In my June 2011 article “Is it Time to Rethink Sovereign Debt” I described how, “…in our globalised economy, no country is an island. Every nation has internal debt (owed to lenders within a country- often that countries citizens or banks) and external debt (owed to foreign lenders- often other…
“..It is hard to overestimate how much is at stake for the world after the sudden death of Kim Jong Il, the North Korean despot, on December 17th…” wrote the Economist. Political leaders (particularly those in the West) looked on as this poverty stricken failed state (armed with nuclear weapons)…
Guest article written for AllAboutAlpha.com – the official publication of the Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst (CAIA) Association originally posted at: http://allaboutalpha.com/blog/2011/12/15/alpha-hunters-investing-in-global-development/ From our ‘developed world viewpoint‘ it is sometimes easy for us to forget that there was a time when the United States and Europe were (as we would classify…
Guest article written for AllAboutAlpha.com – the official publication of the Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst (CAIA) Association originally posted at: http://allaboutalpha.com/blog/2011/12/01/new-techniques-to-manage-sovereign-credit-risk/ In a recent paper entitled Managing Sovereign Credit Risk in Bond Portfolios (Bruder, Hereil & Roncalli October 2011) the writers assert that, “…with the recent development of the European…
Guest article written for AllAboutAlpha.com – the official publication of the Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst (CAIA) Association originally posted at: http://allaboutalpha.com/blog/2011/11/03/generating-alpha-in-alternative-markets/ Even against the backdrop of a global recession, the top 50 fastest growing companies in the USA averaged growth rates between 3,893% and 40,882% in the three years to…
Guest article written for AllAboutAlpha.com – the official publication of the Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst (CAIA) Association originally posted at: http://allaboutalpha.com/blog/2011/10/20/alpha-hunter-using-twitter-to-predict-the-markets/ Our understanding of financial markets in the last few decades has shifted. Professor Johan Bollen (Indiana University School of Informatics and Computing) states, “..I think behavioural economics has now…
Guest article written for AllAboutAlpha.com – the official publication of the Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst (CAIA) Association originally posted at: http://allaboutalpha.com/blog/2011/10/03/alpha-hunters-craig-donohue-on-the-secrets-of-futures-options-exchanges/ The concept underpinning financial exchanges can be traced back through much of human history. In Aristotle’s Politics, “…there is the anecdote of Thales and his financial device…. he knew…
Guest article written for AllAboutAlpha.com – the official publication of the Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst (CAIA) Association originally posted at: http://allaboutalpha.com/blog/2011/09/15/alpha-hunter-jim-oneill-gsams-man-of-brics/ With over US$714 billion under management, Goldman Sachs Asset Management (GSAM) ranks as one of the top 10 asset managers in the world. At the helm is Jim O’Neill,…
Guest article written for AllAboutAlpha.com – the official publication of the Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst (CAIA) Association originally posted at: http://allaboutalpha.com/blog/2011/09/06/the-secrets-of-high-frequency-trading/ In recent years, advances in telecommunications, computing capacity and financial software platform capabilities have seen huge growth in the field of High Frequency and Algorithmic Trading (now accounting for…
Guest article written for AllAboutAlpha.com – the official publication of the Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst (CAIA) Association originally posted at: http://allaboutalpha.com/blog/2011/08/11/alpha-hunter-krishna-menani-the-opportunities-and-risks-in-bond-markets/ In any economic system, the fixed-income (bond) market plays an essential role as one of the principal ways of financing enterprise (be it corporate or sovereign). Research shows that…
As we sit here today, London remains in the grip of escalating riots, violence and disruption as young people have taken to the streets across the city looting stores, torching vehicles, engaging in arson and more. As the Guardian newspaper reported, “London’s emergency services were on full-scale alert on Monday…
Guest article written for AllAboutAlpha.com – the official publication of the Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst (CAIA) Association originally posted at: http://allaboutalpha.com/blog/2011/08/04/alpha-hunter-the-dna-of-financial-markets/ The discovery of DNA’s structure revolutionized our understanding of how the human body works, revealing the source of our biological successes alongside the true sources of previously ‘unpredictable’ diseases. …