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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Do pension funds add value?

Asset owners, on average, add 15 basis points of value above their asset class benchmarks after fees, according to an extensive study by CEM Benchmarking. The survey, which measured 6,666 data points from a global set of defined benefit plans, and some sovereign wealth funds and buffer funds, from 1992-2013. Gross of investment fees, funds

OECD calls for policy solution to long term investing barriers

Governance of institutional investors and the lengthening investment chain causing  bigger distances between assets’ beneficial owners and those involved in executing investment strategies was one of three practical issues raised by the OECD general secretary as a barrier to more investment in long-term investing financing. Speaking at the OECD Project on Institutional Investors and Long-term

2015 could be watershed year for ESG issues

2015 is poised to be the turning point as a number of key issues relating to environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues take centre stage says Fiona Reynolds, managing director of the Principles for Responsible Investment.   First and foremost is climate change. With the Paris talks scheduled for December 2015, it’s an issue that

Long-termism, the problems with capitalism and other holiday reading

The holiday season is a good time to catch up on the reading you may have put off throughout the year. To make it easy for you here is a choice of articles that speak to some of the key themes for investors – long-termism, economic growth, climate risk and capitalism. Long-termism is one of

2014: the year in words

In 2014 we have delivered to our readers more than 200 in-depth investor profiles, analytical and research-driven stories on the global institutional investment universe.  The most popular investment stories have been about private equity, ESG integration and how to find the ever-elusive alpha. But asset owners have also liked stories on how to improve their

The real factor exposures in “smart beta” indexes

Investors relying on nomenclature of smart beta indexes as an accurate reflection of their factor exposures should take a closer look. New research, using a “factor efficiency ratio”, finds that most smart beta indexes are unable to provide desired factor exposures without taking on substantial unintended exposures. Importantly the paper finds that some smart beta

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