Other Alternative Investments - Articles & White Papers
Articles and research on other alternative asset classes (those outside of mainstream alternatives). Some alternatives within this section are insurance-related, so there are a number of white papers on catastrophe bonds, reports on reinsurance securities, and securities backed by life settlements (secondary market for life insurance policies). Is volatility an asset class? This is debatable, but we have included in this section papers on volatility as an asset class or "opportunity class", including the use of short volatility to... enhance portfolio returns. Master Limited Partnerships are another, relatively new alternative asset, and our listing includes white papers on MLPs, which provide relatively high income with stable cash flows. Other exotic alternatives include institutional investment in wine and institutional investment in art, with one paper examining the characteristics of art funds and their typical investments, while another examines the history of bubbles in the art market. PwC author a report on alternative investment asset classes which considers oil and gas MLPs and insurance flavored products, among others.
Beyond strong returns, we believe a climate change strategy (for our purposes, a strategy investing in the sector) may offer other significant benefits as well. We expect these to include diversification, protection from climate risk, inflation protection, and the potential to buy growth-oriented companies at a discount.…
Crowding is a major concern for investors in the alternative risk premia space. By focusing on the distinct mechanics of various systematic strategies, we contribute to the discussion with a framework that provides insights on the implications of crowding on subsequent strategy performance. Understanding such implications is…
We illustrate, by way of example, that Bitcoin’s long-term price is non-random and can be modeled as a function of the logistic growth of number of users n over time. Using observed data for both Facebook and Bitcoin, we derive the relationships between price, number of users, and time, and show that the resulting market…
This is Willis Re's 9th semi-annual publication of the reinsurance market. The report tracks the capital and profitability of the global reinsurance industry.
Bitcoin was the first application of blockchain technology. Robeco’s fintech expert Jeroen van Oerle believes there could be other ways to use this technology, for example for physical or ‘real’ assets such as …
Financial products linked to exotic indexes are being sold to individual investors and packaged as annuities or CDs (which are typically considered to be conservative products).
Alternative risk premia (ARP) strategies are traditionally assumed to diversify well both equity and bond market risk. We investigate alternative risk premia composites based on investment bank indices to describe the nature and risk characteristics of commonly known investable ARP strategies. While most of the strategies…
Having witnessed the dramatic rise and fall in the value of cryptocurrencies over the past year, we wanted to learn more about what motivates people to participate in this market. To find out, we included a special set of questions in the May 2018 Survey of Consumer Expectations, a project of the New York Fed’s Center for…
There is a gap in the regulation of crypto-assets that Congress needs to fix. The gap is contributing to fraud and weak investor protection in the distribution and trading of crypto-assets. Better regulation will benefit crypto investors, further the development of new technologies, curtail the use of crypto-assets used for…
This report has been authored by the University of Cambridge's Institute for Sustainability Leadership. It shows how investors and lenders can make use of well-established insurance models, tools and metrics to improve their management of some of the physical risks of climate change.
This report summarizes economic and insured losses from the most relevant natural catastrophe events that occurred during 2018. The loss values presented herein include those reported by Willis Re, catastrophe model vendors, reinsurance companies and third-party organizations.
This paper explores and compares stablecoins—a category of cryptographic token that seeks to maintain stable value to a reference asset. Three approaches are recognised: off-chain collateralised(IOU), on-chain collateralised, and non-collateralised(algorithmic). Further distinction within this taxonomy stems from the type of…
This paper provides the first evidence of a moral hazard in signaling in an entrepreneurial finance context by examining token offerings or initial coin offerings (ICOs). Entrepreneurs' ability to signal quality is crucial to succeeding in the competition for growth capital. However, the absence of institutions…
The degree of involvement of institutional investors with cryptocurrencies has been widely discussed since the appearance of digital assets on the radar of financial markets over the past two to three years. The stance of asset managers, pension funds and hedge funds has been assessed, but the appetite and activity of…
Ensuring the safekeeping of private keys and crypto-addresses is essential to institutional investors, though uncertainty surrounding the regulatory framework and the lack of safe, qualified custody is a significant barrier preventing them from joining the crypto market in greater numbers.
The industry is only starting its journey on the use of blockchain technology and tokenization of assets in capital markets, though some important lessons have been learned in the past two years which have helped to reset the course of the market.
This blog post is the first in a three-part series, authored by Tom Casteleyn, Global Head of Custody Product Management BNY Mellon Asset Servicing, exploring the market structure. Parts 2 and 3 will explore emerging trends, the evolution of digital assets and technological play.
The global economic cycle is moving into its later phases, and portfolios will have to work harder to generate returns. The good news? There are concerte, active steps investors can take to get their strategies ready.
The universe of Alternative Risk Premia (ARP) strategies is not nearly as generic as the concept would imply, but GAM Systematic’s Daniele Lamponi believes implementation selection is important. He suggests that challenging existing models, as well as evaluating new opportunities, has proved a differentiator in the ARP space…
