State Street Global Advisors (SSgA) announced on October 22 that it has agreed to acquire Bank of Ireland Asset Management (BIAM). Pending regulatory approvals and other closing conditions, the transaction is expected to close in the first quarter of 2011 or earlier. When the deal is complete, the BIAM operation in Dublin will become State […]
Behavioural finance, or the study of investor psychology, marries the psychology of decision-making with investors’ trading behaviour and asset pricing. Departures from rational decision-making emerge because individuals do not enjoy unlimited information-processing capabilities and instead rely on rules of thumb when making decisions under uncertainty. This leads to systematic cognitive errors and mispriced assets. But […]
Since the global financial crisis, asset allocation isn’t what it used to be. That is the main message behind State Street’s latest report, which explains how the line between strategic and tactical asset allocation has become porous—resulting in a more holistic decision-making process regarding risk management. In Vision Focus: Rethinking Asset Allocation, State Street illustrates […]
With reforms in the pension industry and prescription drug and pharmacy regulations making headlines this spring, the timing couldn’t have been more perfect for the inaugural Benefits & Pension Summit. Co-presented by Benefits Canada and the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans in April in Toronto, the two-day event hosted almost 400 participants from a […]
A year ago, pension plan sponsors were reporting significant losses. In fact, total pension assets for Benefits Canada’s 2009 Top 100 Pension Funds report fell by 16.8%. This year, the path has changed. Although the markets are still volatile, they are heading north, and many plan sponsors are starting their ascent out of the deep […]
In our May 2009 Top 40 Money Managers Report, institutional money managers were seeing red, logging mammoth losses in the great train wreck that was 2008. Just last year, we reported that the Top 40 money managers had $300 billion shaved off the value of assets under management, prompting one manager to comment that the […]
Record-high levels of currency volatility in the world markets over the last few years have left a growing number of Canadian institutional investors pondering the suitability of their currency investment policy. Over the last decade, investors have increasingly moved their asset mix toward foreign assets. Canadian investors first diversified their equity portfolios with investments in […]
Many products in the institutional investment market were tested by the 2008/09 financial crisis, and target date funds (TDFs) were no exception. Still relatively new in Canada, TDFs have existed in the U.S. since the 1990s. In 2009, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the Department of Labor held a hearing to examine the […]
What is the outlook for inflation globally?
