The Future of the Global Economy: One Step (ahem, Year) Ahead
Posted: April 6, 2015 Filed under: Economy, ETFs, Finance, Hedge Funds | Tags: alternative investments, economy, ETFs, hedge fund cloning, hedge funds, investments, return replication, smart beta Comments Off on The Future of the Global Economy: One Step (ahem, Year) AheadWho can tell the future?
Most people are not that good at predicting the future of the economy and the stock market, but there are quite a few pretty talented people who are. Most importantly, they are willing to bet their money (and a whole lot of it) on their vision of the future, instead of just yapping about it on television with no real consequences to themselves (think Ben Stein or Jim Cramer). These people are hedge fund managers, especially those who follow directional global economy based strategies.
Hedge funds are run by smart guys. They strive to generate attractive risk-and-return patterns for their investors through a wide variety of investment strategies. Broadly speaking, these strategies could be classified as “search for alpha” (e.g. “equity market neutral”) and “bets on beta” (e.g. “global macro”). Alpha strategies aim at generating returns patterns that are not related to the market or any known economic risk factors. Beta active strategies, on the other hand, generate returns by taking positions driven by underlying economic factors. The best beta active hedge fund managers are pretty good as a group in anticipating which of the economic factors would deliver superior performance in the future. If we could only see these positions, we would’ve been able to peek into the future (as perceived by a group of really smart hedge fund managers)…
Competition in Asset Management: Good Ideas vs. Good Marketing
Posted: March 5, 2015 Filed under: ETFs, Finance, Hedge Funds | Tags: asset management, investments, marketing Comments Off on Competition in Asset Management: Good Ideas vs. Good MarketingYou need money to make money, right? The same 10% return looks and feels very different for a one million dollar investment vs. a one billion dollar investment. Not surprisingly, the competition in the asset management industry for investors’ assets is fierce – there is a lot at stake. How does one convince a potential client to invest in your investment vehicle? Keep in mind that the investment would be made on an implicit promise of future performance, which, by the way, will only materialize after the investment decision is made. Even then, it may require several years of data to truly assess its performance. How do you convince a wary client that the future is bright and that his/her money will be well taken care of? Are you truly sure that the performance of your strategy a few years down the road will meet the needs of the client? Most importantly, how do you differentiate your investment vehicle from others who could be making outlandish claims about their funds’ expected future performance?
Smart Beta ETF Portfolios: Cloning Beta Active Hedge Funds
Posted: December 10, 2014 Filed under: ETFs, Finance, Hedge Funds | Tags: ETFs, hedge fund cloning, hedge funds, investments, return replication, smart beta Comments Off on Smart Beta ETF Portfolios: Cloning Beta Active Hedge FundsCloning hedge fund returns is a tricky business. Some hedge fund strategies, like S.A.C. Capital Advisors’ trading in Elan and Wyeth shares off insider tips, cannot be replicated by any algorithmic cloning procedure. On the other hand, returns for many hedge funds appear to be driven by exposures to latent risk factors not readily discernible to average investors. As John H. Cochrane of the University of Chicago observes:
As I look across the hedge fund universe, 90% of what I see is not “picking assets to exploit information not reflected in prices,” it is “taking exposure to factors that managers understand and can trade better than clients.”
The Battle for the Last Mile, or the Future of Retail Investing
Posted: June 23, 2014 Filed under: ETFs, Finance | Tags: ETFs, future, investment advisors, investments, last mile Comments Off on The Battle for the Last Mile, or the Future of Retail InvestingQuite a few years ago, back in 2008, I had the following conversation with one of my MBA students, Billy Ruck:
Billy: Why aren’t ETFs more popular now? They are great…
Alexey: Yes, ETFs are great! It’s a conspiracy, man!
As outlandish as my response may have seemed, it was absolutely true. Since this interaction, it’s been fascinating to see how both parts, the ETFs and the conspiracy, have been playing out. But, before we break out the tin foil hats, let me expand a bit on my 2008 answer…
Smart Beta as the “Easy” Button
Posted: May 5, 2014 Filed under: ETFs, Finance, Hedge Funds | Tags: alternative investments, ETFs, finance, hedge funds, investments, smart beta Comments Off on Smart Beta as the “Easy” ButtonSmart beta – another hot term these days… It has a nice familiar ring to it, as it sounds like an incremental improvement over the good old CAPM beta! There is something harmless and comforting in the name “smart beta”, especially after the past horrors of exotic derivatives and credit default swaps.
The brilliance of the marketing behind smart beta is akin to the “easy” button at Staples – it makes you think that there is a magic shortcut to solving the challenges of modern investing, almost as simple as pressing the easy button.
Unfortunately, the realities behind the easy button and smart beta investing are not simple at all. Instead of the easy button at Staples there are mind numbing choices of stationery and office products. Similarly, smart beta stands for hundreds, if not thousands, of funds that provide exposure to a multitude of risk factors, either in pure form or bundled with other risk exposures.
The true beauty of smart beta is in its very complexity, as it offers an opportunity for the extremely granular approach of fine-tuning your investment strategies across a multitude of risk dimensions based on your individual objectives. Navigating the smart beta world requires an understanding of all of the options, and it is ultimately your responsibility to pick the exact smart beta products that work specifically for you. And that isn’t easy at all, smart beta or not!
Alternative Investments? There Is No Such Thing!
Posted: April 24, 2014 Filed under: Finance, Hedge Funds | Tags: alternative investments, investment advisors, investments Comments Off on Alternative Investments? There Is No Such Thing!Alternative investments are hot these days… But what are they, exactly? Broadly speaking, “alternative investments” could mean pretty much anything beyond “traditional” investments in stocks, bonds, or cash. These could be futures, options, commodities, currency carry trades, and a multitude of other specific strategies that yield risk-and-return profiles that don’t fall neatly into the framework of the capital asset pricing model (CAPM), and cannot be fully described through their correlations with the S&P 500. I guess, that’s why they are labeled “alternative” investments.
In my mind, the word “alternative” is not that far from “marginal”, and in real life it seems like many people tend to marginalize these investment options. I don’t know why… Perhaps, it is fear of the unknown, as many “alternative” investment strategies may not be easy to comprehend within the modern seven-minute attention span…
On Core and Satellite Approach to Hedge Fund Investing
Posted: April 22, 2014 Filed under: ETFs, Finance, Hedge Funds | Tags: core and satellite, ETFs, finance, hedge funds, investments Comments Off on On Core and Satellite Approach to Hedge Fund InvestingA typical core and satellite portfolio approach involves investing in a “core” passively managed portfolio, and a “satellite” actively managed portfolio. The “core” is typically an index-tracking portfolio whose returns are driven by exposure to specific risk factors. Unfortunately, broad hedge fund index clones, that are currently being sold as “core” risk exposures are not exactly that. As I argued in my previous post, these clones attempt to replicate a mix of “cloneable” and “non-cloneable” funds, i.e. they are in fact “core” and “satellite” portfolios rolled into one product, with no transparency on the exact mix.
Why Clone the Uncloneable? (In Defense of Talented Hedge Fund Managers)
Posted: April 6, 2014 Filed under: Economy, Finance, Hedge Funds | Tags: hedge funds, investments, talent Comments Off on Why Clone the Uncloneable? (In Defense of Talented Hedge Fund Managers)Cloning hedge fund indexes with liquid portfolios is hot these days. Major players, including Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Barclays, Societe Generale, and BNP Paribas, now offer hedge fund index clones. But guess what? These clones underperform the hedge fund indexes they were designed to replicate! The clone sponsors readily admit that, pointing to many technical reasons as to why that is the case (and a recent study by Ben Dor, Jagannathan, Meier, and Xu does a great job in explaining these). However, the most fundamental question is not usually mentioned at all – I mean, why is cloning expected to work in the first place?
Hedge Funds and ETFs
Posted: March 25, 2014 Filed under: Economy, ETFs, Finance, Hedge Funds | Tags: ETFs, hedge funds, investments Comments Off on Hedge Funds and ETFsHedge funds charge hefty fees. Because they are that good (or so they claim)! They seem to provide good returns that have little in common with the overall stock market return (S&P 500), or U.S. bond market returns. But what is the source of their returns? Is it a stream of new and ever ingenious investment ideas generated by the hard work of a hedge fund manager, or could it be some “secret formula”, discovered long ago, and run by a computer, while the hedge fund manager is now busy golfing and fishing? An example of such a strategy would be just writing out-of-the-money put options on the S&P 500 index.
I, personally, have nothing against paying high fees for truly new investment ideas, generating high returns. For example, SAC’s 50% performance fee sounds like a fair deal for “sure-thing” returns generated by insider tips (oh, if only that strategy was legal)… On the other hand, I do have a problem paying a 20% performance fee as a “royalty” to a computer running a formula discovered a long time ago. However, if nobody else on the market offers returns based on the same (or similar) formula, then I am stuck with that hedge fund. And that is exactly what the situation was until recently.
Effective Investments
Posted: March 28, 2013 Filed under: Economy, Finance, Politics | Tags: economy, investments, politics Comments Off on Effective InvestmentsThe most effective investments … are investments in politics.
– Boris Berezovsky
Am I seriously quoting the late Russian oligarch about investments in politics? After all, Berezovky brazenly manipulated political outcomes in Russia for personal gain. Am I implying that investors do the same? Not exactly… While it is certainly not possible for a typical investor to manipulate the political landscape on such a grand scale, it is possible to achieve superior returns by taking the time to understand politics in order to anticipate developments that affect all financial markets.
Mental Kaleidoscope 