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: This paper argues that the self-financing axiom with mild assumptions on the conditional expected returns yields a market with an eventual arbitrage. This is accomplished by minimizing the conditional variance of a trade when the conditional expectation is a fixed constant. Examples with common processes shows that most models yield an eventual arbitrage. As a final application, a cost model is applied to prices of stripped coupon and principal payments on U.S. government bonds, where rates of return are estimated and lower bounds on market costs given.

Description: This paper investigates a technique for developing investment assumptions for pricing that are consistent with the investment practices of the company for use in the pricing of single premium immediate annuities. From Transactions of Society of Actuaries 1979, Vol. 31.

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: This paper presents the theory of immunization of investments to changes in interest rates and provides an extensive series of examples and formulas used in its implementation. Also presents some implications for investment behavior, product development, interest assumptions, valuation and adjusted earnings. Discussions of this paper are included.

Description: The article introduces a cashflow matching strategic asset allocation (SAA) framework for life insurers. Given the recent shift to higher interest rates after two decades of persistent low interest rates, insurers have an opportunity to enhance their asset liability management by rebalancing asset portfolios to narrow duration gaps and attain higher risk-adjusted yields. The framework aims to align investment objectives with economic, regulatory, and rating agency requirements. It prioritizes cashflow matching as the primary optimization goal and incorporates security-level asset information to assist portfolio managers in executing SAA seamlessly. The article highlights the benefits of the cashflow matching SAA framework, including greater attention to cashflow matching, unbiased results, readily executable strategies, and stable economic reserves. A case study is included to demonstrate the effectiveness of the framework in improving risk-adjusted return and cashflow matching for a representative liability block.

Description: This paper investigates how the concepts of asset-liability matching can be used to shape investment strategy. From Transactions of Society of Actuaries 1980, Vol. 32.

Description: The paper demonstrates that the most popular rationalization for evolving glide paths is flawed and should be discarded. The paper also demonstrates that glide paths should generally evolve for investors that endeavor to optimize outcomes and reevaluate their portfolios regularly.

Description: 1992 SOA Annual Meeting, Washington, D.C. This session on cash-flow testing for product actuaries covered the following topics: 1. Guidance notes designed to help in writing up reports on cash-flow testing. 2. Investment strategies in product design. 3. Surplus requirements.

Description: With this paper, a new theory of immunization is introduced in which the approach is multivariate, and the goal is stochastic in the sense of minimizing stochastic risk. Discussions of this paper are included.