Description: Investment opportunities are driven by events in the economy and how participants in the financial markets react to those events. This keynote address will highlight current economic themes and their impact on investment opportunities.

Description: Recent reports have expressed concern over historically high levels of corporate indebtedness, with an increasing share of investment-grade debt now in the BBB category, just above speculative-grade. This session will explore trends in the corporate debt market, with a focus on the risks and opportunities for portfolios in the current environment.

Description: The article provides a summary of the Drake Risk & Opportunity Forum held on October 21, 2022. The forum was a hybrid conference that attracted more than 200 attendees from 17 states, two countries, 48 employers, and five universities. Following an introduction by the Zimpleman College of Business Dean, the forum held six sessions. First was an insurance company CRO panel followed by a panel of non-insurance company CROs. Gary Zhu shared his outlook for interest rates and capital markets. The fourth panel discussed insurance capital models. The fifth panel discussed environmental, social, and governance (ESG) criteria when building insurance company investment portfolios. The final session of the day was a discussion about the NAIC, how they operate, and their priorities for the coming year.

Description: Investment risk management has become a core competency of insurance companies, and much has been discussed on this topic. This session examines the current investment risk management practices such as product line specific hedging and macro hedging, with a focus on what still remains to be addressed—whether the tradeoff of addition risk management is worthwhile.