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.
Over the last decade, new currencies have emerged: cryptocurrencies, local monies. Investment monies are supposed to follow suit. Are they all genuine currencies? Why such a multiplicity of currencies? How many currencies for the International Monetary System? Is competition viable, a universal currency a utopia? Beyond…
This encylopedic report investigates the juxtaposition of art and finance industry particularly in the wealth management industry, via surveys of private banks and family offices.
QIC believes the prognosis for health and wellness to deliver consistent, reliable returns and provide defensive positioning for portfolios is strong. Equally as strong is the high-returning alpha potential of new, emerging technologies that are rapidly driving medical advances.
The World Economic Forum’s Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) Policy‑Maker Toolkit seeks to address the need for a concise CBDC decision guide that provides comprehensive and risk‑aware information to policy‑makers. This document serves as a possible framework to ensure that any CBDC deployment fully considers the costs as…
The conversation around bitcoin has changed substantially in just a few years. What was once labeled a bubble and a scam by industry leaders is now inching closer to the mainstream. For investors in search of a store of value or a non-correlated asset, bitcoin has potential, according to industry experts who joined in with…
The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) recently published its second statistical report on European Union (EU) Alternative Investment Funds (AIF). The study found that the EU AIF sector in 2018, as measured by Net Asset Value (NAV), amounted to €5.8tn or nearly 40% of the total EU fund industry. The report is…
Aviation finance is proving its resilience amid a cooling global economy. This survey by White & Case finds that senior executives in the sector are optimistic that global levels of aircraft financing will increase in 2020.
While cryptocurrency investment remains niche in the institutional investor community, interest in asset tokenization and stablecoins is gaining momentum.
This paper constructs a new data set of repeated sales of artworks and estimates an annual index of art prices for the period 1875-2000. Contrary to earlier studies, we find art outperforms fixed income securities as an investment, though it significantly under-performs stocks in the US. Art is also found to have lower…
The paper constitutes a discussion of the trend around the rise of art as an alternative investment. With financial markets in turmoil, art as an alternative asset class is being incorporated into portfolios in the interest of diversification. Art's low correlation with the equities market and desirable risk and reward…
Reinsurer capital increased by 7 percent through the first nine months of 2019 from USD585 billion to USD625 billion and has offset the 3 percent decline in 2018. Traditional reinsurance capital increased 9 percent, or USD44 billion to USD532 billion, over the same nine month period. Generally strong operating performance,…
This report reveals that global economic losses related to weather and natural events hit USD232 billion in 2019 – the fourth year in a row that losses have hit USD200 billion or higher.
Investable bank loans are floating-rate loans made to speculative-grade issuers that theoretically constitute a safer alternative to high yield bonds. Because bank loans pay a floating interest rate, they provide a hedge against rising short-term interest rates. In addition to potentially hedging these risks, bank loans…
This document captures Deloitte’s viewpoint—across various geographies and business areas—about the Libra Project that was introduced by the Libra Association in June 2019. The viewpoint contained herein is based on research and analysis conducted between June 18, 2019, and November 20, 2019.
The CV VC Top 50 Report enters into its third year and the latest edition introduces a new category: crypto banks. The inclusion of crypto banks, as well as the category custody introduced in the last report, illus-trates the maturing of the industry and further profes-sional development of companies based in Crypto Valley…
Asset tokenisation has become one of the most prominent use-cases of distributed ledger technologies (DLTs) in financial markets, for assets including securities (e.g. stocks and bonds), commodities (e.g. gold) and other non-financial assets (e.g. real estate). Tokenisation of assets has potential cross-cutting implications…
Bitcoin has increasingly been drawing attention from the investment community over the past few years. While the cryptocurrency has successfully bagged illustrious headlines such as “best-performing asset of the year”, those have often been followed by major downturns in a short span of time. Interestingly, it also shows a…
The digital transformation is disrupting the financial sector. Venture capital, private equity and hedge funds are also affected. We see more and more firms implement emerging technologies in their investment process. There are several common trends. Big Data analytics and the use of artificial intelligence in the initial…
This paper considers an important question: as the issuer of the safest and most trusted form of money in the economy, should the BoE innovate to provide the public with electronic money — or Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) — as a complement to physical banknotes?
With some estimating a future market of $1600 trillion, securities digitization represents a huge opportunity. Provided the challenges are addressed, the industry is poised to realize its potential.
