt was very high.”

It was then that the Fed sent interest rates to zero, to no response, which Smith likened to an emergency ER doctor using a defibrillator on a patient with no effect.

A different regime

Instead, the Fed went to a different policy regime – dubbed ‘monetary policy two’ – which involved printing money to pump into the financial market instead of stimulating borrowing by lowering interest rates.

“A very different form of stimulation, it produces asset inflation – not much in the way of goods and services inflation – and it very indirectly kind of leaks into the real economy,” Smith said.

Smith posited a twofold justification for the decision to pursue this method: first, because inflation was already low; and second, because, ultimately, “they had to”.

“They were the only game in town,” he said.

“There wasn’t much in the way of fiscal stimulation, but by the end of the 2010s it became apparent you were going to need more fiscal [policy] to get additional stimulation.

“What catalysed that I don’t think anyone predicted, which was the pandemic. You had a rapid decline of economic activity and coordinated money printing and fiscal easing.”

The fall out of the Covid-19 pandemic led to multiple trillion-dollar stimuli which targeted support for consumer incomes.

“Those incomes were spent – one person’s spending is another person’s income so that was good,” Smith said.

“You got good income growth but there was a residue, the excess demand. There was too much demand and the economies that stimulated more had more inflation and that led the Fed to eventually recognise it was not transitory.

“We’ve got to tighten, move interest rates up 550 basis points, move QE [quantitative easing] to QT [quantitative tightening] and then you’ve had this effect where inflation has come down.”

While Smith notes there are other factors that have driven down inflation – like the resumption of functional and undisrupted supply chains – the economy is now in a position where inflation has come down closer to target but it’s beginning to create weakness in the labour market.

“They want to get in front of it, that’s why they’re easing today because there are the effects where this has slowed inflation, but the tightening is slowing spending in the real economy,” Smith said.

But Smith conceded the reason everyone is “obsessed” with these three monetary policy frameworks is because ‘monetary policy one’ is the goal for central banks, but elected officials prefer ‘monetary policy three’.

“So that’s a tension,” Smith said.

“It’s one thing if you want to have record deficits and the central bank’s printing money and basically handing it to you, it’s another if you’re moving in opposite directions.”

The good news

The good news, Smith said, is that this is different to the GFC. In 2008, defaults on subprime mortgage debt directly drove the crisis, but private sector credit hasn’t played a role in the economic expansion for the last few years.

“Is it like 2008? It’s not, that’s good the news,” he said.

“The big support was fiscal stimulation and very strong labour markets – now those are rolling off and the Fed has to offset it.”

“That’s mid-cycle easing. Mid-cycle easings are great for everyone in this room, if you’re an asset owner. Now there’s two flies in the ointment: we don’t know if it’s a mid-cycle easing and you don’t know until afterwards; and this could easily be wrong.”

Smith added there “is a lot of good news priced in” which has meant higher asset prices and lower forward-looking returns.

“When we look at the momentum of the conditions it looks like we’re probably more in the foothills of a bubble than the top of a downturn and you could see rich assets get richer still,” Smith said.

“We’ve all been conditioned to that; you haven’t had a prolonged drawdown in 15 years. That’s in the US where we’re generally probably more of a mid-cycle easing, much more favourable for asset holders than entering a recession with a lot depending on not how much they cut today, but how much do they cut, and do you get the [economic] response?”