By Topic

This Finance survey examines: It is appropriate advice for retail investors to tilt their portfolio away from the market portfolio towards factors that have been identified in the academic literature to earn positive abnormal returns relative to the Capital Asset Pricing Model 

In this Finance survey: Stock markets around the world have seen an increasing concentration of trades in or near the closing auction. In the US, for example, about a third of all S&P 500 stock trades are now executed in the final ten minutes of the session, up from 27% in 2021 (a) The increased concentration of trading in the final minutes of the trading day has a measurably detrimental effect on market quality; (b) Strict indexing implemented with trading at the close to avoid tracking error creates a measurable performance drag that could be avoided with more flexible passive strategies 

This Finance survey examines (a) The benefits of the new SEC rules on private funds - which require private funds to provide transparency to their investors regarding the fees and expenses and other terms of their relationship with private fund advisers and the performance of such private funds - substantially exceed their costs; (b) The new SEC rules will have a substantially negative impact on the industry by stifling capital formation and reducing competition; (c) It is appropriate policy for the SEC to impose such rules on private funds even though the investors (limited partners) are sophisticated entities 

This Finance survey examines (a) Regulation that allows state pension funds to consider environmental, social, and governance factors in investment decisions only if these factors are material for risk and expected return would make retirees measurably worse off; (b) Regulation that prevents state pension funds from considering environmental, social, and governance factors in investment decisions even if these factors are material for risk and expected return would make retirees measurably worse off 

This Finance survey examines (a) The SEC’s proposed new rule for stock orders from individual investors is likely to be effective in giving those investors better prices on their trades on average; (b) The new rule would improve the overall operation of the stock market   

This Finance survey examines that Harry Markowitz, the Nobel Prize-winning pioneer of modern portfolio theory, passed away earlier this year: https://afajof.org/news/in-memoriam-harry-markowitz-past-president-of-the-american-finance-association-1927-2023/ (a) Application of the principles of modern portfolio theory allows investors in practice to achieve substantial improvements in the risk-expected return trade-off relative to naive strategies such as equal-weighting that do not take account of return covariances; (b) A continued fall in commercial real estate valuations would trigger another round of banking panic 

This Finance survey examines (a) The new liquidity fee will substantially reduce the likelihood of runs on MMFs; (b) The new liquidity fee will cause a substantial shift of assets under management from institutional prime and tax-exempt funds to government MMFs (which are exempt from the fees) 

This Finance survey examines (a) The amount of passively invested funds has reached levels at which it has a measurable detrimental effect on market efficiency. 

This Finance survey examines: Regulator Probes BlackRock and Vanguard Over Huge Stakes in U.S. Banks – The WSJ reports that ‘The FDIC is scrutinizing whether the index-fund giants are sticking to passive roles when it comes to their investments in U.S. banks.' (a) The exemption of passive asset managers from banking rules - such as needing permission when they acquire shares above the 10% threshold - generates measurable risks to the accomplishment of the FDIC's mission