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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Negative real interest rates a clear sign of financial repression

Sylvester Eijffinger, a Tilburg University professor and renowned international monetary policy expert said “financial repression is everywhere in the OECD” in a keynote address to the Fiduciary Investors Symposium in Amsterdam. Eijffinger says “the globalisation of monetary policy makes it very hard for emerging economies to shield themselves from these influences”. Eijffinger points to negative

No sustainability in European equation

Asset owners seeking comfort regarding Europe’s growth prospects had their hopes dashed by an expert panel speaking at the Fiduciary Investors Symposium in Amsterdam. Recovery in Europe, and with it implications for the stability of global market forces, the investment allocations of investors and the political and social well being of EU residents, is still

Pension design, regulation barriers to long-term investing

Fundamental questions of pension system design and regulation are serious barriers to fulfilling the global long-term investing agenda, according to a panel of major European asset owner heads at the Fiduciary Investors Symposium in Amsterdam. Eloy Lindeijer, chief of investment management of €140-billion ($191-billion) Dutch investor PGGM said “maybe politicians still don’t realise that there

PFZW: new beliefs
for a new world

The €140-billion ($191-billion) Dutch pension fund PFZW is in the midst of completely rethinking its investment philosophy, Jaap van Dam, managing director of PGGM, told the Fiduciary Investors Symposium in Amsterdam. PGGM manages the investments of PFZW and has traditionally guided them. Van Dam explains that ownership of the investment strategy is to shift decidedly

Worst case portfolio keeps HOOPP on track

The enviable surplus of the $47.4 billion Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan, HOOPP, is down to a key focus on what David Long, senior vice president and co-chief investment officer at the fund, attributes to a “single strategic objective:” namely to pay benefits at a reasonable cost to the fund’s 247,000 workers in Ontario’s hospital

Global economic growth evolving

Olga Pomerantz, economist at Chicago-based William Blair & Company, offered delegates at  the Fiduciary Investors Symposium reasons to be positive. Pomerantz says the factors inhibiting growth from 2009 until last year have altered and that global economic growth is starting to evolve. She notes stronger growth in developed markets, where growth in the US has

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