Events

Demand for sustainability is growing on all fronts, from asset owners focused on risks and opportunities in ESG investing to governments providing supportive regulation as well as companies taking sustainable actions and improving disclosures. While climate change remains in the headlines, investors need to stay abreast of several themes in environmental, social and governance investing and advances in sustainable strategies and ESG practices across asset classes. The burgeoning interest in ESG investing has led to improved ratings, performance measurement and strategy implementation. At this audio webinar, our panel of experts will share their outlook on the current state of sustainable investing, assess current risks and opportunities, and offer approaches on implementation and monitoring. 

Fixed income investors face challenges not seen in decades. Elevated inflation has sparked a hawkish pivot from central banks. And rising rates have resulted in the worst bond market returns in years. Today, as fixed income investors look to to re-position portfolios, they must navigate not only changing macro regimes, but an evolving marketplace. Massive amounts of data points that were once untenable are now a mouse click away. Advancing technologies and trading platforms are changing how fixed income trades are sourced and executed. And the number of market participants continues to increase far beyond the traditional network of big banks and dealers.

Join us as we discuss the complexities of an evolving fixed income market, the increased role played by market data, and explore ways to measure and unlock the liquidity potential within your fixed income portfolio.

Following a year of strong economic growth as the emerging markets rebounded out of the pandemic-induced slowdown, they have been hit by negative sentiment due to wider geopolitical events and rising inflation, which has led to greater market volatility. Many institutional investors remain wary, as they monitor the impacts of slowing growth and tighter monetary policy. Yet, opportunities persist across markets and sectors that asset managers have pursued via active, bottom-up investment strategies. At this audio webinar, our panel of experts will share their outlook on the emerging economies that have undergone a distinct bifurcation, share which markets have remained steadfast, highlight top-performing markets and sectors to date, and discuss their use of a sustainability lens across the emerging markets.

Institutional investors face heightened uncertainty from higher volatility across global markets, rising and broad-based inflation that the Federal Reserve seeks to counter via a series of expected rate hikes, and ongoing geopolitical and macro-economic risks that can impact growth. How does the current scenario compare to prior inflationary regimes? How should investors re-assess their asset allocation and position for this complex market environment? At this hour-long audio webinar, our panel of experts will share their inflation forecast, key signals they are watching, and will highlight some investment strategies and sectors that can help investors mitigate inflation risk, from enhanced duration management to high-quality credit exposures, as well as alternatives such as gold such as gold and other commodities.

As the investment industry faces unprecedented challenges, Chestnut Advisory Group and Pensions & Investments have partnered to conduct comprehensive research into the issues impacting the future of the investment industry, your organization, and your career. Our Future of Investments project has yielded a trove of surprising insights on key issues including ESG, OCIO growth, and industry M&A.

In our fifth and final webinar of this series, we will explore how asset managers can best respond to allocators’ increasing demands to better understand managers’ DEI efforts: by treating the manager’s DEI approach as an enormous growth opportunity for their entire business. Our panelists will discuss:

Now in its 20^th year, Fidelity’s Institutional Investor Survey continues to uncover insights on decision-making among institutional investors and provide a benchmark for firms of varying types and sizes. Using the Investment Innovation framework that we rolled out last year, this year’s study seeks to build upon learnings and indicators from the prior survey. The Fall 2021 study indicated falling confidence in achieving return targets. Now, we look to understand how investors are adapting and evolving their portfolios to continue generating returns amid a changing market environment.

Join Fidelity’s Asset Allocation Research Analyst Jake Weinstein and Bryan Poston, CFA, Director of Market and Business Intelligence, as they share insights derived from the 2022 Fidelity U.S. Institutional Investor Survey and reveal how organizations can better align their investment program to their innovation approach as they navigate the headwinds of a shifting macro-environment.  

From geo-political strife to workforce resignations, navigating market volatility and the current rising rate cycle to the increased complexity of alternative investments, a whole host of factors have accelerated demand from asset owners for OCIO in asset management. Learn the latest trends in Outsourced Chief Investment Officer mandates and what investors are looking to achieve in today’s more flexible and hybrid arrangements. With demand across the spectrum of diversified strategies and ESG investing, hear how OCIO firms are delivering on client and portfolio objectives, and learn some best practices to help steer your OCIO partnership.

The Canadian Pension Risk Strategies webinar will provide pension plan sponsors with practical, real-world information for decision-making, planning, and implementing the risk management strategies that best fit their pension plan. 

Topics of discussion include:

The accelerated pace and scale of investing in alternatives by institutional investors is powered by several tailwinds in the macro and market environment. As more investors turn to alternatives to boost returns, provide diversification and meet their overall portfolio objectives, what are some areas of opportunity to consider today? Alternatives – from private equity and hedge funds to real estate, commodities and real assets – can be accessed via several active management, systematic, and passive approaches. Our panel of experts in alternatives investing explain the underlying shifts and concerns that are top of mind for asset owners, and outline both the challenges and opportunities in accessing the alternatives markets.

With inflationary pressures expected to persist through a period of more uncertainty in the global economy sparked by recent geopolitical and other risks, fixed-income investors need to monitor multiple signals even as they strive to meet long-term portfolio objectives through this low-yield environment. As the Federal Reserve works to contain inflation in this scenario, where are the pockets of opportunity for yield and diversification? Is this the time to double down on active management of fixed income? This panel of experts from leading asset management firms shares what’s top of mind for fixed-income asset owners, outlines strategies that can meet different investors needs, and reveals where there is opportunity regardless of market cycle.

Currently, there are a myriad of dynamics at play that are directly impacting fixed income markets, including Inflation, Interest rates and global uncertainty. In multi-sector strategies, such as core and core plus, uncovering opportunities and uncorrelated sources of risk can be particularly challenging for asset-owners who need to meet total return objectives. Join us for a live panel discussion on building core and core plus portfolios from the ground up and with a focus on diversified sources of alpha. 

The urgency for retirement income solutions has been increasing as participant demographics and demands change, the defined benefit era wanes and the defined contribution plan becomes the primary workplace-sponsored retirement benefit – carrying the implicit expectation of solving both the saving and spending phases of retirement readiness.

In today’s webinar, we will look through the lens of research to confirm the need for both flexibility and security within a retirement income solution. Our speakers will address:

• The stratification of retirement ages, experiences and outcomes 
• A heterogeneity of retiree spending as informed by EBRI's Spending in Retirement Survey 
• The impact of annuitization on retirees’ financial security as outlined in Boston College’s Center for Retirement Research publication, How to Best Annuitize Defined Contribution Assets 

As the investment industry faces unprecedented challenges, Chestnut Advisory Group and Pensions & Investments have partnered to conduct comprehensive research into the issues impacting the future of the investment industry, your organization, and your career. Our Future of Investments project has yielded a trove of surprising insights on key issues including ESG, OCIO growth, and industry M&A.

In our fourth webinar of this series, we will explore how asset managers can best navigate rapidly-evolving investor demands to integrate ESG considerations into their investment process. Our panelists will discuss:

As defined contribution plan sponsors consider implementing retirement income solutions that can help employees improve financial security in retirement, they are relying on data and automation to find the most appropriate solutions. The use of data and focus on personalization underpins several areas for plans today, from product structure and investment menu considerations to overall financial wellness programs. Join us at this audio webinar from leading industry experts who share the very latest DC solutions being adopted today and offer insights into what’s coming next.

• Retirement income solutions
• Target date funds
• Outcome-oriented plan design
• Custom and white-label solutions 
• Financial wellness programs
• Regulatory focus

It’s been a rocky start to the year for bond markets as investors consider paths the Fed may take. Join us for a conversation on what happens from here.

A panel of experts will discuss:

• Inflation, growth and the health of the labor market
• Scenarios and outcomes for rate hikes and the balance sheet unwind
• Risks worth taking and worth avoiding

Please join one of Fisher Investments’ portfolio managers for Fisher’s outlook on global equity markets.

During this webinar, Aaron Anderson, Fisher Investments’ Investment Policy Committee Member (portfolio manager) will review macro factors affecting global equities, as well as where Fisher believes we are in the market cycle and what that means for portfolio positioning. Leveraging insights from our global research platform, we believe this webinar will offer useful perspective on global equity markets.

Some of the topics Aaron will address include:
  

• Inflation and Supply Chain Bottlenecks
• Global Political Drivers in 2022 Including US Midterm Analysis
• Chinese Regulations and Observations in Emerging Markets
• Growth Versus Value

Given the Federal Reserve’s recent hawkish pivot in guiding markets toward multiple rate hikes and potential balance sheet runoff in 2022 to mitigate persistently high inflation, the floating-rate bank loan market has garnered considerable investor attention. Against this backdrop, volatility has afflicted many asset classes across fixed income and equities. However, the leveraged credit market outlook remains fundamentally constructive, particularly for floating-rate bank loans. Leveraged loans have always provided a unique yield-duration profile, offering investors attractive income while partially hedging interest rate risk.

Please join Fixed Income CIO Andy McCormick and Head of Global High Yield Paul Massaro as they discuss their views on several key topics including:

• Why consider floating-rate bank loans now
• Why leveraged loans deserve a strategic allocation in well diversified fixed income portfolios 
• Credit landscape and future default expectations
• Libor transition progress and impact
• Capital market activity and opportunistic investment themes

For investors seeking exposure to non-rewarded risk factors, such as macroeconomic factors, Scientific Beta is offering a new suite of macro indices designed to capture the equity risk premium with additional exposure to unexpected shocks or the surprises of targeted macro factors.

In this webinar, we will present Scientific Beta’s equity inflation indices, the first in a series of macroeconomic factor indices that provide long-term equity performance with additional inflation protection compared to a traditional cap-weighted equity index. Their high liquidity makes them ideal candidates as a replacement of cap-weighted indices in a multi-asset portfolio. We will also present equity indices targeting further macro variables (interest rates, term spread, credit spread).

Risk Parity strategies, and therefore managers of those strategies, are notoriously difficult to benchmark. This difficulty stems from Risk Parity’s inherently dynamic nature -ascribing equal-weight allocations to assets according to their underlying risk characteristics with the goal of generating relatively consistent performance over time across different inflation- and growth-related economic regimes. In this webinar, we will present a robust approach for evaluating whether a Risk Parity allocation is meeting this goal and, importantly, if a manager is demonstrating skill-based value-add. We will seek to identify the asset classes and approaches commonly used by Risk Parity managers, and provide insight on how managers have fared versus suitably designed broad-market portfolios. 

Key questions that we will explore are:

• What is Risk Parity and why have an allocation to it?
• What is buried in a Risk Parity allocation? What markets are used, how often do asset weights change and how is leverage incorporated?
• How can investors approach benchmarking a Risk Parity allocation?
• How have managers performed? Have they generated genuine alpha or can performance be explained by  market betas or other factors?
• What alternatives exist for approaching Risk Parity at the portfolio level?

While the world maintains its focus on the battle against Covid-19, there are reasons for optimism in the months ahead. But as we move past peak growth and peak policy accommodation, many risks to this outlook remain.

As we continue the climb out of the pandemic-driven humanitarian and economic crisis, other urgent issues are also returning to the fore. The search for yield in a low-rate environment remains a key challenge for investors. And the climate crisis – arguably the defining problem of our era – looms large as well.