John Fawcett: Disrupting the secretive world of quants

I chat with John, the founder of Quantopian, on how he got started in quantitative finance, where he sees the industry evolving and how he created a global community of intrinsically motivated coders to create unique solutions to the greatest intellectual game on earth.

Nothing on this podcast is to be considered investment advice or a recommendation. No investment decision or activity should be undertaken without first seeking qualified and professional advice.

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Michael Pettis on China’s overinvestment paradox, and the Japan-style reckoning still to come

Michael Pettis on China’s overinvestment paradox, and the Japan-style reckoning still to come

China's advanced infrastructure and ballooning debt are two sides of the same story, says Carnegie Endowment nonresident senior fellow Michael Pettis, who compares China's coming consumption-led rebalancing to Japan's in the 1980s. In conversation with Top1000funds.com Asia Pacific correspondent Darcy Song, Pettis unpacks what this means for institutional investors weighing China exposure over multi-decade horizons, and why he remains bearish on the country's outlook.

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Agent provocateur

Paul Smith, the Hong Kong based chief executive of the Global CFA Society is on an evangelical mission to change the culture within the investment industry. Not only is he looking to curb the frequency of excess behaviour that leaves the public cynical of high paid finance professionals, but he is a persuasive advocate for

Factor investing: it works for credits too

Pension funds, insurance companies and sovereign wealth funds increasingly apply factor investing to equities in their portfolios. And now institutional investors would also like to apply this concept to credits. A research study ( ‘Factor investing in the corporate bond market’) shows that factor strategies can be attractive in credit markets. How does this work

Sovereign Development Funds: designing strategic investment institutions

The hunt for alpha is leading traditional investors toward more innovative strategies and operating models. And, significantly, one potential source of inspiration for long-term investors has come from an unconventional place: the community of sovereign development funds (SDFs). In this paper academics from Stanford University provide readers with analytical frameworks that can assist in the

Do long-term mandates produce better results?

About 11 years ago, the Towers Watson’s Thinking Ahead Group came up with the concept of investors appointing managers for 10-year mandates. The consulting arm then started talking to clients about it in 2004/05 and the early mandates have now matured. So did it work? Do longer-term mandates produce outperformance, better behaviour and more security?

Beyond backtests: considering the robustness of smart beta

Systematic equity investment strategies – so-called smart beta strategies – are usually marketed on the basis of outperformance. However, it is important to recognise that performance analysis is typically conducted on backtests that apply the smart beta methodology to historical stock returns. Concerning actual investment decisions, a relevant question, therefore, is how robust the outperformance

Five things about maximizing factor investing performance

Although factor investing is becoming more popular, there are still plenty of questions surrounding the concept and its implementation. In Europe, the US and Asia, it is a widely debated strategy within the professional investment community. Investors are attracted by the prospect of greater diversification, higher returns and lower risk. What should investors know in

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