3 August 2018

An Evolving Asset Class: The Future of Cryptocurrencies

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An Evolving Asset Class: The Future of Cryptocurrencies
Bitcoin and the broader universe of cryptocurrencies, initial coin offerings (ICOs), and other crypto assets have dealt with some enduring problems. But the endurance of those problems has demonstrated the endurance of those investments.

“This has been going on for about nine years going into 10,” said Sandra Ro, founder and managing director of Vector Crypto Capital. “Bitcoin’s died 900 times.”

Yet it continues to make headlines.

Ro has spent years building expertise at the intersection of cryptocurrencies and large-scale financial institutions. She serves on the Global Blockchain Business Council and was a founding board director of the Enterprise Etherium Alliance. At the 71st CFA Institute Annual Conference in Hong Kong, she shared her insights with an audience of global financial professionals. Read More

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28 June 2018

INSEAD Professor: US to Lose Its Place as Top Spot for Venture Capital Next Year

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China will surpass the US in terms of venture capital investments by 2019, says Claudia Zeisberger, Senior Affiliate Professor of Decision Sciences and Entrepreneurship and Family Enterprise at INSEAD. In the last four years, venture capital activity in China has exploded, and according to her, it will soon eclipse traditional hubs such as the Silicon Valley.

At the 71st CFA Institute Annual Conference in Hong Kong, Zeisberger explained how her base projection expects compound annual growth rates of 28% in China and 6% in the US; both forecasts are extrapolated from the growth rates she has observed in the last three years. Read More

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15 June 2018

4 Ways Millennials Can Avoid Following Their Passion

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Lauren Friese, director of Workforce Innovation at RBC, suggests that many millennials need to rethink their career management strategies to achieve professional success.

Friese rejects the “follow your passion” advice that was popularized in the 90’s. Instead, she says that young professionals should focus on the moments when they believe they have been at their best. By reflecting on their strengths, and examples of positive behaviors that they have exhibited, they can frame their careers around their peak performance. Friese describes it as “following your flow.” Read More

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14 June 2018

Food for Thought: An Insight into Japan’s Outlook

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At the 71st CFA Institute Annual Conference in Hong Kong, Kathy Matsui, Chief Japan Strategist at Goldman Sachs, presented an in-depth look at the current state and future prospects of the world’s third-largest economy. Read More

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11 June 2018

The Future of Global Investing

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In the financial marketplace, the biggest players determine long-term trends. Pension funds, followed by insurance companies and sovereign wealth funds, represent more than 70% of the US$ 85 trillion in assets under management globally; their views on issues and opinions on what’s working are important.

At the 71st CFA Institute Annual Conference, three of these large asset owners held an engaging discussion on the future of global investing. Christopher J. Ailman, CIO at CalSTRS; Hiro Mizuno, executive managing director and CIO at Japan’s Government Pension Investment Fund (GPIF); and Alison Tarditi, CIO at Commonwealth Superannuation Corporation spoke at length and shared their perspectives. Read More

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7 June 2018

Daniel Kahneman on Expertise, Bias, and the Investment Industry

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Daniel Kahneman: Intuition, Noise, Regrets, and the Optimism Paradox

Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman has transformed the fields of economics and investing. At their most basic, his revelations demonstrate that human beings and the decisions they make are much more complicated — and much more fascinating — than previously thought.

He delivered a captivating mini seminar on some of the key ideas that have driven his scholarship, exploring intuition, expertise, bias, noise, and how optimism and overconfidence simultaneously drive and undermine the capitalist system, at the 71st CFA Institute Annual Conference in Hong Kong. Read More

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31 May 2018

9 Ways to Survive Disruption in the Workplace

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Will Smart Beta Be the Next Industry Disruption?Your line of work will get disrupted. This is a baseline assumption for everyone, but the state of today’s business environment may set millennials apart from previous generations of young professionals settling into their careers.

On the bright side, this fact encourages young professionals to proactively develop career skills and strategies that older generations needed to discover experientially through their careers.

Lauren Friese, director of Workforce Innovation at RBC, is an expert on practices and mindsets that can help professionals, especially younger ones, build successful careers in a rapidly changing world of work. Read More

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30 May 2018

Adapting to a New Reality: Investment Firms of the Future

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Adapting to a New Reality: Investment Firms of the Future

Shifting cultural norms and quantum leaps in technology are accelerating change in the investment management industry. Firms that choose not to adapt by taking a client-first approach are “picking up pennies in front of a steamroller,” says Richard Brandweiner, CFA.

Brandweiner, CEO of Pendal Group, Australia, and former CIO of First State Super, one of Australia’s largest superannuation funds, was on hand at the 71st CFA Institute Annual Conference to discuss many of the findings of the just-released “Investment Firm of the Future” report with Virginie Maisonneuve, CFA, and Roger Urwin, FSIP, all collaborators on the CFA Institute Future of Finance initiative. Based on a survey of over 2,500 investment management professionals, the report builds on foundational research from an earlier study, “Future State of the Investment Profession,” and prescribes the shifts investment firms will need to make to ensure survival and success over the next decade.

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23 May 2018

The Rise of Active Indexing through ETFs

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The Rise of Active Indexing through ETFs

Global assets in exchange-traded funds (ETFs) reached an astonishing $4.5 trillion at the end of 2017.

That’s a remarkable ascent given the relatively brief lifespan of the ETF, and it connotes a startling disruption of the investment management industry. After all, the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (SPY) only just celebrated its 25th anniversary and the first modern “ETFs,” the Toronto 35 Index Participation units (TIPs), first went on sale in 1990.

But the real ETF-inspired disruption is in active indexing, Joanne M. Hill explained in her presentation at the 71st CFA Institute Annual Conference in Hong Kong.

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21 May 2018

ESG Investing’s Growing Influence

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ESG Investing’s Growing Influence

The integration of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors into the institutional investment analysis and decision-making process is a mega-trend that investors can no longer ignore, says Emily Chew, ​global head of Environmental, Social, and Corporate Governance Research and Integration at Manulife Asset Management.

Speaking at the 71st CFA Institute Annual Conference in Hong Kong, Chew noted that there is a mindshift taking place in the financial industry that has both asset owners and managers increasingly treating ESG investing as part of their fiduciary duty. Further, clients are also demanding responsible investing, seeing it not only as a means of doing good, but also as a way to increase portfolio returns and manage risk. Read More

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