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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New Jersey’s $85 billion fund stockpiles cash, eyes PE secondaries

New Jersey’s $85 billion fund stockpiles cash, eyes PE secondaries

An underweight position across private markets, predicated on a view that geopolitics and inflation mean interest rates are not coming down any time soon, has positioned the New Jersey Division of Investment with plenty of dry powder and a cash position four times the policy allocation. It is now readying for opportunities in private equity secondaries and with emerging managers. Chief investment officer Shoaib Khan spoke to Top1000funds.com.

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Missouri’s risk-based
asset allocation

A decision by two of Missouri’s public pension plans to adopt a straightforward risk-based approach to asset allocation garnered their best result in two decades last year, while also providing investment staff with the autonomy to react quickly to changing market conditions. The board overseeing the Public School Retirement System of Missouri (PSRS) and the

Illinois pension reform

At least one state in the US is acting on the need for epic reform of its pension system, but the political difficulty associated with such reform – something all states are wary of – was demonstrated in the violent outburst by Illinois representative, Mike Bost, last week (see video) and the inability of representatives

Ang angles for more dynamism at CPPIB

The Ann F Kaplan professor of business at Columbia Business School, Andrew Ang will teach a case study on the Canadian Pension Plan Investment Board’s (CPPIB) reference portfolio in the fall. While for the most part complimentary of the approach and process, he challenges the Canadian fund to consider a more dynamic reference portfolio. The

Governance disclosure needs nutrition label

Pension funds should disclose their governance arrangements using a methodology similar to a nutrition label, with members easily able to compare the transparency and accountability of fund standards, a leading corporate-governance expert from Yale says. Dr Stephen Davis, the executive director of Yale School of Management’s Millstein Centre for Corporate Governance and Performance, has called

Mercer lists priorities for Norway’s GPFG

A report finding Norway’s $582.7-billion sovereign wealth fund could face significant losses in a range of climate-change scenarios is unlikely to result in changes to the fund’s investment strategy, Norway’s state secretary Hilde Singsaas says. Norway’s Ministry of Finance released the report into the Government Pension Fund Global’s (GPFG) that it commissioned from Mercer and

CheckRisk rethinks the risk business

Beta-driven equity investors may currently be taking far greater risks than they are getting paid for when seeking broad market exposure, British risk expert Nick Bullman warns. Bullman, the founder of specialist risk consultancy CheckRisk, has developed a methodology using macroeconomic research along with econometric and behavioural risk inputs to identify what he describes as

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