Description: In this article the author argues that a falling currency is a symptom of a country’s economic problems and discusses Canada’s experience through late 1997, and concludes that the government’s fiscal and monetary policies were not the long term answer to the problem.

Description: The article discusses the investment models of The Mutual Pension Insurance Company Ilmarinen, one of the companies managing the statutory employment pension in Finland. The parts are: financial time series data management, time series analysis programs, investment simulation models and portfolio optimization models.

Description: The Long and Short (Runs) of Investing in Equities by Peter Yoo from Risks and Rewards Newsletter, March 1999, Issue No. 32.

Description: While the major market crash subsequent to the widespread contagion of the COVID-19 virus was readily predictable, the rapid recovery and ongoing growth subsequent to it was not. Market dynamics around the recovery resist characterization by most traditional analytical approaches. In examining the circumstances around the emergence of a large retail class of investors, one sees that ingrained human tendencies, particularly optimism bias, have fueled much investor behavior responsible for the recovery. Understanding this makes it possible to predict potential future crashes and develop behavioral interventions for subsequent market recoveries.

Description: Feature article describing a framework for the computation of credit capital requirements under the constant position paradigm, taking into account recovery rates.

Description: This article discusses the affects of the Pension Protection Act of 2006 PPA primarily in relation to defined benefits pension DB plans.

Description: Recent passage of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act increased the access that insurers have to low-cost loans advances offered by the individual banks of the Federal Home Loan Bank FHLB system. This article describes the general features of how advance programs work, their potential benefits to insurers and key issues to consider.

Description: “What is the likelihood of market crashes? This article seeks to provide an answer to this and related questions by focusing mainly on the crash of October 1987. Specifically, we shall seek answers to three questions: 1. Given the history of market returns, was the crash of ‘87 unusual? 2. How do conditional variance models such as GARCH behave around periods of extreme moves in the market? 3. What is the impact of the crash on backtesting and performance evaluation?” Editor’s Note: The following article originally appeared in the Winter 1998 issue of The BARRA Newsletter, Horizon, and is reprinted here with permission.

Description: This article discusses market declines and the impact that white collar crime or gross dishonesty in financial reporting can have on market declines.

Description: This article explores the possibility of using innovations from the financial markets to reduce some portion of the LTC risk and thus encourage the growth of the product.