Question A Pension portfolio is a common asset pool meant to generate stable growth over the long run, pension funds are provide for employees when they reach to an end of their working years and retirement. (Investspodia US, pension fund 2014) Base on the case study, TMP is currently investing only in the U.S security market which is also investing domestically. Due to an increasing demand from its institutional clients for information and assistance related to international investments, the firm has decided to invest on the international market. The reason on adding international securities to the portfolio mainly it has a few advantages and disadvantages. The advantages on investing on international securities are diversification. By investing on the different international and domestic company across the world, there is a greater chance to lower the overall risk of a portfolio. For example, if the U.S market starts to suffer from recession, the investors have a chance to leverage growth in a foreign market. Genuinely, this can offer investors multiple layers of diversification, including geographical, currency, and sector, thus reducing the chances that the performance of a single stock or instability in a single country can negatively impact the performance of the entire portfolio. Security returns are much less correlated across countries than within a country. The main reason is because political, economic, institutional or etc factors that are affecting security returns tend to vary great deal across different countries, resulting in relatively low correlations among international securities. For instance, political issues in Singapore may affect or influence the stock price in Malaysia, but it has little or close to no i... ... middle of paper ... ...is the reason is why investors are using this strategy when there are uncertainties on what the market will do. There are also other types of financial instruments fund managers can use in order to reduce risks the fund is facing, such as stocks, swaps, options and etc. For the current case where the committee now wanted to invest internationally, fund manager or committee had to possess the knowledge on hedging against exchange rate risk with currency ETFs. There’s is no deny that investing internationally such as on stocks and bonds which will generate large amount of returns and also provide a greater degree of portfolio diversification, but there is also risk from the exchange rate. By engaging in exchange-traded funds (ETFs), the fund can enjoy benefits which will make the fund more liquid and versatile so that the fund enjoys more benefits with lesser risks.
Can We Keep Our Promises? The purpose of this paper is to provide a summary of the article called “Can We Keep Our Promises?” by Robert D. Arnott, and to help better understand the three key risks facing each investor. Robert Arnott describes risk and return as “having two sides of the same coin” meaning risk is inseparable from return. Arnott points out the most important risks that are faced by managers of company pension plans: underperforming other corporate pension funds (their peers), losing money (mostly associated with portfolio standard deviation or volatility), and underperforming the values of pension obligations and therefore losing actuarial ground.
The fact that majority of the capital funds was in the form of portfolio capital instead of foreign direct investment (FDI) had also worsen the situation. The ratio of portfolio capital to FDI had increased substantially from 1:1.3 in 1990 to 1:6.5 in 1993. Given the volatile nature, portfolio capital tends to respond with greater speed to changes in the environment.
Social Security is on the verge of taking care of the baby boomers generation. This means that it will be paying more benefits than taxes it receives. In lay-man’s terms it means it will be spending more money than it is making. I think that you should pay into your own private retirement account for you to reap the benefits in the future. Not for you to pay into a cluster of workers money for current elders to benefit from. You need to take care of your own future and not rely on other people’s responsibility. “…people began to think retirement funding as a right…and so…started saving less” (Klay & Steen). That being said, people of a certain age should be “grandfathered” into this meaning, people of the age of say 40, still get the normal social security retirement money but anyone younger must start abiding this new reform. If you get married, keep paying into your own unless your spouse is not working. If that is the case then pay the same amount BUT put half into your own and half into your spouses. If the other spouse is working however, they should pay into their own account and you into your own.
This assignment aims to employ a dynamic CPPI strategy and discuss its effectiveness in managing an Index Portfolio. After defining strategic criteria, we construct an optimal portfolio based on the Mean-Variance theory. We then manage it for the defined one-year period and apply classical (e.g. Sharpe Ratio, Treynor Ratio) as well as CPPI-specific (e.g. Omega Ratio, T2, M2) performance measures to create a consolidated portfolio view. Finally, using data form the Wharton Database we employ a multifactor analysis and discuss the performance of the managed Index Portfolio and its risk characteristics.
motivation to work hard and to not quit the job and move on to the
Over the previous five years, the return of the ProIndex fund have outperformed the S&P 500 index, as the 5-year-return is nearly 3 times than the benchmark and the annualised return is nearly 2 times than the benchmark. It means ProIndex fund has a significant increase in value within that period. However, the ProIndex Fund has a higher standard deviation which means it is more risk than the S&P 500 index. Especially for the annualised standard deviation, it is approximately 10% higher than the benchmark. The correlation coefficient between the ProIndex and benchmark is about 0.65 which means both two variables are positive changing consistently, but there are still some other factors which have impacts on the relationship between two variables as the correlation is less than 1. Furthermore, the higher beta, 1.0132, which is more than 1 and it may be one of the reasons for high risk as well since it is more sensitive to the market change. It means that the ProIndex fund would increase by 1.0132% if the market increased by 1%.
International investing is something that many investors find that they can benefit from for many reasons. Two of the main reasons why investors choose to invest in foreign markets are growth and diversification. Growth allows investors the potential to take advantage of new opportunities in foreign emerging markets. International markets can potentially offer opportunities that might not be available in the United States. Diversification allows investors to spread out their risk to different markets and foreign companies other than those just in the United States allowing them to potentially create larger returns on their investment as well as reducing risks. (U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, 2012) While investing internationally can be a very lucrative and rewarding decision, there are also extra risks involved with investing internationally. One of the main risks that international investors encounter is foreign exchange risk also known as currency risk. Currency risk is a financial risk that is created by contact with unforeseen changes in the exchange rate between two currencies. These changes can cause unpredictable gains or losses when profits from investments are converted from a foreign currency to the United Stated dollar. There are precautions that can be taken by investors to potentially lower their risk of currency value fluctuations and other risk factors that are present in international investing. (Gibley, 2012)
The expanding global market has created both staggering wealth for some and the promise of it for others. Business is more competitive than ever before, and every business, financial or product-based, regardless of size or international presence is obligated to operate as efficiently as possible. A major factor in that efficient operation is to take advantage of every opportunity to maximize profits. Many multinational organizations have used derivatives for years in financial risk management activities. These same actions that can protect multinational organizations against interest rate futures and currency fluctuations can be used to create profits for those same organizations.
This assignment is concerned with your understanding of the key issues relative to portfolio analysis and investment. In completing this assignment you are to limit your scope to the US stock markets only. Use the Cybrary, the Internet, and course resources to write a 2-page essay which you will use with new clients of your financial planning business which addresses the following issues and/or practices:
Other types of exchange rate risks are translation risk and so-called hidden risk. The translation risk relates to cases where large multinational companies have subsidiaries in other countries. On the financial statement of the whole group, the company may have to translate the assets and liabilities from foreign accounts into the group statement. The translation will involve foreign exchange exposure. The term hidden risk evolves around the fact that all companies are subject to exchange rate risks, even if they don’t do business with companies using other currencies. A company that is buying supplies from a local manufacturer might be affected of fluctuating foreign exchange rates if the local manufacturer is doing business with overseas companies. If a manufacturer goes out of business, or experience heavy losses, it will affect all the companies it does business with. The co...
According to Investopedia (Asset Allocation Definition, 2013), asset allocation is an investment strategy that aims to balance risk and reward by distributing a portfolio’s assets according to an individual’s goals, risk tolerance and investment horizon. There are three main asset classes: equities, fixed-income, cash and cash equivalents; but they all have different levels of risk and return. A prudent investor should be careful in allocating each asset class to his portfolio. Proper asset allocation is a highly debatable subject and is not designed equally for everybody, but is rather based on the desires and needs of the individual investor. This paper discusses the importance of asset allocation, the differences and the proper diversification within the portfolio.
Retirement is one of the most important crossroads we face in life. It involves a fundamental change in lifestyle, one that calls for a totally new outlook on how we approach each day. All our lives we have been conditioned to think in terms of saving for our retirement years. Society has created this mystique about this time in our lives when we magically transform into different people with different lives when really we are the same people with different day to day lives. According to Medina, (2012) planning for retirement isn’t a "walk in the park" because for many people, debts are high while income is low.
Retirement comes early for most people. Early meaning that we are not ready for what comes with it. Most people would love to retire today, but unfortunately it is nearly impossible. It takes a lifetime for a person to become financial stable and adequately equip with assets that have been gained throughout someone’s life. Everyone must start young, in fact the sooner the better. Any money, or savings that can be applied today will always come with an enhanced future. So is it worth it to work harder and save now in order to possibly access a pleasant retirement? With out effort now we will be dependent on other sources in our retirement years, sources that may not come through for everyone who needs it. There are three ways to help Americans be better prepared now. These methods include saving money now, and investing in sources with returns. Do not become one of the millions of Americans who fall into government assisted retirement plans by lack of preparation and planning.
The foreign exchange market is one of important mechanism in the international business because foreign exchange is an intermediary for all nations in term of the growth of the economy. There are many functions of foreign exchange market in the global economy. In the international business, it uses the foreign exchange markets in four ways. First, the pay...
The Modern portfolio theory {MPT}, "proposes how rational investors will use diversification to optimize their portfolios, and how an asset should be priced given its risk relative to the market as a whole. The basic concepts of the theory are the efficient frontier, Capital Asset Pricing Model and beta coefficient, the Capital Market Line and the Securities Market Line. MPT models the return of an asset as a random variable and a portfolio as a weighted combination of assets; the return of a portfolio is thus also a random variable and consequently has an expected value and a variance.