Below you'll find Savvy Investor's top 20 papers for the month of January. Baillie Gifford starts the list off with a unique critique of the investment management industry. Or, if factor decompositions are what you're after, check out both Axioma's examination of whether potentially crowded factors explain hedge fund returns and the recent Financial Analysts Journal paper entitled 'Buffet's Alpha,' that screens Berkshire Hathaway's historical performance for certain factor exposures.
Start 2019 off on the right foot, and check out these papers, as well as others on ESG trends, dividend yields, the Chinese economy, and several other topics of interest.
Tom Coutts of Baillie Gifford presents a fund manager's perspective on the investment management industry itself, scrutinising its culture, governance, and motivations, while advocating for lower fees, less portfolio turnover, engagement with portfolio companies, and a client-first stance.
Axioma examines the speculative proposition that recent poor hedge fund returns are due to the unwinding of certain overcrowded risk-factor positions.
Computing power is a commodity. That's why we believe companies with proprietary datasets or privileged access to differentiated datasets, which they can learn from, should be the winners in the long-run.
This paper highlights the importance of dividend yield as a component of total return, then introduces the S&P 500 Dividend Aristocrats index.
Wellington Management provides some of the sector-level investment implications of recent technological and scientific advancements in China.
Are Warren Buffett's extraordinary investment returns more attributable to skill or luck? This study breaks down why Berkshire Hathaway has significantly outperformed the stock market and concludes that Buffett's success appears not to be luck but it largely explained by his focus on low-volatility, high-quality, and cheap stocks, amplified by uniquely cheap access to leverage.
Over the next decade, populist movements may force companies to move from a shareholder value maximization model to a different, more sustainable approach.
Actions taken today could make the difference tomorrow for several of the ESG trends that MSCI illuminates for 2019.
How can investors measure the tradeoff between performance and liquidity in order to decipher their optimal mix of public and private assets?
Bond markets in developing economies have been challenged of late, but investors shouldn't fear widespread, systemic risk, says portfolio manager Rob Neithart. He offers reasons for the recent volatility and names areas of opportunity.
Invesco's 39-page Risk & Reward magazine contains articles on implementing a multi-factor commodity strategy, tail risk management, ESG integration, and other topics.
This paper provides a high-level analysis of the accounting options available to insurers under IFRS and Solvency II, as well as the impact that these standards may have on the investment strategies of insurers.
This recent paper by Goldman Sachs Asset Management succinctly shares 10 good questions U.S. plan sponsors should ask before outsourcing a pension plan.
The year 2018 has been a difficult one for the broad alternative risk premia market. Not only have these strategies lagged conventional 60/40 investing, their year-to-date negative performance has been widespread within the ARP market.
Moody's looks at differences in economic output and productivity between China's inland provinces and its coastal peers, looking at patterns of growth and demographic changes within all 31 administrative divisions.
This report explores UK charges for defined contribution pension schemes against those in the US, Australia, the Netherlands and Sweden.
The authors discuss implications (risk and return-related) of integrating ESG considerations into an investment strategy.