In The Press…

Jonathan Ford, FT, Monday, June 10, 2019: The collapse of the Equity Income Fund managed by the former stat stockpicker Neil Woodford illustrates again all the dangers of open-ended funds that promise instant liquidity while investing sometimes in hard to sell financial assets. In a fund penalized by large outflows, whatever the underlying reasons, remaining investors have a strong incentive to run since it becomes more and more difficult and costly for the fund manager to provide the expected liquidity. […]

Joe Rennison, FT, Tuesday, January 29, 2019: I always thought that the large-scale securitization of risky debts was among the least understood and most dangerous financial innovations, and thus I read with strong interest this balanced article on the “debt machine”. Joe Rennison explains very well the mechanic involved in the securitization of corporate leveraged loans. On the one hand, it stresses that the risks may have increased in the leveraged loans market, and as a result in the CLOs […]

Robert Smith, FT, Friday, November 23, 2018: Robert Smith describes very well how some reforms designed to protect the banking sector – at the core of the 2008-2009 crisis – may carry the seeds of the next crisis, this time maybe in the fund management industry. To protect the banking sector, some liquidity risks have been transfered to mutal funds which invest in potentially illiquid assets while offering generous redemptions rules. These  potentially illquid assets may be bonds issued by […]

The Economist, May 26, 2018: Interesting article that explains one of the reasons why the risk premia on long term bonds can be negative. If bonds rise when equities fall (a big if), investors may buy bonds as hedging instruments. This article shows that 10-year bonds are better heddging tools than 2-year bonds. In other words, when we compare two hedging instruments, the more volatile, the better! Risks and volatilities are two rather different concepts (see also our discussion of […]

Martin Wolf, FT, Wednesday, March 21, 2018:   Martin Wolf draws some robust conclusions relative to the priorities for macroeconomic research after the recent financial crisis. According to him, it is vital to focus on two tasks: “The first is how to make the body economic more resistant to the consequences of manias and panics. The second is how to restore it to health as quickly as possible. On both counts, we need to think more and do more. These […]

Robert Shrimsley, FT, Friday, March 23, 2018:  Just for fun…