Crucial methods, tactics and tools for successful pension fund management Achieving Investment Excellence offers trustees and asset managers a comprehensive handbook for improving the quality of their investments. With a stated goal of substantially and sustainably improving annual returns, this book clarifies and demystifies important concepts surrounding trustee duties and responsibilities, investment strategies, analysis, evaluation and much more. Low interest rates are making the high cost of future pension payouts fraught with tension, even as the time and knowledge required to manage these funds appropriately increases — it is no wonder that pensions are increasingly seen as a financial liability. Now more than ever, it is critical that trustees understand exactly what contributes to investment success — and what detracts from it. This book details the roles, the tools and the strategies that make pension funds pay off. Understand the role of pension funds and the fiduciary duty of trustees Learn the tools and kills you need to build profound and lasting investment excellence Analyse, diagnose and improve investment quality of funds using concrete tools and instruments Study illustrative examples that demonstrate critical implementation and execution advice Packed with expert insight, crucial tools and real-life examples, this book is an important resource for those tasked with governing these. Achieving Investment Excellence provides the expert insight, clear guidance and key wisdom you need to manage these funds successfully.

How to prevent runs on open-end mutual funds? In recent years, markets have observed an innovation that changed the way open-end funds are priced. Alternative pricing rules (known as swing pricing) adjust funds’ net asset values to pass on funds’ trading costs to transacting shareholders. Using unique data on investor transactions in U.K. corporate bond funds, we show that swing pricing eliminates the first-mover advantage arising from the traditional pricing rule and significantly reduces redemptions during stress periods. The positive impact of alternative pricing rules on fund flows reverses in calm periods when costs associated with higher tracking error dominate the pricing effect.

Create a winning portfolio by understanding the realities of modern investing In Enrich Your Future: The Keys to Successful Investing, prolific author and investor Larry Swedroe shines light on the foundation of modern investing, enabling readers to create winning portfolios through simple yet effective strategies. Through a combination of analogies, personal anecdotes, and empirical evidence from peer reviewed journals, the book clearly explains how to play the winner’s game, instead of simply following the crowd, speculating, and making brokers and fund families wealthy in the process. The book begins by first explaining how to put your portfolio on the right path, then how to keep a steady course during market uncertainty, when many investors fall victim to human nature, lose perspective, and make incorrect investment decisions based on fear and greed. In this book, readers will learn: How prices of securities are established and why it's so difficult to outperform on a risk-adjusted basis How to navigate various key decision points when designing your portfolio How to develop a conceptually sound investment strategy and reach your financial goals faster How playing the winner’s game in investing will improve the quality of your life as well. Revealing the true nature of the modern financial market and changing the way readers approach investing in general, Enrich Your Future: The Keys to Successful Investing is an essential guide for individual investors and financial advisors seeking to make more informed and prudent investment decisions.

This book provides the fundamentals of asset management. It takes a practical perspective in describing asset management. Besides the theoretical aspects of investment management, it provides in-depth insights into the actual implementation issues associated with investment strategies. The 19 chapters combine theory and practice based on the experience of the authors in the asset management industry. The book starts off with describing the key activities involved in asset management and the various forms of risk in managing a portfolio. There is then coverage of the different asset classes (common stock, bonds, and alternative assets), collective investment vehicles, financial derivatives, common stock analysis and valuation, bond analytics, equity beta strategies (including smart beta), equity alpha strategies (including quantitative/systematic strategies), bond indexing and active bond portfolio strategies, and multi-asset strategies. The methods of using financial derivatives (equity derivatives, interest rate derivatives, and credit derivatives) in managing the risks of a portfolio are clearly explained and illustrated.

The evidence-based approach to a more worthwhile portfolio The Index Revolution argues that active investing is a loser's game, and that a passive approach is more profitable in today's market. By adjusting your portfolio asset weights to match a performance index, you consistently earn higher rates of returns and come out on top in the long run. This book explains why, and describes how individual investors can take advantage of indexing to make their portfolio stronger and more profitable. By indexing investment operations at a very low cost, and trusting that active professionals have set securities prices as correctly as possible, you will achieve better long-term results than those who look down on passive approaches while following outdated advice that no longer works. "Beating the market" is much harder than it used to be, and investors who continue to approach the market with that mindset populate the rolls of market losers time and time again. This book explains why indexing is the preferred approach in the current investment climate, and destroys the popular perception of passive investing as a weak market strategy. Structure your portfolio to perform better over the long term Trust in the pricing and earn higher rates of return Learn why a passive approach is more consistent and worthwhile Ignore overblown, outdated advice that is doomed to disappoint All great investors share a common secret to success: rational decision-making based on objective information. The Index Revolution shows you a more rational approach to the market for a more profitable portfolio.

The distinction between out-performance of an Investment fund or plan manager vs rewards for taking risks is at the heart of all discussions on Investment fund performance measurement of fund managers. This issue is not always well-understood and the notion of risk adjusting performance is not universally accepted. Performance Measurement in Finance addresses this central issue. The topics covered include evaluation of investment fund management, evaluation of the investment fund itself, and stock selection performance. The book also surveys and critiques existing methodologies of performance measurement and covers new innovative approaches to performance measurement. The contributors to the text include both academics and practitioners providing comprehensive coverage of the topic areas. Performance Measurement in Finance is all about how to effectively measure financial performance of the fund manager and investment house managers, what measures need to be put in place and technically what works and what doesn't. It covers risk, and what's acceptable and what isn't, how, in short, to manage risk. - Includes practical information to enable Investment/Portfolio Managers to understand and evaluate fund managers, the funds themselves, and Investment firms - Provides a full overview of the topic as well as in-depth technical analysis

Institutional investors spend the majority of their time in search of the Holy Grail of investment alpha, or risk-adjusted market outperformance. The problem is far too many organizations and funds fail to first understand whether or not they have what it takes to earn alpha or whether it even makes sense to try. Organizational alpha, on the other hand, is something every institutional investor and nonprofit can achieve, assuming they focus on what they can control and what matters. This book will show institutional investors, board members, trustees, consultants and beneficiaries how the concept of organizational alpha can help them: Recognize the importance of goals-based investing. Think in terms of process over outcomes. Understand the fiduciary duty and what constitutes a breach of that duty. Know the difference between a governing and managing fiduciary. Define their overarching investment philosophy. Make sense of the group dynamic at play when making decisions-by-committee. Ensure more continuity in their investment program. Improve their due diligence and decision-making processes. Choose the right consultant or advisor to help oversee their assets. Find additional sources of alpha. Understand the alternative investment landscape. Appreciate the differences between foundations, endowments and pensions. Document their investment process to cut down on unnecessary mistakes. Make decisions that revolve around the goals and mission of the organization. Set realistic expectations with the understanding that the future is always uncertain. Written by an institutional investor who has spent his entire career working with a wide range of institutional investors from endowments to foundations to pension plans to family offices and other nonprofits, Organizational Alpha is a manual that provides institutional investors with the tools they need to find success in the markets and as organizations.