Healthy skepticism
Selecting environmental, social, and governance (ESG) funds is a way that ordinary citizens can invest in an ethical way. But what does the increased interest in ESG investing shown by institutional and private wealth clients really mean? Is it paying off? Are we at a watershed moment for structural change in the way investors allocate resources? The move to consider ESG investing came some years ago with scandals such as Enron, and continues with more scandals such as Volkswagen’s Dieselgate and Facebook’s meddlings, said Pedro Matos, a professor of finance at University of Virginia and the author of the CFA […]
A Low Volatility Equity Strategy
Despite conventional wisdom, “the returns on more volatile equities have not exceeded the historical returns on less volatile equities,” said Grant Wang, Senior Vice-President and Head of Research at Highstreet Asset Management in London, Canada. He was the first of two speakers at the GARP Toronto Chapter meeting held at First Canadian Place at King & Bay, Toronto on the evening of January 30, 2014. Wang began with a brief survey of the increased volatility in equity markets over the past several years: the 2001 tech bubble, the 2008 housing crash, and the 2011 European debt crisis. “VIX has posed […]