Volume 1, No. 4, Fourth Quarter 2003
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Practitioner's Digest
Practitioner’s Digest • Vol. 1, No. 4
The “Practitioners Digest” emphasizes the practical significance of manuscripts featured in the “Insights” and “Articles” sections of the journal. Readers who are interested in extracting the practical value of an article, or who are simply looking for a summary, may look to this section.
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Article
Resampled Frontiers vs Diffuse Bayes: An Experiment
The experiment reported here compares two methods for handling uncertain inputs to a mean-variance analysis. Specifically, it compares Michaud's resampled frontier versus Bayesian inference with diffuse prior. A simulated "referee" generates ten "truths" about 8 asset classes. For each truth it randomly generates one hundred histories. A simulated "Bayes Player" and "Michaud Player" process each history according to their respective methodologies, seeking portfolios to maximize given expected utility functions. Players are scored according to the actual utility achieved and their own estimates of this utility. The authors were surprised to find that, on average, the Michaud player won.
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Article
Long-Run Investment Management Fee Incentives and Discriminating Between Talented and Untalented Managers
Ferguson and Leistikow [(1997). Journal of Financial Engineering 6, 1-13] (FLa) was the first long-run risk-neutral analysis of the performance volatility incentives created by investment management fee structures. This paper extends FLa in six ways. It allows the portfolio's value to change, incorporates expected investment performance, and addresses expenses and distributions. It also shows the impact of paying investment management performance fees from the portfolio, and determines if the contract renewal structure and fee arrangements discriminate effectively among talented and untalented managers. Finally, it introduces a volatility-dependent contract renewal structure that provides good discrimination and strongly motivates manager behavior consistent with client preferences.
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Article
Indexation of Momentum Effects
Momentum is now viewed as another factor of equity returns in addition to such factors as beta, market capitalization, and market-to-book ratio. In this paper, I propose indexation of momentum effects to pave the way for development of the momentum-based investment products and for improved performance evaluation of the actively-managed funds. In this paper, I describe a family of the Momentum Index to be created, explain how to construct the Momentum Indexes, and demonstrate historical performance of the Momentum Indexes. Finally, I discuss implications and applications of the Momentum Indexes to practical investment management.
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Case Study
Default-Shawnee Manufacturing
“Case Studies” presents a case pertinent to contemporary issues and events in investment management. Insightful and provocative questions are posed at the end of each case to challenge the reader. Each case is an invitation to the critical thinking and pragmatic problem solving that are so fundamental to the practice of investment management.
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Survey & Crossover
Liquidity and Bond Markets
“Surveys& Crossovers” This section provides surveys of the literature in investment management or short papers exemplifying advances in finance that arise from the confluence with other fields. This section acknowledges current trends in technology, and the cross-disciplinary nature of the investment management business, while directing the reader to interesting and important recent work.
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Book Review
Worry-Free Investing: A Safe Approach to Achieving Your Lifetime Financial Goals
Modern Investment Management: An Equilibrium Approach
“Book Reviews” identifies important, and often popular, new books from a wide range of investment topics. Beyond providing a summary and review of the content and style of the books, “Book Reviews” seeks to contribute to a conscious, critical, and informed approach to investment literature.
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Article
Price Discovery For Cross-Listed Stocks
We investigate price discovery for internationally traded stocks. For a sample of Canadian stocks cross-listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSE) and the NYSE, we find that both markets contribute to price discovery. The US share of price discovery ranges from 0.4% to 98.1%, and averages 36%. The US contribution is directly related to the US share of trading and to the ratio of proportions of informative trades on the NYSE and the TSE, and inversely related to the ratio of bid–ask spreads on the NYSE and the TSE. In response to a positive shock to the C$/US$ exchange rate, stock prices on the TSE rise, whereas those on the NYSE decline. The NYSE bears a much greater burden of adjusting to the exchange rate changes.
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Insight
The Trouble With Corporate Disclosure
“Insights” features the thoughts and views of the top authorities from academia and the profession. This section offers unique perspectives from the leading minds in investment management.