Description: This article provides an analysis of Value at Risk VAR and its advantages and limitations as a tool for assessing and quantifying market risk. The article originally appeared in the August 1997 issue of Financial Engineering News and is reprinted with permission.

Description: The August 2013 issue of Risks & Rewards newsletter—a member benefit for the Investment Section of the Society of Actuaries.

Description: Full version of Risks and Rewards Newsletter, October 2003, Issue No. 43.

Description: At the November meeting of the IASB’s SAC, I raised strong support for the concept of a priority project to accelerate the development of a new conceptual framework for the IASB with emphasis on the role of reliability, the definition of liability, the meaning of probable, the effects of contingencies i.e. contingent probabilities, the unit of account and accounting for contractual rights and obligations. Editor’s note: This is an excerpt from a longer address to the International Accounting Standards Board on guiding principles.

Description: “Global tactical asset allocation GTAA is an invest¬ment approach that seeks to exploit short-term mar¬ket inefficiencies to generate uncorrelated absolute returns by taking positions in various asset classes, regions, styles and currencies. Due to its low correlation with tradi¬tional asset classes, GTAA can diversify an existing portfolio without making material changes to the portfolio’s overall risk characteristics.”

Description: The author describes a theory of long-term interest-rate trends, originally propounded in 1899 by actuary Charlton T. Lewis, and how well the theory stands up in light of 20th century experience.

Description: This paper concludes that there are two index rates that could best replace the 30-year Treasury in the calculation of the Current Liability of a pension plan - either the 30 year swap rate or the benchmark 30-year FNMA bond.

Description: February 2016

Description: The investment risk taken by a pension fund comprises strategic risk and active risk. This paper discusses the relative merits of these two types of risk to the pension fund, possible rationales for the levels of strategic and active risk typically adopted mechanisms for capturing manager skill without taking on equity risk, and issues in setting liability-based benchmarks for investment managers

Description: Read the June 2020 issue of Risks & Rewards published by the Investment Section. Newsletters provide practical information for the working actuary, articles on trends that impact sections and news about section activities.