Description: Review of the address given by Richard H. Thaler, Robert P. Gwinn Professor of Behavioral Science and Economics at the University of Chicago at the Investment Section at the Society of Actuaries meeting in New York on October 20.

Description: This 2001 article warns against the risks of investing in an IPO, particularly in light of recent history.

Description: In this article the author notes that investment strategy development is fundamentally a communications exercise between the investment and actuarial functions. The article explores four questions with respect to investment strategy: 1 how to make money 2 how to avoid earnings fluctuations 3 how to avoid catastrophic loss and 4 how to choose a new investment idea.

Description: This 2001 article discusses the requirement to assess hedge effectiveness in the Financial Accounting Standards Board’s new statement on derivatives accounting, FAS 133, Accounting for Derivative Instruments and Hedging Activities, as critical for qualifying for “special” hedge accounting. The article provides analysis of different approaches and the potential difficulties encountered. This article is reprinted with permission from Derivatives Week.

Description: The Risk Management Task Force polled the Risks & Rewards readers and asked the following questions related to Monte Carlo models: 1 How many scenarios do you run? 2 How did you determine the number? and 3 What confidence interval does your result have? The results are summarized in this article.

Description: This articles offers an approach for accounting for executive stock options.

Description: Why Write Variable Products When You Can Put the Money Directly into the Stock Market?

Description: What Makes the Yield Curve Move?

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.