Foto: Zorka Ostojic Espinoza
. Janus lanza un fondo de retorno absoluto global y asignación dinámica de activos
Janus Capital Group recently announced the launch of the Janus Adaptive Global Allocation Fund that aims to provide investors total returns by dynamically allocating assets across a portfolio of global equity and fixed-income investments.
Ashwin Alankar, Global Head of Asset Allocation and Risk Management, and Enrique Chang, Chief Investment Officer, Equities and Asset Allocation, are the fund’s portfolio managers. Chief Investment Strategist Myron Scholes, Ph.D., co-led the research and development of the fund with Alankar and will contribute to the overall investment strategy.
The Janus Adaptive Global Allocation Fund is designed to adapt allocations actively based on forward-looking views regarding extreme market movements, both positive and negative.
“While most investment approaches look for average outcomes, this adaptive global allocation fund seeks to manage outcomes that have the largest impact on growth, namely left and right tail events,” Alankar said.
The launch of the Janus Adaptive Global Allocation Fund furthers Janus’ Chief Executive Officer Dick Weil’sdiversification strategy, which included the July 2014 hiring of Alankar and Myron Scholes to begin designing asset allocation options for clients.
Foto: Chris Shervey
. AXA IM facilita y acelera el proceso de toma de decisiones de inversión
AXA Investment Managers announced a collaboration with State Street and MKT MediaStats to evaluate data-driven indicators that help analyse economic and market information.
MKT MediaStats is focused on financial market implications of increasingly available ‘big data’ from multiple sources, and is founded and led by well-known academic researchers. It leverages and extends into the commercial realm of considerable academic research done by its partners. The State Street PriceStats inflation series is a daily measure of inflation derived from prices posted to public websites by hundreds of online retailers.
“AXA IM, MKT MediaStats and State Street share a commitment to exploring new data sources that can enhance our ability to make timely and well-informed investment decisions,” said Joseph Pinto, chief operating officer at AXA Investment Managers. “Leveraging these big-data solutions will allow us to advance our client service on multiple fronts. Not only are we increasing the amount of knowledge available to us, but we are also cutting down on the amount of time spent manually sorting through information resources.”
“Investor success in the coming years will continue to largely depend on the ability to rapidly access and synthesise an exponential amount of information. Our goal is to bridge the gap between financial decision making and academic thinking to help investors achieve their return and risk objectives.” said Jessica Donohue, chief innovation officer for State Street Global Exchange.
MKT MediaStats uses unstructured data from many sources, including 25,000 distinct media sources, to derive a wide variety of indications of market behavior, such as sentiment, price movements, risk, and liquidity of individual assets.
The State Street PriceStats inflation indices are generated using software that scans the underlying code on public websites to capture the full array of products sold by online retailers, including food, beverages, electronics, apparel, furniture, household products, prescription drugs, and over-the-counter medicines. The technology monitors price fluctuations on roughly five million items sold by hundreds of online retailers in more than 70 countries.
CC-BY-SA-2.0, FlickrPhoto: US Lipper Awards 2016. Five Columbia Funds Earn Lipper Fund Awards
Five Columbia funds have received 2016 Lipper Fund Awards as top-performing mutual funds in their respective Lipper classifications for the period ending December 31, 2015:
Columbia Select Large-Cap Value Fund (R5 shares): Large-Cap Value Funds classification (290 funds) – 10 years
Columbia Greater China Fund (Z shares): China Region Funds classification (26 funds) – 10 years
Columbia Global Equity Value Fund (I shares): Global Large-Cap Value Funds classification (39 funds) – 3 years
Columbia Contrarian Core Fund (Z shares): Large-Cap Core Funds classification (499 funds) – 10 years
Columbia AMT-Free California Intermediate Muni Bond Fund (Z shares): California Intermediate Municipal Debt Funds classification (30 funds) – 10 years
The U.S. Lipper Fund Awards recognize funds for their consistently strong risk-adjusted three-, five-, and 10- year performance, relative to their peers, based on Lipper’s proprietary performance-based methodology.
“We are pleased to have five funds recognized by Lipper for their consistent, risk adjusted performance,” said Colin Moore, Global Chief Investment Officer. “Our priority is to deliver consistent investment returns for our clients through superior research and capital allocation within and across our strategies and with a deep understanding of their investment needs.”
This is the fifth consecutive year that Columbia Select Large-Cap Value Fund has earned a Lipper Award in the Large-Cap Value category. The fund received the award for 10-year performance in 2015 (90 funds), 10- year performance in 2014 (84 funds), for 5-year and 10-year performance in 2013 (102 funds and 84 funds), and for 5-year performance in 2012 (402 funds).
Despite suffering from the collapse in energy prices, and a -3.7% GDP growth in 2015, Russia’s financial assets have been having a positive performance, but can this go on?
According to Lars Peter Nielsen, Senior Portfolio Manager at Global Evolution and part of the team that In March 2016 visited Russia to evaluate if the recent strong performance of financial assets can continue, “the economic mix is very supportive for fixed income investors. We are increasingly convinced that inflation will come down strongly this year and be close to the 4% target next year which should provide further support for local currency denominated debt. The Russian Ruble should also be well supported as long as the oil price is stable around USD 40 per barrel. If RUB was to appreciate strongly we could see the Central Bank start to rebuild reserves, but they seem to prefer a stronger RUB for now to help combat the inflation.”
Global Evolution believes Russia’s Central Bank “will do whatever it takes” to get 4% inflation. they are also certain that Russia’s GDP will continue in negative territory in 2016, and “Without structural reforms longer term potential growth is at most 2%.” accompanied by a tight fiscal policy.
Photo: eric chan. Los inversores se decantan por el efectivo, mientras continúan los miedos de que las políticas monetarias no funcionen
According to the latest BofA Merrill Lynch Global Research report, conducted from April 1-7, 2016, average cash balances jumped up to 5.4% from 5% in March, approaching the 15 year-high of 5.6% recorded in February While the three top most crowded trades are Shorting Emerging Markets, Long US dollar, and Long Quality Stocks.
“With valuations for bonds and equities at their seventh highest reading in 13 years, investors may be turning to cash to protect against the downside while shunning risk assets where valuations constrain the upside. Range-based trading is likely to continue,” said Michael Hartnett, chief investment strategist at BofA Merrill Lynch.
Regarding the US Monetary Policy, the vast majority of fund managers still expect no more than two Fed hikes in the next 12 months, while “Quantitative Failure” remains one of the biggest tail risks. Meanwhile in Europe, a record percentage of fund managers see EU monetary policy as “too stimulative” while confidence in this policy as an economic growth driver drops sharply to 15% from 24% in March
The survey also noted that investors have rotated into staples and cash, from Japan, discretionary, commodities and Eurozone. Allocation to Japanese equities marked its first underweight positioning since December 2012.
According to Manish Kabra, European equity and quantitative strategist, “Global investors highlight Quantitative Failure as the biggest tail-risk, followed closely by Brexit. However, despite significant convergence in previously extreme regional preferences, Europe remains the most attractive region globally.”
CC-BY-SA-2.0, FlickrPhoto: Moyan Brenn. PineBridge Investments Completes Fundraising for Structured Capital Partners III, L.P.
PineBridge Investments, the global multi-asset class investment manager, has announced the final close for PineBridge Structured Capital Partners III, L.P. (together with parallel partnerships, the “Fund”).
PineBridge completed the fundraising in March with US $600 million of aggregate capital commitments, surpassing its planned target amount of US $500 million. The Fund will invest in junior capital securities including mezzanine debt and structured equity issued by privately-owned middle- market companies across all sectors in North America.
F.T. Chong, Managing Director and Head of PineBridge Structured Capital, stated, “We are committed to being reliable and flexible providers of junior capital to middle market companies. We are pleased with the positive reception for our Fund. Most of the Limited Partners from our prior fund have signed up for this Fund and new investors include major institutions in the US as well as Europe, the Middle-East and Asia.”
Generali Investments Europe appointed Jörg Asmussen as an independent director to the company’s Board of Directors, since April 1st.
Santo Borsellino, Chief Executive Officer of Generali Investments, says: “On behalf of everyone here at Generali Investments, I am delighted to welcome Jörg to our Board of Directors. His outstanding expertise, and the wealth of experience in international financial markets he brings to the Board, will be instrumental in reinforcing our international footprint and further driving our expansion in the European markets”.
Jörg Asmussen (49) has been State Secretary at the German Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs between 2013 and 2015. Prior to that, he had been a Member of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank (ECB) from 2012 to 2013, and State Secretary at the German Federal Ministry of Finance (2008-2011), where he held a succession of positions before.
Asmussen replaces Antonella Baldino, who resigned as independent member of Generali Investments Board of Directors in March.
Daniel Pierce, foto cedida. Daniel Pierce, nuevo socio en accelerando associates
accelerando associates, a European fund distribution consultant, strengthens its capacities with the hire of Daniel Pierce from Wells Fargo in London. Pierce joins as a partner and will work with Philip Kalus in accelerando’s offices in Valencia.
Daniel Pierce has more than 16 years experience in the asset management industry, on both sides of the Atlantic. Pierce joins accelerando from Wells Fargo, where he worked as Investment Management Specialist EMEA. Prior to Wells Fargo, Pierce has held various positions at Citi, including Cross Asset Group Fund Sales EMEA in London, and Smith Barney in Dallas. Pierce has relocated with his wife and his two daughters from London to Valencia. “accelerando associates has built a stellar reputation and has an impressive client book. However, there is still a lot of room to develop the firm and client solutions further, which is an exciting opportunity“ says Pierce. “I trust I can make a meaningful contribution to accelerando’s further development“.
“I am, as all of my colleagues truly excited about Daniel joining us. He brings in a lot of additional experience, thorough technical knowledge and most importantly the right mindset to think beyond and to challenge widespread beliefs and practices in asset management as well as in fund distribution,“ states Philip Kalus, founder and managing partner of accelerando associates. “Our team of five combines now 70 years experience in the asset management industry, with 48 years experience in fund distribution, which provides a major competitive advantage versus our peers,“ continues Kalus. “In addition we have four different nationalities in the team and we speak five European languages fluently, which helps enormously to dive deep into different European fund markets and to get the nuances in fund buyer trends and requirements right.“
accelerando associates, founded in 2004, is a leading European fund distribution consultancy with offices in Frankfurt, London and Valencia and provides European fund distribution research and bespoke strategic advice to asset management firms worldwide.
Foto: Simon Cunningham
. El mercado de financiación alternativa online en Estados Unidos supera los 36.000 millones en 2015
The online alternative finance market, including crowdfunding and peer-to-peer lending, is exploding in the U.S., generating more than $36 billion in funding in 2015, up from $11 billion in 2014, according to a new report published by KPMG, the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance and the Polsky Center at the Chicago Booth School of Business.
“The emergence of new FinTech companies will continue to transform the financial services sector,” said Fiona Grandi, National Leader for FinTech, KPMG. “The pace of disruption is sure to accelerate, forging the need and appetite for collaboration among incumbents and non-bank innovators.”
Breaking New Ground: The Americas Alternative Finance Benchmarking Report analyzed online alternative finance activity across the Americas. Among its key findings is that financial, financial innovations and the technologies that enable them have exploded by 9x in just two years, from a total market size of $4.5 billion in 2013 to $36.5 billion in 2015 – the U.S. makes up 99 percent of that.
When analyzing the various funding models, the report found that marketplace/P2P consumer lending is the largest market segment in the U.S., responsible for more than $25 billion in 2015 and a total of $36 billion from 2013-2015. U.S. Businesses are also increasingly tapping into alternative finance to the tune of $6.8 billion in 2015 alone, which is significant when comparing the total for 2013 and 2014 of $10 billion.
Between 2013 and 2015, U.S. online alternative finance platforms have provided $52 billion in funding to individuals and businesses, according to the report. During that same time, these platforms facilitated roughly $11 billion of capital into 270,000 small and medium sized enterprises. In addition to consumer and business funding, the report also found that real estate models are scaling rapidly, generating nearly $1.3 billion in 2015.
The report points to several game-changing drivers of transformation that are impacting the banking industry, including the following:
Speed:Using algorithmic technology, credit decisions and underwriting takes minutes, not days.
Transparency:Investors and borrowers alike gain visibility into the loan portfolios, including risks and rewards.
Customer-centric:Platforms bring the “brick and mortar” branch into the on-demand and mobile application generation.
Data:Platforms have re-engineered the definition of credit worthiness. FICO may still be a factor, but it’s no longer the only factor.
Grandi added: “These changes are permanent benchmarks that banks must now rise up to meet. You may argue whether today’s unicorns will be here tomorrow; however, the shift towards the digital bank is indisputable.”
Foto: Davide D'Amico
. Londres se mantiene como mayor centro financiero mundial, por delante de Nueva York
Both cities gained four points in the ratings and London remains eight points ahead of New York. The GFCI, published recently by Z/Yen, is on a scale of 1,000 points and a lead of eight is fairly insignificant. The author continues to believe that the two centers are complimentary rather than purely competitive. A number of respondents commented that the uncertainty surrounding the possible exit of the UK from the EU is having a negative impact on London’s competitiveness at present.
London, New York, Singapore and Hong Kong remain the four leading global financial centers. Singapore has overtaken Hong Kong to become the third ranked center by just two points. Tokyo, in fifth place, is 72 points behind London. The top financial centers of the world are all well developed, sophisticated and cosmopolitan cities in their own right. Successful people are attracted to successful cities and it is perhaps no surprise that financial services professionals rank these centers so high.
North American centers fortunes in GFCI 19 are mixed. Of the financial centers in the USA, New York, Washington DC and Los Angeles rose in the ratings. The three leading Canadian centers fell in the ratings after strong rises in the past year. Toronto remains the leading Canadian center with Montreal in second and Vancouver in third.
Western European centers remain mired in uncertainty. The leading centers in Europe are London, Zurich, Geneva, Luxembourg and Frankfurt. Of the 29 centers in this region, 12 centers rose in the ratings and 17 centers fell. Rome, Madrid and Brussels, three centers closely associated with the Eurozone crisis have shown signs of recovery.
Latin America and the Caribbean suffer. All centers in this region, with the single exception of Mexico City fall sharply in GFCI 19. The offshore centers in the Caribbean (in common with the British Crown Dependencies listed under Western Europe) all suffered declines along with the Brazilian centers Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.
Seven of the top ten Asia/Pacific centers see a fall in their ratings. Singapore, Tokyo and Beijing rose slightly in GFCI 19. Of the top ten centers in this region, Seoul and Sydney showed the largest falls.
Centers in the Middle East and Africa also fell in GFCI 19. Having made gains in GFCI 18 all centers in this region, except Casablanca, fell in the ratings. Dubai remains the leading center in the region, followed by Tel Aviv and Abu Dhabi. Casablanca rose 11 places and is now fourth in the region.
