Sort content by
Uncategorised posts

Why long-horizon investors should adopt factor-based asset allocation

Long-horizon investors can withstand macro-economic volatility and so should tilt towards strategies that are exposed to that, including value, small cap and momentum. Oleg Ruban, vice president in the applied research team at MSCI says this validates factor-investing and factor-based asset allocation for these investors.   Appropriate asset allocation requires explicit attention be paid to […]
Amanda WhiteOctober 3, 2014
Investor Profile

Japan’s GPIF allocates to smart beta

The $1.3 trillion Government Pension Investment Fund of Japan will use factor investing, or smart beta, as a third way of implementing equity mandates, alongside active and passive, following a six-month research project conducted by MSCI that investigated how to best implement the growing interest in factor exposures.   The research project conducted by MSCI […]
Amanda WhiteJuly 11, 2014
Research

Manager risk contribution in a multi-manager portfolio

This paper by MSCI creates a framework in order to answer the question: given a portfolio of managers, how does the active risk of each manager relate to the active risk of the portfolio? Asset owners often measure manager risk (the active risk of each manager) and have difficulty relating it to the contribution each […]
Amanda WhiteMarch 5, 2014
Uncategorised posts

New era for Barra risk modelling

MSCI’s risk management tool, BarraOne incorporated 31 private real estate models and a macro-factor asset allocation model in 2013 and this year will add global private equity analysis giving it coverage across all asset classes. BarraOne, which is widely used among investors for risk analysis and management, started as an equities analysis tool, but now […]
Amanda WhiteJanuary 10, 2014
Research

Stress scenarios for 
Japanese bond yields

Oleg Ruban at MSCI finds that the stories behind yield rises in Japanese government bonds matter greatly. They influence the correlation between Japanese equities and government bonds, which is crucial in determining the size and direction of the impact of these scenarios on representative portfolios in different geographical segments and asset classes. Why does this […]
STAFF WRITEROctober 18, 2013
Research

Dynamic allocation using minimum volatility

Active managers who are increasingly on the ropes as beta strategies encroach upon their alpha returns can take heart from the latest research from index provider MSCI. In the latest insight from Barra, Dynamic Allocation Strategies Using Minimum Volatility: Detecting Regime Shifts to Enhance Active & Passive Investing, Philippe Durand and John Regino argue that […]
Sarah RundellSeptember 6, 2013
<4of9>