The CFA Institute just held its 2012 fixed income conference in San Francisco.
Speakers shared a very broad range of perspectives on fixed income issues over the course of about a dozen sessions.
Session notes and observations (in no particular order) include:
Demographics and Deleveraging -- Rick Rieder, Blackrock
The Best Idea in Light of Demographic and Fiscal Challenges -- Scott Simon, PIMCO
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The concept is seductive: a financial product that provides upside exposure in the event that equity markets trend up and to the right while also providing a floor of protection in case the bottom falls-out from under markets again.
Sort of like having your cake and eating it too. Very tempting in light of the massive financial uncertainty that has existed for the past several years.
Products playing into this “upside plus protection” theme include (but are not limited to) variable annuities with guaranteed...
In his most recent Investment Outlook letter, PIMCO founder Bill Gross suggests that investors need to prepare for difficult adjustments in a world of near zero real returns from financial capital.
Gross describes the dying cult of equity that has evolved over the past century, and advises readers to expect future equity returns that are much less than 6.6 percent average real return (the “Siegel constant”) since 1912.
Gross considers the 6.6 percent real return on stocks since 1912 to be an “historical freak, a mutation likely never to be seen again as far as we mortals are concerned.”
This view is based in part on...
It seemed obvious several years ago that retirees would shoulder much of the burden of the financial crisis and its residual effects.
While events have generally played-out in line with this projection, the backlash from seniors has been surprisingly subdued. The lack of pitchforks seems odd given the fact that the number of retirement age voters is increasing by 10,000 each day in the United States.
That said, the capital versus retirees story has been trending-up lately. This may have something to do with the...
As the manager of the largest bond fund in the world and a founder of PIMCO, Bill Gross is a leading authority on all things related to yield.
Since retirement finances are fundamentally about generating...
