Drastic changes to the composition of the US bond index, the Barclay’s Capital Aggregate Index, will create opportunities for active bond managers and provide rationale for institutional investors concerned about active management in the sector to adhere to their long-term asset allocation.
Investors must recognise that the economic world has changed and not expect normal asset price reversion in the future, says Carl Hess, Watson Wyatt’s global head of investment consulting.
Sweden’s first four buffer funds, with combined assets of SEK 690.6 billion (US$83 billion) have demonstrated a lack of tolerance for companies that continue to breach ethical guidelines despite the funds’ governance efforts to bring about change, excluding 10 companies from their investment universe.
The International Corporate Governance Network (ICGN), with members from 47 countries responsible for global assets of US$15 trillion, has urged the International Accounting Standards Committee (IASC) to prioritise investors, not auditors, as the key stakeholders in the setting of global financial reporting standards.
In an exclusive interview, Amanda White, editor of top1000funds.com, talks to the modern portfolio theorist about markets, portfolio rebalancing, Madoff and more.
Government efforts to defend economies from the global downturn – primarily official interest rate cuts and spending packages – could make inflation a significant threat to investors’ portfolios once the crisis has run its course, according to Urs Wietlisbach, executive vice chairman of Partners Group, a CHF24 billion (US$21 billion) alternatives manager.