U.S. stock futures and markets around the world are mostly holding steady or ticking higher in early Wednesday trading, but only after spinning through an election night dominated by surprises and sharp swings. After rallying early this week amid hopes that Election Day’s arrival could clear the uncertainty that’s been weighing on markets, Treasury yields […]
With the prevalence of high-frequency trading, some financial market exchange platforms have imposed speed bumps to delay trading orders and slow these traders down. “Of course, the details will be different from exchange to exchange, but basically, they slow down or [they] impose some time lags between the order placement by high-frequency traders and order […]
As institutional investors increase allocations to alternative investments, it becomes increasingly challenging to understand risk. A new paper, co-authored by Spencer Couts, assistant professor of real estate at the University of Southern California; Andrei S. Goncalves, an assistant professor of finance at the University of North Carolina; and Andrea Rossi, an assistant professor of finance […]
While many drivers can influence stock market returns, it turns out the time of the day may play an important role. In particular, the four hours around the time Asian markets close and European markets open account for the entire market returns when looking at E-mini S&P 500 futures, according to the paper by Dmitriy […]
With federal and provincial regulators introducing relief measures this year to support pension plans amid the financial upheaval resulting from the coronavirus crisis, the Financial Services Regulatory Authority of Ontario saw a lot of action from plan sponsors registered in the province. “In terms of whether plans are taking advantage of the relief — they are in […]
Over the last 20 years, managing a pension plan has looked a little like riding a roller coaster — with the 2001 technology bubble, 2008/09 financial crisis and the recent coronavirus market volatility providing sudden, gut-wrenching drops that can draw a scream from even the heartiest of souls. “From an investment standpoint, we’ve been in […]
With U.S. stock prices exceeding pre-coronavirus highs and credit spreads nearly as tight as before the pandemic, investors are signalling overconfidence in the market, says Rob Almeida, portfolio manager and global investment strategist at MFS Investment Management. While polls and betting odds appear to be favouring a Joe Biden win, that doesn’t align with what […]
Back in December 2018, I wrote an article asking whether it was a good time for pension plan sponsors to revisit value investing. At that time, public equity markets were having a difficult quarter and traditional value strategies didn’t perform as well as expected, failing to provide the much-touted protection in down equity markets. Flash forward to […]
Defined benefit pension plans that were on route to de-risking when the coronavirus hit are facing a difficult road ahead in the current lower-for-longer interest rate environment. However, a new de-risking option is available for plan sponsors that didn’t exist in the wake of the global financial crisis: merging with the Colleges of Applied Arts […]
Real estate, a long-time stable, returns-generating asset class for pension plans, may no longer be as solid due to the impact of the coronavirus pandemic. “A pretty traditional asset class for pension plans may have been in office and retail, but one of the changes that’s happened is [the move to] remote working,” said Barbara Zvan, […]