Guest article written for AllAboutAlpha.com – the official publication of the Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst (CAIA) Association Originally posted at: http://allaboutalpha.com/blog/2012/02/23/the-euro-crisis-an-interview-with-larry-hatheway-ubs-chief-economist/ In September 2011, the IMF estimated that roughly half of the Euro Zone’s $9 trillion in outstanding government debt was now at ‘heightened credit risk‘. This is a crisis…
Sometimes a change in perspective is important. World War II was a turning point for our civilisation. This was a war which left a mark on most of our planet’s inhabitants, and saw more than 40 million people killed in just 6 years. Even now, half a century later, this…
Guest article written for AllAboutAlpha.com – the official publication of the Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst (CAIA) Association Originally posted at: http://allaboutalpha.com/blog/2012/02/16/james-rickards-on-the-huge-threats-to-the-financial-markets/ One of the most astonishing revelations of the past decade has been how little we really understand about risks in our financial markets. The ‘once in a thousand year‘…
Guest article written for AllAboutAlpha.com – the official publication of the Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst (CAIA) Association Originally posted at: http://allaboutalpha.com/blog/2012/01/26/do-hedge-funds-work/ “…If all the money that’s ever been invested in hedge funds had been put in treasury bills instead, the results would have been twice as good…” This is the…
Guest article written for AllAboutAlpha.com – the official publication of the Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst (CAIA) Association Originally posted at: http://allaboutalpha.com/blog/2012/01/12/the-state-of-global-ultra-wealth/ The 2011 World Ultra Wealth Report (published by intelligence provider Wealth-X) describes how, “…the fortunes of the world’s ultra high net worth (UHNW) individuals have surpassed $25 trillion“. This…
Guest article written for AllAboutAlpha.com � the official publication of the Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst (CAIA) Association originally posted at: http://allaboutalpha.com/blog/2012/01/05/alpha-hunters-generating-alpha-from-com-giants/ The internet has changed the face of commerce. Online businesses are booming and the digital landscape is growing on a daily basis. Consequently, it is also no surprise that…
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…