SPECIAL: Asset management
Trend following and the headwinds of rising yields
The decline in bond yields over the past decades has supported profitability and diversification value of trend followers. Returns have been boosted by a...
Cash hoarding and market dynamics
Institutional asset managers can aggravate market swings due to the pro-cyclicality of redemptions, internal leverage and cash positions. A new empirical analysis shows that...
Fake alpha
Statistical alpha can be divided into fake alpha, which is a premium for non-directional systematic risk, and true alpha, which reflects the quality of the...
SYSTEMIC RISK
How to estimate risk in extreme market situations
Estimating portfolio risk in extreme situations means answering two questions: First, has the market entered...
Understanding China’s “financial policy”
In most developed countries macroeconomic management is the domain of separate fiscal and monetary policies....
ECB policy framework in six basic points
The European Central Bank is one of the most powerful institutions in the world and...
How systemic financial risk is measured
Public institutions have developed a wide range of methods to track systemic financial risk. What...
How convenience yields have compressed real interest rates
Real interest rates on ‘safe’ assets such as high-quality government bonds had been stationary around...
SYSTEMATIC VALUE
The dollar as barometer for credit market risk
The external value of the USD has become a key factor of U.S. and global...
How salience theory explains the mispricing of risk
Salience theory suggests that decision makers exaggerate the probability of extreme events if they are...
Understanding dollar cross-currency basis
Covered interest parity is an arbitrage condition that equalizes costs of direct USD funding and...
Why herding is the death of momentum
Momentum trading, buying winning assets and selling losing assets, is a most popular trading strategy....
Drawdown control
Containment of drawdowns and optimization of performance ratios for multi-asset portfolios is critical for trading...
POPULAR POSTS
The four components of long-term bond yields
A BOJ paper proposes an affine terms structure model for bond yields under consideration of the zero lower bound. It estimates the contribution of...
Leverage in asset management
Asset managers can use leverage to enhance returns. Outside hedge funds, such leverage is modest as share of assets under management. However, considering the huge...
Basic theory of momentum strategies
Systematic momentum trading is a major alternative risk premium strategy across asset classes. Time series momentum motivates trend following; cross section momentum gives rise...
VIX term structure as a trading signal
The VIX futures curve reflects expectations of future implied volatility of S&P500 index options. The slope of the curve is indicative of expected volatility...
Understanding market beta in FX
The beta of an investment measures its sensitivity to “market returns”. Unlike in equity, in FX the relevant benchmark for a beta cannot be a...
Lessons from long-term global equity performance
A truly global and long-term (116 years) data set for both successful and failed financial markets shows that equity has delivered positive long-term performance...