Governance foiled by human folly at NY state fund

The third largest fund in the US, the $122 billion New York state pension fund, has recently been embroiled in a tale of greed, fraud, bribery and corruption, with a number of its alternative investment funds allegedly tainted by the wrong-doing of former employees of the state comptroller’s officer, including its former CIO.

In this week’s “Have Your Say” column we ask you to consider the transparency of the investments in this sector, and have your say on how funds can better monitor their investments and the people that manage them.

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Refining portfolio construction when alphas and risk factors are misaligned

In this research insight MSCI Barra explores the mitigation of misaligned risk and alpha factors by modifying the optimisation process. Firstly it reviews how to decompose a set of alphas into two components – one that is related to risk model factors, and one that is not. Then it shows how penalising the residual alpha in portfolio optimisation may improve a portfolio’s exposures and ex-ante information ratio.

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Embrace risk in asset allocation

Investors should be wary of “new paradigm” arguments, according to the latest research by consulting firm Wurts & Associates, which reminds investors the forces driving capital markets rarely change, but the position within market cycles is ever changing. Wurts & Associates’ philosophy on strategic asset allocation is that static portfolio structure is an ineffective means … Read more