Description: This is the Introductory Study Note for the Society of Actuaries Advanced Portfolio Management examination for Spring 2012 that will be given on Friday, April 27th, from 8:30 a.m. - 11:45 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. – 4:45 p.m.

Description: This teaching session presented at the April 1976 meeting in Washington D.C. provides a brief outline and a bibliography related to Portfolio Theory and Investment Policy.

Description: Read the August 2017 issue of Risks & Rewards published by the Investment Section.

Description: Introduces terms and concepts of Takaful (Islamic) insurance and describes the processes, goals and constraints that apply to the investments of such insurers.

Description: A research report providing a primer on the mechanics and uses of the Hidden Markov Model for actuarial and financial applications.

Description: This paper uses the property-liability insurance companies as a research sample to investigate the relation between the enhancement of cost efficiency and the usage of reinsurance and financial derivatives as risk management tools. The stochastic frontier approach is applied to consider not only the mean of cost efficiency, but also its variance. The sample includes both organizational forms, namely, stock and mutual insurers.

Description: The models that seek to determine fair value for stocks use corporate earnings and a capitalization rate such as a price/earning ratio to arrive at fair value. Nearly all such models use interest rates to set the capitalization rate. Current interest rates are assumed to be fair, as if there were no emotions in the bond market. Interest rates themselves are never viewed as too high or too low. For the past 10 years [1984-1993] stocks have been viewed as too high, in relation to interest rates. In reality, interest rates have been too high.

Description: U.S. bond markets have undergone dramatic changes due to the 2008 Global Financial Crisis (GFC) and the COVID-19 pandemic. In taking a retrospective view, we can see that bond markets, viewed through the lens of major bond indices, have been evolving for quite some time. Within this paper, TD Asset Management Inc. (TDAM) will explore underlying changes that have occurred within the U.S. Corporate Bond Index, a sub-component of the larger U.S. investment grade bond market, over the past decade. We will highlight key structural changes that have occurred within bond markets and why they are noteworthy

Description: Institutional investors such as pension plans and insurance companies have enjoyed strong equity returns for a length of time with few historical precedents. Nearly a decade after the end of the financial crisis, strategies to provide downside protection remain expensive and the performance of traditional risk-managed funds has disappointed investors.

Description: In this session, senior pension and insurance investment professionals will share their thoughts on current investment topics. Attendees will hear about leading edge investment ideas and practices from industry leaders.