Wednesday, March 30, 2022

Forbes: Ukraine War Sends Inflation Soaring Across Europe

By SIMON CONSTABLE

The war exacerbates already problematic supply chain disruptions. Read more here.

Photo by Tabrez Syed on Unsplash


Forbes: Gold Prices Drop As Investors See Hope For Peace In Ukraine

 By SIMON CONSTABLE

But alone hope for peace in Ukraine would be an unwise investment strategy. Read more here.

Photo by Scottsdale Mint on Unsplash

Tuesday, March 29, 2022

Forbes: White House Plans To Target Stock Buybacks Will Send Executive Pay Even Higher

By SIMON CONSTABLE

The same plans could also hurt individual investors in the pocketbook. Read more here.

The White House
Photo by Suzy Brooks on Unsplash


Forbes: Oil Market Shows Optimistic Outlook For Energy Crisis

 By SIMON CONSTABLE

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sent energy markets into a tizzy late last month. Most people felt the pinch at pump as gasoline prices soared.

But it looks like the wallet-emptying energy price surge could be over sooner than many think. At least that’s what the futures markets and some basic economics seem to suggest. Read more here.

Destroyed Russian tank in Mariupol
Mvs.gov.uaCC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Forbes: 3 Reasons Investors Should Worry That The Ukraine War Is Far From Over

By SIMON CONSTABLE

"Things seem to be heading in the right direction, but a lot of scenarios including some bad ones, remain plausible," a new report states. Read more here.

Destroyed Russian Tank Mariupol
Mvs.gov.uaCC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Monday, March 14, 2022

Financial Analysts Journal: Targeting Retirement Security with a Dynamic Asset Allocation Strategy

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Rule-based dynamic changes to asset allocation to attain desired income levels improve performance relative to traditional static asset allocation models or age-based target-date funds. Read more here.

CFA, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons




Financial Analysts Journal: Levered and Inverse Exchange-Traded Products -- Blessing or Curse?

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Inverse and levered ETPs are neither effective hedging tools nor useful as buy-and-hold investments. They are effective only when used for short-term bets on the direction of an asset. They are ill understood and inherently unstable. Read more here.

Crowds Gathering Outside NYSE 
Associated Press, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons


Financial Analysts Journal: Risk Management and Optimal Combination of Equity Market Factors

 By SIMON CONSTABLE

Combining factors in a multi-factor portfolio using forecast risk management can add substantially to investment returns. Backtesting showed such a strategy run over 54 years would have made annualized returns of 10.79%, vs. 7.77% for a similar non-risk-managed portfolio. Read more here.

NYSE
JohnWBarber, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons


Financial Analysts Journal: Retirement Income Sufficiency through Personalised Glidepaths

 By SIMON CONSTABLE

Retiree income can be maximised by shifting focus from targeting wealth at retirement to income sufficiency through retirement with the use of personalised glidepaths instead of approaches that use demographic averages. Read more here.

Balon Greyjoy, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons


Financial Analysts Journal: Enhanced Portfolio Optimization

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Managers can improve the performance of the mean–variance approach by using enhanced portfolio optimization (EPO). EPO accounts for the noise in investors’ estimates of risk–return and, as a result, increases risk-adjusted performance. Read more here.

CFA Institute, Copyrighted free use, 
via Wikimedia Commons




Financial Analysts Journal: Factor Exposure Variation and Mutual Fund Performance

 By SIMON CONSTABLE

Mutual fund managers who frequently change exposure to investment factors (market, size, book-to-market, and momentum) perform significantly worse than those who make fewer changes. Read more here.

Katrina.TuliaoCC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons



Financial Analysts Journal: Boosting the Equity Momentum Factor in Credit

 By SIMON CONSTABLE

Investors can double alpha in the credit markets by using simple equity momentum strategies enhanced by applying machine learning with boosted regression trees. Read more here.

forextime.comCC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons


Financial Analysts Journal: Should Mutual Fund Investors Time Volatility?

 By SIMON CONSTABLE

Investors in actively managed US equity mutual funds should decrease/increase their investment as fund volatility decreases/increases. This strategy significantly improves investment performance compared with a buy-and-hold approach. Read more here.

via Wikimedia Commons

Financial Analysts Journal: Chinese and Global ADRs -- The US Investor Experience

By SIMON CONSTABLE 

American Depositary Receipts (ADRs) have outperformed US stocks, with ADRs of Chinese companies doing particularly well. Read more here.

Artico2CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Financial Analysts Journal: Decarbonizing Everything

 By SIMON CONSTABLE

Different climate risk metrics lead to portfolios with different carbon and risk–return profiles. Analyzing the merits and applicability of various climate data can help investors manage climate risk and improve risk-adjusted returns. Read more here.

 via Wikimedia Commons



Financial Analysts Journal: Active Trading in ETFs -- The Role of High-Frequency Algorithmic Trading

 By SIMON CONSTABLE

High-frequency algorithmic trading adds to ETF market stability by reducing the discrepancy between fund prices and net asset values (NAVs). Read more here.

MigpcCC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons



Saturday, March 12, 2022

"Featured in EMEA Tribune" On Ukraine

By SIMON CONSTABLE

 Sanctions will only increase Putin’s control over his people

“The issue is that sanctions often prompt a country’s population to rally around the flag. … Put another way, a siege mentality takes over with people banding together to weather the economic storm.” — Simon Constable,

Read more here.

 

Volodymyr Zelensky, President of Ukraine
via Wikimedia Commons


Friday, March 11, 2022

Time Magazine: Putin’s War in Ukraine Will Make Your Next Car Even More Expensive

By SMON CONSTABLE

Many Americans got a case of sticker shock when they went to buy a new car last year. That might have been bad enough on its own, but Russia’s invasion of Ukraine means there’s more of the same to come, experts say.


“New vehicle prices will be pushed up even higher and there doesn’t appear to be any relief in sight,” says Garrett Nelson, North American Auto industry analyst at CFRA. “All the momentum is to the upside.” Read more here.


Photo by Vitor Paladini on Unsplash

Monday, March 7, 2022

Time Magazine: How Sanctions on Russia Will Hurt—and Help—the World's Economies

 By SIMON CONSTABLE

Barring a near-miracle, sooner or later, sanctions will cripple Russia's economy. To most economists, that seems like an open and shut case.

What's more nuanced, however, is how those same bans on trading with Russia will send ripples through the rest of the global economy. While forecasting anything is complicated, it's trickier still when there's a war. Still, experts say the effect across the world will be uneven—creating some surprising winners and losers. Read more here.

Photo by Kevin Schmid on Unsplash


WSJ Financial Flashback -- March 2002

 By SIMON CONSTABLE

Available exclusively in the print edition


Sunday, March 6, 2022

WSJ: What to Know About Commodities

 By SIMON CONSTABLE

After years in the investing wilderness, commodities are hot again. And it looks as if the rally may continue for at least the foreseeable future, some analysts say. And the surge is now attracting investors of all types—from veterans to neophytes. The latter would do well to understand some of the basics in how commodity investing works. Read more here.

Photo by Rodrigo Flores on Unsplash


Tuesday, March 1, 2022

Time Magazine: Why Markets Bounced Back So Quickly After the Russian Invasion of Ukraine

 By SIMON CONSTABLE

Just a few days turned the tide of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine—for the world and for Wall Street, but in completely different ways. Read more here.

Russian Tank
Hargi23CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons