Trade Finance: An Expanding Opportunity for Institutional Investors
Providing high liquidity, good return premiums over cash, and a predictable risk profile, trade finance can play a valuable role in portfolio strategy.
Credit/Fixed Income
Decades of Data: 1900–2017
In over 40 different analyses and 100 charts, our annual report on the history of global markets provides context for the range of returns investors can expect from equities, bonds, and cash; reveals the importance of various components of equity returns; examines the evidence for equity mean reversion; and reviews the relationship between initial valuations…
Distressed Debt: A New Way to Categorize Managers
As the economic cycle progresses, the next recession draws inexorably closer, bringing with it the next downturn in the credit cycle. Recognizing this, institutional investors are increasingly considering allocations to distressed debt managers. While lumping all distressed managers into one group is tempting, different managers have meaningfully different approaches and investors’ traditional way of thinking about distressed debt managers makes timing paramount. In this paper, we offer a new way to think about distressed investing that combines three complementary sub-strategies and encourages investors to allocate across the credit cycle.
Australia Outlook 2018: Reaching a Tipping Point
Though the risk from rising rates is potentially higher in Australia than elsewhere given household debt levels and the state of the housing market, we judge the risks and outlook as balanced and advise investors to remain neutral on equities and risk.
New Zealand Outlook 2018: The Times They Are A-Changin’
The risks from rising rates are potentially higher in New Zealand than elsewhere given the overvaluation of equities and the housing market. We advise investors to underweight NZ equities, fixed income in general, and the NZ dollar.
US Manager Universe Statistics: Fourth Quarter 2017
This chart book presents representative long-only and hedge fund manager performance for fourth quarter 2017. The median US Growth Equity ex Small-Cap manager posted the highest median return for fourth quarter 2017, returning 6.8%. Emerging & Frontier Markets Equity managers posted the best returns for the one-year period ending December 31, 2017, with a median return of 36.8%. The median US Intermediate-Term Bonds manager posted the lowest median return for fourth quarter 2017 (0.0%), while the median Cash Management return was lowest for the one-year period ending December 31, 2017 (1.1%).
Review of Market Performance: Calendar Year 2017
Equity markets dazzled investors in 2017, as an uptick in global economic activity helped lift expectations for corporate earnings growth across developed and emerging markets. The performance of equities and other asset classes are reviewed in this chart book.
Outlook 2018: Stick Around for Dessert
In our 2018 outlook, we review the prospects for several asset classes—developed and emerging markets equities, credit, real assets, sovereign bonds, and currencies—and share the advice of our chief investment strategist.
US Manager Universe Statistics: Third Quarter 2017
This chart book presents representative long-only and hedge fund manager performance for third quarter 2017. The median Global ex US Small-Cap Equity manager posted the highest median return for both third quarter 2017 and the one-year period ending September 30, 2017, returning 8.6% and 23.6% for the respective periods. The median Cash Management manager posted the lowest median return for third quarter 2017 (0.3%), while the US REITs median return was lowest for the one-year period ending September 30, 2017 (0.4%).
China’s Onshore Bond Market: An Introduction
China has recently opened its domestic bond market to foreign investors. At first glance this is a huge opportunity for investors. However, as with many things in China, the story is more complicated than it appears.