Active mutual funds that engage in securities lending through in-house lending agents should raise questions for institutional investors. These funds may “reach for lending fees” by overweighting high-fee stocks, according to a new working paper by Travis Johnson, an assistant professor of finance, and Gregory Weitzner, a PhD student, both from the University of Texas’ […]
When sell-side stock analysts tell the public to buy, they may in fact be whispering sell to their institutional investor clients, according to a new working paper by Yushui Shi, a PhD candidate at the University of California, Irvine. The paper, which is based on data from China, looks at mutual fund managers voting for […]
In the fall of 2008, James Weatherall, today a professor of logic and the philosophy of science at the University of California, Irvine, was a PhD student in physics in New Jersey and lived across the river from Wall Street. When the financial crisis hit, he saw how the media was placing the blame on […]
Fintech includes four areas, all of which are changing the financial industry in different ways. These include peer-to-peer financing, robo-advising or systematic asset management, decentralized finance and machine learning and artificial intelligence, said Campbell Harvey, professor of finance at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business, during a panel at the Northern Finance Association’s conference in […]
In a world where zero-fee funds are rising, how are fund managers making money? And while zero fees sound beneficial for investors, is it really the best option? Marius Zoican, an assistant professor of finance at the University of Toronto Mississauga and Rotman School of Management, tackled these questions in a new working paper. During […]
While challenges still exist for women in finance, many are navigating success in this world in different ways. A panel delved into this topic at the Northern Finance Association conference in Vancouver in September 2019. It featured Irem Demirci, an assistant professor of finance at Portugal’s Nova School of Business and Economics; Lisa Kramer, a […]
“If you torture the data long enough, it will confess.” Opening the keynote address at the Northern Finance Association Conference in September with this quote by Nobel Prize-winning economist Ronald Coase, Campbell Harvey, professor of finance at Duke University, spoke about the challenges of using data empirically. He cited being careful about data selection, delegation, […]
In countries with weak law enforcement, what other market forces can help curb insider trading? A new working paper found the presence of foreign institutional investors can significantly reduce insider trading profitability, beyond the effect of domestic institutional ownership. This hypothesis is based on the reasoning that foreign institutional investors tend to come from home […]
In the current market environment, there may be good reasons for investors to consider increasing their portfolio’s allocations to cash, according to a new report by Mercer. At the end of August 2019, cash yielded more than long bonds, says Dave Makarchuk, partner and Western Canada wealth business leader at Mercer, noting Canadian 91-day treasury […]
With the U.S. Federal Reserve scheduled to announce its latest rate decision on Wednesday, what can institutional investors expect? Rob Almeida, global investment strategist at MFS Investment Management, says he expects a 25-basis point cut. “I think anything different from that would be a surprise to the market.” Since the last cut the data has […]