|
|
 |
 |
 |
Director of Investment Grade Credit Strategies and Senior Portfolio Manager Andy Catalan provides a summary of 2009 and Standish's 2010 outlook for investment grade credit. | | |
 |
Part I: For Institutional Investors, Especially Endowments and Foundations | | |
 |
Part II: Implications for Investment Managers | | |
 |
Director of Liquid Products and Senior Portfolio Manager Robert Bayston discusses TIPS as a hedge against inflation, the negative impact of rising real rates on TIPS, and two strategies to improve the effectiveness of TIPS. | | |
 |
In The Case for Global Fixed Income, Standish examines the evolution, diversification by country/region and sector, and strong risk-adjusted returns of the Barclays Global Aggregate Index. This piece also addresses the currency decision (i.e., to hedge or unhedge currency exposure), and the benefits to a broader portfolio of adding an allocation to Global Fixed Income bonds. | | |
 |
More than any other question, clients have been asking for our opinion on inflation. Both the inflation and the deflation views draw passionate support.
As part of the development of Standish's own opinion on inflation, we organized an internal debate on the subject. Participants in the debate included Ted Ladd, our Chairman Emeritus and Tom Fahey, a Senior Portfolio Manager on our global bond team and our de facto economist-in-residence. Kent Wosepka, Chief Investment Officer of Active Fixed Income, moderated the debate. | | |
 |
Director of Emerging Market Strategies and Senior Portfolio Manager Alexander Kozhemiakin, PhD, CFA examines this large and liquid asset class, its distinct sources of excess returns (i.e., currency and duration), why it was the last "domino" to fall in the 2008 global financial crisis, its advantages over EM equities, the rise in new issuance of local-currency bonds, and how local-currency bonds provide a better way to gain emerging market currency exposure than currency forwards. | | |
 |
Standish discusses the threat to US pension plan funding levels posed by the likely decline in AA corporate bond yields, which will act to push up plan liabilities at a time when plan assets are unlikely to keep pace. The paper details both the short-term tactical opportunities and the many long-term strategic advantages of an investment in US long-duration corporate bonds. | | |
 |
Alexander Kozhemiakin, PhD, CFA, Director of Emerging Market Strategies, answers commonly asked questions about emerging market local currency debt (EMLCD) -- about the recent development of the asset class, its varied and distinctive sources of return, and its increasing role in a well-diversified capital markets portfolio. | | |
 |
With the benefit of fifteen years of meetings with Chinese elected officials, economists, and private and central bankers -- most recently in November 2008 -- Mr. Ladd assesses both current economic developments in China and their broader implications for financing economic activity in the United States. Withdrawal can be painful. | | |
 |
In "Secured Bank Loans: Another Arrow in the Bond Manager's Quiver," Andy Catalan makes the long-term case for including this growing asset class in the opportunity set of all portfolios permitting below-investment-grade credit -- and identifies a potential near-term opportunity as well. | | |
 |
Standish examines the looming problem of sub-prime ARMs resets and the plan proposed by Treasury Secretary Paulson to prevent a flood of foreclosures from overwhelming the US housing market and economy. | | |
 |
Rip Reeves details the various risk and return measures that make taxable municipals attractive for inclusion in investment-grade bond portfolios, particularly those of insurance companies. | | |
|
|
|
|
|
|