Description: This session will serve as a guide on how to implement a factor-based optimization in the Strategic Asset Allocation process. The session will review a factor-based investing approach and cover the top-down macroeconomic drivers of risk and return for various asset classes. We will then illustrate implementation of this investing approach and determination of an optimal Strategic Asset Allocation through a pension fund case study. There will be an interactive element to the session as the factor sensitivities of various portfolios can be examined in real-time.

Description: Investment Fallacies: Simulation of Long-Term Stock Returns: Fat-Tails and Mean Reversion

Description: The paper will focus on two broad areas, integration of insurance products with investment products to mitigate the risk of outliving one’s assets in post-retirement financial planning. Modeling and pricing for the longevity risk in the secondary market in insurance.

Description: This article illustrates how today’s retirement system tools have potential to achieve financially secure retirement and lists options for system improvement.

Description: The Investment Section is hosting a member’s only contest on asset allocation. The results will be reported each week.

Description: Discussion of FinTech including PIMCO research on 401(k) use of managed accounts and observations about cybersecurity, genetic data, and retirement spend down.

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: Suspension of 30-year Treasury auctions will have minimal impact on bond market structure in the near term, but over the mid- to long-term, consequences could be profound. This article discusses that impact the suspension of the 30-year treasury will have.

Description: The Case Against Stock in Corporate Pension Funds

Description: Actuarial Assumptions for Pension Plans Invite Arbitrage The Case of Pension Obligation Bonds by Jeremy Gold from Risks and Rewards Newsletter, September 2000, Issue No. 35.