Climbing the wall of worries is getting tougher. There is room for markets to progress, but caution is required at this stage in the cycle. Markets must overcome four main forces: monetary policy tightening, US dollar strength, a China growth slowdown, and trade friction.
July 2018
We don’t believe so. US small caps have benefited from cyclical tailwinds this year, including strengthening US growth and their more domestic orientation (helpful as the dollar strengthens and trade frictions increase), with small-cap earnings estimated to grow twice as fast as large-cap earnings in 2018.
July 2018
There is perhaps no better time for social equity investing. Many institutional investors have long sought to promote social equity through grant making and other philanthropic endeavors. With the field of impact investing maturing, these institutions are now increasingly seeking investment solutions to accomplish the same goal.
July 2018
In short, no—their use isn’t going away any time soon. Rather than avoid them, incorporate new elements to more clearly assess the manager’s true investment skill.
June 2018
No, MSCI index inclusion will not trigger a bull market in Chinese A-shares.* Given the very modest initial weights and the lack of clarity on future increases, we doubt that index-driven flows will drive share prices meaningfully higher.
June 2018
Yes. Since fixed income derivatives are more capital efficient and flexible than physical bonds, they can play a key role in liability hedging for many corporate and other single-employer pension plans.
May 2018
For investors with private allocations, how one incorporates them into the policy benchmark will materially impact the portfolio’s relative performance, making the choice key to informed decision making. We review the various methodologies used and make a series of recommendations on best practices to follow. In considering the performance of private investments within the total portfolio, we anchor to a set of principles: keep it simple, don’t treat private investments differently, and make performance evaluation as meaningful as possible.
May 2018
When assessing performance at the aggregate private portfolio and sub-component level, investors should take the long view. In this publication, we review how long funds take to settle into their ultimate quartile ranking and highlight our framework for benchmarking a portfolio of private investments.
May 2018