Risk and Portfolio Construction - Articles & White Papers
White papers and articles on portfolio construction and risk management for investment managers. Maintaining an appropriately diversified portfolio, managing portfolio risk, and controlling the risk/reward characteristics of a fund are essential basics for money managers. Academic papers on portfolio optimization are particularly helpful in this regard. The most frequently downloaded research in this section relates to reports on measuring investment risk, for instance: analysis of the time horizon over which risk is best estimated, and using risk factors as building blocks for portfolio diversification. Papers on tracking error have been well received as have papers on tail risk and fat tails. A number of articles in this section argue the case for concentrated portfolios and a need for more active management. Surveys on risk management and risk management systems have proved popular, enabling members to understand the risk practices employed by their peers. Other research on portfolio risk in this section includes papers on low volatility investing, equity risk premia, risk parity, models for forecasting asset class risk and the capital asset price model (CAPM).
The correlation between equity and bond markets is of vital importance to asset allocators; for risk control and portfolio construction, for assessing the market outlook, and for building models of how markets work (equity market valuation models, for example). In this 6-page paper, Nuno Luis and David Caplan of BlackRock examine the history of the equity/bond ...
Multi-factor models are commonly used for risk analysis and performance attribution of equity portfolios. Equity portfolio managers are interested not only in assessing the impact of common factors, but also in understanding the impact of stock-specific attributes upon portfolio risk and performances. In this report, EDHEC-Risk Institute explores the challenge of consistent risk ...
Typically, institutional investors around the world pursue one of four investment goals: absolute return, liability-driven investment, total return or principal protection. Generally, they choose from four different investment approaches: static tilts, traditional active management, market-capitalization exposures and alternative investments. Given the aforementioned potential ...
Illiquidity risk is a potentially appealing means of generating additional yields in a low-return world. The authors of this 10-page document discuss three different dimensions of illiquidity risk premium that investors should demand for a given asset.
The authors of this very interesting paper discuss why considering diversification and risk independently may help investors build more efficient portfolios. They argue that asset allocators should rethink the impact of low volatility diversifiers in higher risk portfolios. Some low vol asset classes (e.g. hedge funds) may primarily have a “de-risking” impact, but not a ...
This paper is a collaborative effort between State Street Global Exchange and Windham Capital Management. It provides findings that are important to asset allocators looking at long-term asset allocation goals. High-frequency estimation, according to the paper, does not predict behavior reliably in the long-term, even if no sampling error is present. Investors should, when ...
After eight years of stock market gains, many investors have tempered their return expectations and are focusing attention on how best to best achieve equity-like returns with less risk. One relatively new solution investors are exploring is the use of option-based strategies that seek to harness the Volatility Risk Premium.
Get an in-depth view of efficient multi-factor portfolio construction techniques, review the pros and cons of various approaches, and take a closer look at the benefits of tilting toward and away from single and multiple factors. An ideal read for asset owners who need a better understanding of factor tilting and want to compare outcomes for factor portfolio construction by looking ...
Our analysis suggests that the benefits of government bonds as diversifiers of equity risk have been weakening in recent years, as evidenced by higher correlations of government bonds to equity prices. Moreover, although bond yields have recently been rising, they remain very low by historical standards. This implies that the expected return hurdle for investing in alternative ...
Factor investing is as old as the hills. Yet it has only recently become a widespread practice. What is behind this sudden change in the investment management industry? What do analysts at firms that engage in factor investing do? What results might investors using these techniques expect? Here is a hugely important read to explore these questions.
In recent years, smart beta strategies have seen a significant increase in popularity. These strategies seek to measure systematic factors and aim to harvest the associated long-term risk premium. While many empirical studies show that smart beta strategies have historically outperformed their cap-weighted benchmarks, there is less evidence to suggest that any one factor will ...
Active extension, equity long-short, and equity market neutral products can be attractive for investors at any particular time, given investors' varied investment objectives and needs. That said, each of the three categories of shorting-enabled products can help address distinct issues facing investors today. QMA’s paper describes how short selling can allow investors to ...
This paper by Janus Capital highlights deficiencies related to traditional strategic asset allocation. The author suggests an adaptive approach that will help maximize compound return while reducing the acute tail risk present in most institutional portfolios.
This report by the Boston Consulting Group provides insights from a recent survey of nearly 140 leading fund managers representing over 55% of global industry AuM. It aims to give new insights into the state and outlook of the industry, specifically its main sources of profitability to help asset managers build a prosperous future.
This comprehensive 62-page paper by EDHEC-Risk Institute examines factor investing beyond traditional factors. It seeks to analyse what the best possible approach is for harvesting alternative long/short risk premia. There is a growing interest in factor investing among sophisticated institutional investors. The replication of hedge fund factor exposure appears to be a very ...
This 300-page book could have been entitled, "everything you ever wanted to know about investment", such is the breadth of topics covered. The author, Paolo Vanini gives readers a thorough grounding in the main players in institutional investment, and how the industry operates. A wide variety of the building blocks of the investment process are covered in detail, ...
In this paper, Cullen Roche argues that the portfolio construction process followed by many asset managers is based on misguided theories which lead to "unrealistic" frameworks. Roche seeks to present a better framework for understanding the portfolio construction process, and his paper aims to achieve this by: (i) providing an overview of the ...
This paper develops a framework that can be used by financial advisors to allow individual investors to optimally allocate assets to categories of risks they face across all life stages and wealth segments so as to achieve personally meaningful financial goals.
One key feature in developing the investment framework for goals-based wealth management is the introduction of ...
In this paper, the authors argue that apparent hedge fund returns are halved by survivorship bias and backfill bias. Andrew Lo, Mila Getmansky and Peter Lee provide their analysis of the latest research on hedge funds. They also include the latest empirical evidence for the industry. The paper is written from a number of different perspectives: the portfolio manager's, the ...
