Better than Alpha: Three Steps to Capturing Excess Returns in a Changing World

Better than Alpha: Three Steps to Capturing Excess Returns in a Changing World PDF Author: Christopher M. Schelling
Publisher: McGraw Hill Professional
ISBN: 126425766X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 305

Get Book Here

Book Description
A powerful new approach for giving up the ghost of alpha—and building an investing portfolio that meets your objectives The concept of beating markets is just a lot of hype. Successful investors don’t find “alpha,” they find value―and that’s what this book helps you do. Better Than Alpha provides the perspective, insights, and tools you need to retrain your focus away from searching for alpha and toward actions that produce superior investment outcomes. Chris Schelling explains why strategies based on “beating the markets” are doomed to failure and provides a simple three-step framework for making better investment decisions: Behavior (smart thinking), Process (smart habits), Organization (smart governance). He explains why the search for alpha is destined to fail, the major role behavioral finance plays in so much wasted time, effort, and money, and, most important, how to avoid common mistakes and maximize your efforts. You’ll gain a deeper understanding of what drives investment returns, how superstar investment managers generated excess returns in the past, and why strategies that worked in the past don’t necessarily make sense today. Whether you’re responsible for generating revenue streams for pensions, endowments, or foundations; mitigating insurance losses; serving as an investment consultant; or any other institutional-level investing, Better Than Alpha walks you through the process of minimizing the impacts of behavioral biases and making decisions that create a higher probability of meeting your objectives―whatever they may be.

Better than Alpha: Three Steps to Capturing Excess Returns in a Changing World

Better than Alpha: Three Steps to Capturing Excess Returns in a Changing World PDF Author: Christopher M. Schelling
Publisher: McGraw Hill Professional
ISBN: 126425766X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 305

Get Book Here

Book Description
A powerful new approach for giving up the ghost of alpha—and building an investing portfolio that meets your objectives The concept of beating markets is just a lot of hype. Successful investors don’t find “alpha,” they find value―and that’s what this book helps you do. Better Than Alpha provides the perspective, insights, and tools you need to retrain your focus away from searching for alpha and toward actions that produce superior investment outcomes. Chris Schelling explains why strategies based on “beating the markets” are doomed to failure and provides a simple three-step framework for making better investment decisions: Behavior (smart thinking), Process (smart habits), Organization (smart governance). He explains why the search for alpha is destined to fail, the major role behavioral finance plays in so much wasted time, effort, and money, and, most important, how to avoid common mistakes and maximize your efforts. You’ll gain a deeper understanding of what drives investment returns, how superstar investment managers generated excess returns in the past, and why strategies that worked in the past don’t necessarily make sense today. Whether you’re responsible for generating revenue streams for pensions, endowments, or foundations; mitigating insurance losses; serving as an investment consultant; or any other institutional-level investing, Better Than Alpha walks you through the process of minimizing the impacts of behavioral biases and making decisions that create a higher probability of meeting your objectives―whatever they may be.

The Allocator’s Edge

The Allocator’s Edge PDF Author: Phil Huber
Publisher: Harriman House Limited
ISBN: 0857197940
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 234

Get Book Here

Book Description
We are entering a golden age of alternative investments. Alternative asset classes including private equity, hedge funds, catastrophe reinsurance, real assets, non-traditional credit, alternative risk premia, digital assets, collectibles, and other novel assets are now available to investors and their advisors in a way that they never have been before. The pursuit of diversification is not as straightforward as it once was — and the classic 60/40 portfolio may no longer be sufficient in helping investors achieve their most important financial goals. With the ever-present need for sustainable income and risk management, alternative assets are poised to play a more prominent role in investor portfolios. Phil Huber is the Chief Investment Officer for a multi-billion dollar wealth management firm and acts as your guide on a journey through the past, present, and future of alternative investments. In this groundbreaking tour de force, he provides detailed coverage across the spectrum of alternative assets: their risk and return characteristics, methods to gain exposure, and how to fit everything into a balanced portfolio. The three parts of The Allocator’s Edge address: 1. Why the future may present challenges for traditional portfolios; why the adoption of alternatives has remained elusive for many allocators; and why the case for alternatives is more compelling than ever thanks to financial evolution and innovation. 2. A comprehensive survey of the asset classes and strategies that comprise the vast universe of alternative investments. 3. How to build durable and resilient portfolios that harness alternative assets; and how to sharpen the client communication skills needed to establish proper expectations and make the unfamiliar familiar. The Allocator’s Edge is written with the practitioner in mind, providing financial advisors, institutional allocators, and other professional investors the confidence and courage needed to effectively understand, implement, and translate alternatives for their clients. Alternative investments are the allocator’s edge for the portfolios of tomorrow — and this is the essential guide for advisors and investors looking to seize the opportunity.

Sustainability, Technology, and Finance

Sustainability, Technology, and Finance PDF Author: Herman Bril
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000789462
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 292

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book explores the swiftly emerging nexus between sustainability, finance, and technology. Leading practitioners and academic thought leaders reflect on the ways in which technology and digitalization shape how sustainable finance professionals address environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues. Together, the contributors identify three spheres in which technology shapes how investors make sense of such issues: ESG and technology: finance professionals need to know about how technological innovations, such as chemical recycling for plastics, in the real economy shape firms’ ESG performance; ESG through technology: technological developments, such as AI and blockchain, can enable finance professionals to offer more fine-grained ESG analyses; and ESG as technology: the ESG agenda itself is influenced by technological developments that are not well understood by practitioners (e.g., data mining for Bitcoin creating significant emissions). Using practically relevant examples and recent insights from people working in the field, the book explores the linkages between sustainability, technology, and finance in different contexts and shows how practitioners can accelerate needed change processes. This book primarily addresses practitioners in companies and investment firms as well as students enrolled in executive education and MBA programs.

Investment Philosophies

Investment Philosophies PDF Author: Aswath Damodaran
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1118235614
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 615

Get Book Here

Book Description
The guide for investors who want a better understanding of investment strategies that have stood the test of time This thoroughly revised and updated edition of Investment Philosophies covers different investment philosophies and reveal the beliefs that underlie each one, the evidence on whether the strategies that arise from the philosophy actually produce results, and what an investor needs to bring to the table to make the philosophy work. The book covers a wealth of strategies including indexing, passive and activist value investing, growth investing, chart/technical analysis, market timing, arbitrage, and many more investment philosophies. Presents the tools needed to understand portfolio management and the variety of strategies available to achieve investment success Explores the process of creating and managing a portfolio Shows readers how to profit like successful value growth index investors Aswath Damodaran is a well-known academic and practitioner in finance who is an expert on different approaches to valuation and investment This vital resource examines various investing philosophies and provides you with helpful online resources and tools to fully investigate each investment philosophy and assess whether it is a philosophy that is appropriate for you.

The Current State of Quantitative Equity Investing

The Current State of Quantitative Equity Investing PDF Author: Ying L. Becker
Publisher: CFA Institute Research Foundation
ISBN: 1944960457
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 75

Get Book Here

Book Description
Quantitative equity management techniques are helping investors achieve more risk efficient and appropriate investment outcomes. Factor investing, vetted by decades of prior and current research, is growing quickly, particularly in in the form of smart-beta and ETF strategies. Dynamic factor-timing approaches, incorporating macroeconomic and investment conditions, are in the early stages but will likely thrive. A new generation of big data approaches are rendering quantitative equity analysis even more powerful and encompassing.

Manager Selection

Manager Selection PDF Author: Scott Stewart
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 148

Get Book Here

Book Description
Manager selection is a critical step in implementing any investment program. Investors hire portfolio managers to act as their agents, and portfolio managers are then expected to perform to the best of their abilities and in the investors' best interests. Investors must practice due diligence when selecting portfolio managers. They need to not only identify skillful managers, but also determine the appropriate weights to assign to those managers. This book is designed to help investors improve their ability to select managers. Achieving this goal includes reviewing techniques for hiring active, indexed, and alternative managers; highlighting strategies for setting portfolio manager weights and monitoring current managers; and considering the value of quantitative and qualitative methods for successful manager selection.

The Incredible Shrinking Alpha

The Incredible Shrinking Alpha PDF Author: Larry E. Swedroe
Publisher: Buckingham
ISBN: 9780692336519
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Get Book Here

Book Description
Alpha still exists! But that doesn't mean it is easy to find, or even worth the pursuit. Larry Swedroe, author of the bestselling series of "The Only Guide" investment books, and co-author Andrew Berkin bring you the quantitatively chilling tale of "The Incredible Shrinking Alpha." As aficionados of classic science fiction, Swedroe and Berkin saw similarities between the monumental struggle of Scott Carey, novelist Richard Matheson's Incredible Shrinking Man, and that of every individual investor trying to beat the market. Swedroe and Berkin explain in academic yet simple terms what is happening to the alpha for which so many investors yearn. Offering compelling data from decades of academic research, Swedroe and Berkin present the hard truth as they know it - it's not worth the time or effort spent battling to win those few extra cake crumbs. Instead, focus on the things you can control and discover what life has to offer beyond the quest for alpha.

Bond Portfolio Investing and Risk Management

Bond Portfolio Investing and Risk Management PDF Author: Vineer Bhansali
Publisher: McGraw Hill Professional
ISBN: 0071713255
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 321

Get Book Here

Book Description
Learn the fine art of risk measurement and control—from a senior member of PIMCO! Bond Portfolio Investing and Risk Management is designed for one purpose—to help you do the most important part of your job. A top player in the upper echelon of PIMCO, Vineer Bhansali understands the nuances and complexities of managing risk in fixed-income investing better than anyone. In this highly practical guide, he puts his years of experience and the latest research to work in order to help you contend with such issues as: Liquidity and stress risks Asset allocation Market anomalies Cross-market relationships Tail-risk measurement Cyclical returns Macroeconomic data Bond Portfolio Investing and Risk Management details the tools used to offset risk, including their advantages and drawbacks, and explains when to use each one. Bhansali provides practical investment techniques to give you a firm handle on the value and risk of a fixed-income instrument.

Alternative Beta Strategies and Hedge Fund Replication

Alternative Beta Strategies and Hedge Fund Replication PDF Author: Lars Jaeger
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 0470721243
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 272

Get Book Here

Book Description
There s a buzzword that has quickly captured the imagination of product providers and investors alike: "hedge fund replication". In the broadest sense, replicating hedge fund strategies means replicating their return sources and corresponding risk exposures. However, there still lacks a coherent picture on what hedge fund replication means in practice, what its premises are, how to distinguish di erent approaches, and where this can lead us to. Serving as a handbook for replicating the returns of hedge funds at considerably lower cost, Alternative Beta Strategies and Hedge Fund Replication provides a unique focus on replication, explaining along the way the return sources of hedge funds, and their systematic risks, that make replication possible. It explains the background to the new discussion on hedge fund replication and how to derive the returns of many hedge fund strategies at much lower cost, it differentiates the various underlying approaches and explains how hedge fund replication can improve your own investment process into hedge funds. Written by the well known Hedge Fund expert and author Lars Jaeger, the book is divided into three sections: Hedge Fund Background, Return Sources, and Replication Techniques. Section one provides a short course in what hedge funds actually are and how they operate, arming the reader with the background knowledge required for the rest of the book. Section two illuminates the sources from which hedge funds derive their returns and shows that the majority of hedge fund returns derive from systematic risk exposure rather than manager "Alpha". Section three presents various approaches to replicating hedge fund returns by presenting the first and second generation of hedge fund replication products, points out the pitfalls and strengths of the various approaches and illustrates the mathematical concepts that underlie them. With hedge fund replication going mainstream, this book provides clear guidance on the topic to maximise returns.

Conquering the Seven Faces of Risk

Conquering the Seven Faces of Risk PDF Author: Scott Juds
Publisher: Bookbaby
ISBN: 9781543913750
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Get Book Here

Book Description
Risk is not a one-dimensional problem cured by a single dose of diversification. It's a multidimensional problem, and diversification's passive risk reduction is only just the start. At least since Markowitz developed Modern Portfolio Theory 65 years ago, risk has generally been measured as the standard deviation from average return. However, Behavioral Economics (and even the dictionary) say risk is really about the loss of value, which is quite different from volatility. Risk has at least seven unique faces, including (1) Single-Stock Risk, (2) Market Volatility, (3) Bear Market Crash, (4) Momentum Loss, (5) Backtesting Deception, (6) Strategy Hired/Fired Late, and (7) Retirement Savings Will Not Be Enough. The elephant in the room for the majority of people facing retirement is a serious retirement savings shortfall - which makes their most serious risk about earning sufficient returns. Fortunately, a Royal Society Fellow, a National Medal of Science winner, and a trio of Nobel Laureates have laid the foundation for active risk reduction and forever changed the game. This book intends to shake the very foundation of the sleepy momentum mono-culture that seems happily mired in decades-old, simplistic, risk models that not only fail to treat momentum as the multi-faceted problem it is, but also fail to consider fundamental signal processing methods (older than Modern Portfolio Theory) that reduce the "random walk" part of the signal and improve the probability of making a better investment choice. The good news is two-fold: (1) the book's principles and methods are described in a manner most ordinary investors will easily grasp, and (2) while it is truly complicated under the hood (like my car), software tools make it easy to drive. So, buckle up, turn the page, and let's go for a ride!