Description: This article compares the best estimates of the Investment Section members those who submitted entries for the 3-month Treasury bill rate, 30-year Treasury bond rate and the Dow Jones Industrial Average index value and year-end 1999 with the actuals.

Description: The author provides insights into the reasons for the decline of Japanese government bond yields to record lows as of October 1997. This article originally appeared in the November 1997 issue of International Economic Trends, and is reprinted courtesy of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.

Description: This article discusses world economic and financial trends and how people can be fooled into thinking nothing can go wrong.

Description: This article, with some humor, describes a movement known as “econophysics” of physicists modeling economic systems, including capital markets, using techniques and concepts developed in studying the out-of-equilibrium dynamics of complex systems. A version of this article appeared in The Actuary UK in August 2004. Reprinted with permission.

Description: Feature article discussing the too big to fail principle and whether or not strong competition is ideal in terms of the banking industry.

Description: After a very challenging year, actuaries need to look back and consider the lessons learned. Have we returned to where we were, or have we moved on to a new norm? What does the COVID-19 pandemic market data tell us that will help us to prepare for future global crises?

Description: This article provides a retrospective on investment risk management while highlighting actuarial tools used by portfolio risk managers.

Description: The article makes reference to how the intervention by government agencies and institutions into the financial marketplace are creating distortions. This artificial tampering into market mechanisms will likely result in major financial dislocations down the road as natural economic forces (coined by the term "invisible hand") eventually are allowed to come into play.

Description: “What is the likelihood of market crashes? This article seeks to provide an answer to this and related questions by focusing mainly on the crash of October 1987. Specifically, we shall seek answers to three questions: 1. Given the history of market returns, was the crash of ‘87 unusual? 2. How do conditional variance models such as GARCH behave around periods of extreme moves in the market? 3. What is the impact of the crash on backtesting and performance evaluation?” Editor’s Note: The following article originally appeared in the Winter 1998 issue of The BARRA Newsletter, Horizon, and is reprinted here with permission.

Description: If has been noted that the turnover of many investment funds has been quite high in recent years relative to history and very high in absolute terms. There have been fundamental changes in the marketplace that have caused the high turnover. Investment horizons have been shortened. This article discusses the changes.