Previ invests abroad as pandemic bites
Brazil's largest pension fund has been planning to invest more overseas for a while. Now economic travails in its home market due to the pandemic have stepped up the pressure to diversify.
Brazil's largest pension fund has been planning to invest more overseas for a while. Now economic travails in its home market due to the pandemic have stepped up the pressure to diversify.
Stefan Dunatov, head of investment strategy and risk at Canada’s $170 billion British Columbia Investment Management, says long term investors should forget about diversification at the strategic level and instead focus on buying growth beta assets.
Modern portfolio theory has created the impression that diversification is always a good thing, but asset owners could benefit from a more sceptical attitude. This article suggests over-diversification favours managers at the expense of returns to investors.
The size factor has recently come under attack from smart beta providers because its performance has lagged behind other factors. A common recommendation is to remove size from the factor menu, to give more weight to factors with better performance. But due to its low correlation with other factors, size offers substantial diversification benefits.
In an overhaul of investments impacting almost every asset class, Spain’s largest corporate pension fund, is looking to increase diversification and improve its ESG ratings. It’s decreased equities in favour of US government bonds as part of a strategy to protect the portfolio in a potential downturn, this strategy also includes tail risk hedging, currency hedging and slashing its hedge funds allocation.
Investors need to face the reality of lower returns and adjust their portfolios accordingly, the co-CIO of hedge-fund giant Bridgewater said.
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