benefits of alternative investment in a portfolio

Kiwi Investor Blog achieves 100 not out

/ Kiwi Investor / 1 Comment

Kiwi Investor Blog achieves 100 Posts.

Thank you to those who have provided support, encouragement and feedback. It has been greatly appreciated.

 

Before I briefly outline some of the key topics covered to date by Kiwiinvestorblog.com, the “intellectual framework” for the Blog has largely come from EDHEC Risk Institute in relation to Goals-Based investing and how to improve the outcomes of Target Date Funds in providing a more robust investment solution.

Likewise, Noble Laureate Professor Robert Merton’s perspective on designing an appropriate retirement system has been influential. Regulators and retirement solution providers should take note of his and EDHEC’s work.

Combined, EDHEC and Professor Merton, are helping to make finance useful again.

Their analysis into more robust retirement solutions have the potential to deliver real welfare benefits for the many people that face a challenging retirement environment.

A Goals-Based approach also helps the super wealthy and the High Net worth in achieving their investment and hopefully philanthropic goals, resulting in the efficient allocation of capital.

The investment knowledge is available now to achieve this.

 

To summaries, the key topics of Kiwi investor blog:

 

  • Likewise, much ink has been spilt over Target Date Funds. I believe these are the vehicle to achieving the mass production of the customised investment solution. Furthermore, they are likely to be the solution to the KiwiSaver Default option. The current generation have many shortcomings and would benefit by the implementation of more advanced investment approaches such as Liability Driven Investing. This analysis highlights that Target Date Funds that are 100% invested in cash at time of retirement are scandalous.

 

 

  • The first kiwiinvestorblog Post was an article by EDHEC Risk Institute outlining the paradigm shift developing within the wealth management industry, including the death of the Policy Portfolio, the move toward Goals-Based Investing and the mass production of customised investment solutions. These themes have been developed upon within the Blog over the last 22 months.

I covered the EDHEC article in more depth recently.

 

 

  • The mass production of customised investment solutions has been a recurrent topic. Mass customisation enabled by technology will be the Uber Moment for the wealth management industry. Therefore, the development of BlackRock and Microsoft collaborating will be worth following.

 

 

 

  • Several Posts have been on Responsible Investing. I am in the process of writing a series of articles on Responsible Investing. The next will be on Impact Investing. The key concern, as a researcher, is identifying those managers that don’t Greenwash their investment approach and as a practitioner seeing consistency in terminology.  The evidence for Responsible Investing is compelling and there is a wide spectrum of approaches.

 

 

  • There has been a focus on the issues faced by those near or in Retirement, such as the Retirement Planning Death Zone. These discussions have led to conclusion that Warren Buffet could be wrong in recommending high allocations to a low cost index funds. Investment returns are greatly impacted by cashflows into and out of the retirement fund.

 

  • I don’t tend to Post around current market conditions; market views and analysis are readily available. I will cover a major market development, more to provide some historical context, for example the anatomy of sharemarket corrections, the interplay between economic recession and sharemarket returns, and lastly, I first covered the topic of inverted yield curves in 2018.  I provided an update more recently, Recessions, inverted yield curves, and Sharemarket returns.

 

My word for 2019 is Flexicure, as outlined in my last Post of 2018, Flexicurity in Retirement Income Solutions – making finance great again – which brings together many of the key topics outlined above.

 

Happy investing.

Please see my Disclosure Statement

 

Global Investment Ideas from New Zealand. Building more Robust Investment Portfolios.

 

 

Low Return Environment Forecasted

/ Kiwi Investor / 7 Comments

Many commentators highlight the likelihood of a low return environment over the next 5 -10 years or more.

Even looking through the shorter-term challenges of the current market environment as highlighted in a recent Post, many publicly available forecasts underline the potential for a low return environment over the longer term.

The most often referenced longer-term return forecasts are the GMO 7 Year Asset Class Forecast.

As at 31 July 2019 they estimated the real returns (returns after 2.2% inflation) for the following asset classes as follows:

Share Markets

Annual Real Return Forecasts
US Large Capitalised Shares

-3.7%
International Shares

0.6%
Emerging Markets

5.3%
   
Fixed Income Markets  
US Fixed Income

-1.7%
International Fixed Income Hedged

-3.7%
Emerging Debt

0.7%
US Cash

0.2%

 

As GMO highlight, these are forward looking returns based on their reasonable beliefs and they are no guarantee of future performance.

Actual results may differ materially from those anticipated in forward looking statements.

 

The variation in sequence of returns is an additional consideration e.g. global sharemarkets could continue to move higher and then fall sharply to generate a 0.6% annual return over the next seven years. Or they could do the reverse, fall sharply within the next year and then float higher over the next 6 years to generate the 0.6% return.

 

The sequencing of returns is important for those in the retirement death zone, see my previous Post on the riskiest time of saving for and being in retirement.

 

Looking at the return forecasts the following observations can be made:

  • Within equity markets Emerging Markets are offering more value and US equities the least; and
  • The return expectations for Fixed Income are very dire, particularly for those developed markets outside of the US.

 

For comparison purposes, the long-term return of US equities is 6.5%.

 

The Fixed Income returns reflect that more than $US15 trillion of fixed income securities across Europe and Japan are trading on a negative yield.

Based on some measures, interest rates are at their lowest level in 5,000 years!

 

GMO is not alone with such longer-term market forecasts, those from Research Affiliates and State Street are provided below. They all have different methodologies and approaches to calculating their forecasts. Notably, they are all pointed in a similar direction.

 

This analysis highlights that outstanding returns have been delivered over the last 10 years, particularly if you are invested in the US and New Zealand sharemarkets and have had longer dated interest rate exposures.

The Balance Portfolio (60% Equities and 40%) has benefited from this environment.

The last 10 years have been amongst the best for a New Zealand investor invested in a Balanced Portfolio, if they had managed to stay fully invested during that time.

The New Zealand sharemarket has returned 13.3% over the last 10 years and New Zealand Government Bonds 5.9%. Therefore, a Balanced Fund has returned 10.3% over the last decade!

Global Equites have returned 10.0%, led higher by the US sharemarket, and Global Bonds 4.3% over the last 10 years. Globally, the Balanced Portfolio has benefited from the 35 year long decline in interest rates.

 

Therefore, the forecast returns are pretty frightening from a Balanced Fund perspective. Certainly, returns are not likely to be as strong over the next ten years as they have been over the last decade.

This calls into question the level diversification of a Balanced Fund of only equities and fixed income.

This issue can be considered from two angles, the need to increase the level of diversification within a Balanced Portfolio and the effectiveness of fixed income in providing diversification benefits to a Balanced Portfolio given historically low interest rates.

On the first issue, although a lack of true portfolio diversification has not disadvantaged investors greatly over the last 5-10 years, the potential to earn other sources of returns from true portfolio diversification may be of more value over the next 10 years. It is certainly a risk that should be considered and managed.

With regards the effectiveness of fixed income in diversify sharemarket risk in the future, this dynamic is best captured by the following insightful observation by Louis Grave: investors are hedging overvalued growth stocks with overvalued bonds.

What he is saying, is that given current valuations in the US of both the sharemarket and fixed income a Balanced Portfolio no longer has the degree of diversification it once had.

Of course, interest rates could fall further, and provide some offset from a falling sharemarket, as they have historically. Nevertheless, the effectiveness and extent of this offset is limited given historically low interest rates.

Most importantly, given current valuations, there is the scenario where both fixed income and sharemarkets underperform at the same time. This would be like the stagflation environment of 1970, where inflation is rising, and economic growth is muted.  This is a scenario worth considering.

In my mind the biggest risks to portfolios are in longer term fixed income securities or “bond proxies”, such as slow-growth and dividend-oriented investments.  Listed Property and infrastructure securities would fall into this definition.

It is quite likely that those looking for diversification benefits from listed property, global and domestic, and listed infrastructure, are likely to be disappointed. As they would had been during the Global Financial Crisis. They only provide limited portfolio diversification benefits, not true portfolio diversification.

 

The expected low returns environment throws up a lot of issues to consider:

  • True Portfolio diversification. Institutional investors accept that portfolio diversification does not come from investing in more and more asset classes. This has diminishing diversification benefits e.g. adding global listed property or infrastructure to a multi-asset portfolio that includes global equities.   True portfolio diversification is achieved by investing in different risk factors that drive the asset classes e.g. duration, economic growth, low volatility, value, and growth. Investors are compensated for being exposed to a range of different risks.

 

  • Consistent with the above, there is a growing evolution within the Wealth Management Industry, a paradigm shift which is resulting in the death of the Policy Portfolio (i.e. Balanced Portfolio).

 

  • The growing risks with traditional market indices and index funds, as highlighted by the low return forecasts.

 

  • Increased innovation within Exchange Traded Funds as investors seek to diversify their traditional market exposures.

 

I plan to write more on the last two points in future Posts.

 

Happy investing.

Please see my Disclosure Statement

 

Global Investment Ideas from New Zealand.  Building more Robust Investment Portfolios

 

 

Research Affiliates – 10 Year Forecast Real (After Inflation)

Share Markets

Real Return Forecasts
US Large Capitalised Shares

0.7%
International Shares

3.2%
Emerging Markets

7.7%
   
Fixed Income Markets  
US Fixed Income

-0.8%
International Fixed Income Hedged

-0.5%
Emerging Debt

4.2%
US Cash

-0.3%

 

State Street also provides:

  • They are more optimistic in relation to developed market sharemarket, with Emerging Markets outperforming developed markets, Global Listed Property underperforms both developed and emerging market equities
  • They see very low returns from Global Fixed Income.

Investing in a Challenging Investment Environment

/ Kiwi Investor / 6 Comments

The Global financial backdrop can be summarised as:

  1. Late Cycle
    • The US economy is into its longest period of uninterrupted growth, it has been over ten years since the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) and the US experiencing a recession.
    • Likewise, the US sharemarket is into it longest period without incurring a 20% or more fall (which would be a bear market).
  2. Exceptionally low interest rates. As you will be aware over $14 trillion of European and Japanese fixed income securities are trading on negative interest rates.
  3. Central Banks around the world are reducing short-term interest. By way of example, the US Federal Reserve has undertaken a mid-cycle adjustment, with more to come, the European Central Bank recently cut interest rates, as has China’s Central Bank. The Reserve Bank of Australia and the Reserve Bank of New Zealand have reduced cash rates very aggressively in recent months. It appears that interest rates will remain lower for longer.
  4. Rising geo-political risk, namely an ongoing and escalating trade dispute between the US and China, while Brexit has a cameo role on the global stage, and there are rising tensions in the middle-east.
  5. Global growth has slowed. The pace of economic activity has slowed around the world, this is most noticeable in Europe, Japan, and China, and is concentrated within the manufacturing sector. The service sectors have largely been unaffected.

 

Against this backdrop the US sharemarket has outperformed, continually reaching all-time highs, likewise for the New Zealand sharemarket.

Value stocks have underperformed high growth momentum stocks. The performance differential between value and growth is at historical extremes.

Lastly emerging Markets have underperformed the developed world.

 

A good assessment of the current environment is provided in this article by Byron Wien. It is a must read, Plenty to worry about but not much to do.

 

It is not all gloom and doom

The US consumer is in very good shape, reflecting record low unemployment, rising wages, and a sound property market. The US consumer is as bigger share of the global economy as is China. Although it is not growing as fast as China, a solid pace of growth is being recorded.

Overall, economic data in the US has beaten expectations over recent weeks (e.g. retail sales).

Globally the manufacturing sectors are expected to recover over the second half of this year, leading to a rebound in global growth. Low interest rates will also help global growth.  Nevertheless, growth will remain modest and inflation absent.

Globally, in most countries, Sharemarket’s dividend yields are higher than interest rates. This means that sharemarkets can fall in value over the next 5-10 years and still outperform fixed income.

 

How to invest in current environment

Recently there has been #TINA movement: There Is No Alternative to Equities.

Certainly equities have performed strongly on a year to date basis, so have fixed income securities (their value increases as interest rates fall).

The traditional 60/40 portfolio, 60% Equities and 40% Fixed Income, has performed very strongly over the last 6-9 months, this comes after a difficult 2018.

#TINA and the longer term performance of the 60/40 portfolio is covered in this AllAboutAlpha Article, which is well worth reading.

The 60/40 portfolio has performed well over the last 10 years, and has been a strong performer over the longer term.

This performance needs to be put into the context that interest rates have been falling for the last 35 years, this has boosted the returns from the Fixed Income component of the portfolio.  Needless to say, this tail wind may not be so strong in the next 35 years.

This indicates that future returns from a 60/40 portfolio will be lower than those experienced in more recent history.

There are lots of suggestions as to what one should do in the current market environment.  This article on Livewire Markets provides some flavour.

No doubt, you will discuss any concerns you have with your Trusted Advisor.

 

At a time like this, reflect on the tried and true:

Seek “True” portfolio Diversification

The AllAboutAlpha article references a Presentation by Deutsche Bank that makes “a very compelling case for building a more diversified portfolio across uncorrelated risk premia rather than asset class silos”.

The Presentation emphasises “The only insurance against regime shifts, black swans, the peso problem and drawdowns is to seek out multiple sources of risk premia across a host of asset classes and geographies, designed to harvest different features (value, momentum, illiquidity etc.) of the return generating process, via a large number of small, uncorrelated exposures”

The above comments are technical in nature and I will explain below. Albeit, the Presentation is well worth reading: Rethinking Portfolio Construction and Risk Management.

 

In a nutshell, the above comments are about seeking “true” portfolio diversification.

Portfolio diversification does not come from investing in more and more asset classes i.e. asset class silos. This has diminishing diversification benefits over the longer term and particularly at the time of market crisis e.g. adding global listed property or infrastructure to a multi-asset portfolio that already includes global equities.

True portfolio diversification is achieved by investing in different risk factors (i.e. premia) that drive the asset classes e.g. duration, economic growth, low volatility, value, and growth by way of example.

Investors are compensated for being exposed to a range of different risks. For example, those risks may include market beta (e.g. equities and fixed income), smart beta (e.g. value and momentum factors), alternative and hedge fund risk premia, illiquidity e.g. Private Equity, Direct Property, and unlisted infrastructure. And of course, true alpha from active management, returns that cannot be explained by the risk exposures just outlined. There has been a disaggregation of returns.

US Endowment Funds and Sovereign Wealth Funds have led the charge on true portfolio diversification, along with the heavy investment into alternative investments and factor exposures. They are a model of world best investment management practice.

Therefore, seek true portfolio diversification, this is best way to protect portfolio outcomes and reduce the reliance on sharemarkets and interest rates driving portfolio outcomes.

As the Presentation says, a truly diversified portfolio provides better protection against large market falls and unexpected events i.e. Black Swans.

True diversification leads to a more robust portfolio.

(I have written a number of Post on Alternatives and the expected growth in institutions investing in alternatives globally.)

 

Customised investment solution

Often the next bit advice is to make sure your investments are consistent with your risk preference.

Although this is important, it is also fundamentally important that the investment portfolio is customised to your investment objectives and takes into consideration a wider range of issues than risk preference and expected returns and volatility from capital markets.

For example, income earned up to and after retirement, assets outside super, legacies, desired standard of living in retirement, and Sequencing Risk (the period of most vulnerability is either side of the retirement age e.g. 65 here in New Zealand).

 

Think long-term

I think this is a given, and it needs to be balanced with your customised investment objectives as outlined above. Try to see through market noise, don’t over trade and don’t take on more risk to chase returns.

It is all right to do nothing, don’t be compelled to trade, a less traded portfolio is likely more representative of someone taking a longer term view.

Also look to financial planning options to see through difficult market conditions.

 

There are a lot of Investment Behavioural issues to consider, the idea of the Regret Portfolio approach may resonate, and the Behavioural Tool Kit could be of interest.

 

AllAboutAlpha has a great tagline: “Seek diversification, education, and know your risk tolerance. Investing is for the long term.”

Kiwiinvestorblog is all about education, it does not provide investment advice nor promote any investment and receives no payments. Please follow the links provided for a greater appreciation of the topic in discussion.

 

And, please, build robust investment portfolios. As Warren Buffet has said: “Predicting rain doesn’t count. Building arks does.” ………………….. Is your portfolio an all weather portfolio?

 

Happy investing.

Please see my Disclosure Statement

 

Global Investment Ideas from New Zealand. Building more Robust Investment Portfolios.

 

KiwiSaver Investors are missing out

/ Kiwi Investor / 5 Comments

This is a great article by Stuff outlining the KiwiSaver risk ladder, rung by rung.

However, what struck me is that there is a rung missing on the KiwiSaver ladder.

That rung being the lack of exposure to non-traditional investments, such as Alternatives, including liquid alternatives, hedge funds, Private Equity, Venture Capital, and investments into Direct Property and unlisted infrastructure.

Based on the Stuff article, there is just 1% within all of the KiwiSaver Funds invested outside of Cash, Fixed Interest (bonds), and Equities (the traditional asset classes).

We don’t have to look far to see how much of anomaly this.

By way of comparison, the Australian Pension Fund Industry, which is the fourth largest Pension market in the world, invests 22.0% into non-traditional assets.

As can be seen in the Table below, Australian Pension Funds, which manages A$2.9 trillion, invests 22.0% into non-traditional assets, meanwhile KiwiSaver has 1% invested outside of the traditional assets. (KiwiSaver Total Assets are just over $50 billion).

Allocations to broad asset classes

KiwiSaver

Aussie Pension Funds
Cash and Fixed Interest (bonds)

49

31
Equities

48

47
Other / non-traditional assets

1

22

As recently reported by Bloomberg, allocations to non-traditional assets is expected to continue in Australia ”with stocks and bonds moving higher together, investors are searching for other areas to diversify their investments to hedge against the fragile global economic outlook. For the world’s fourth largest pension pot, that could mean more flows into alternatives — away from the almost 80% that currently sits in equities, bonds or cash.”

The increased allocations to Alternative is a global trend, which is not just in response to current market conditions.

As outlined in a previous Post, Preqin a specialist global researcher of the Alternative investment universe and provide a reliable source of data and insights into alternative assets professionals around the world, expect Alternatives to make up a larger share of investment assets in the future.

Preqin’s estimates are staggering:

  • By 2023 Preqin estimate that global assets under management of the Alternatives industry will be $14tn (+59% vs. 2017);
  • There will be 34,000 fund management firms active globally (+21% vs. 2018). This is an issue from the perspective of capacity and ability to deliver superior returns – manager selection will be critical.

The expected growth in Alternative investments was also highlighted by a recent CAIA Association Survey, which outlined the drivers of this expected growth and likely trends.

Globally the trend toward increasing allocations to non-traditional assets has been in play for some time. As one of my first Posts notes, the case for adding alternatives to a traditional portfolio is strong.

This Post highlights that the movement toward Alternatives and non-traditional assets is not revolutionary nor radical, it is seen globally as evolutionary, a natural progression toward building more robust Portfolios that can better weather sharp falls in global sharemarkets.

Interestingly, the US Department of Labor (DOL) recently provided guidance that US Defined Contribution retirement plans can invest into certain Private Equity strategies, where previously there had been a hesitation to do so.

The DOL emphasised this would be of benefit to “ordinary investors”.

Being more specific about Alternatives, Prequin note investor’s motivation for investing in alternatives are quite distinctive:

  • Private equity and venture capital = high absolute and risk-adjusted returns
  • Infrastructure and real estate = an inflation hedge and reliable income stream
  • Private debt = high risk-adjusted returns and an income stream
  • Hedge Funds = diversification and low correlation with other asset classes
  • Natural Resources = diversification and low correlation with other asset classes

Therefore, motives to investing in alternatives range from enhancing returns (Private Equity) and reducing risk through better diversification (Hedge Funds) and hedging against inflation (infrastructure and real estate (property), high exposures to non-traditional assets have benefited Endowments and foundations for many years.

I have Posted extensively on the benefits of Alternatives, for example highlighting research they would benefit Target Date Funds and the benefits of Alternatives more generally.

So the Question needs to be asked, why do KiwiSaver Funds not invest more into non-traditional assets? Particularly, when globally the trend is to invest in such assets is well established and further growth is expected, while the benefits are well documented.

Therefore, KiwiSaver Investors are potentially missing out.  Their portfolios could be a lot more robust and better diversified. The risks within their portfolios could be reduced without jeopardising their long-term investment objectives.

Happy investing.

Please see my Disclosure Statement

 

Global Investment Ideas from New Zealand. Building more Robust Investment Portfolios.

Could Buffett be wrong?

/ Kiwi Investor / 7 Comments

As has been widely reported Warren Buffett frequently comments on the benefits of investing in low-cost index funds.

He’s reportedly instructed the trustee of his estate to invest in index funds. “My advice to the trustee couldn’t be more simple: Put 10% of the cash in short-term government bonds and 90% in a very low-cost S&P 500 index fund,” he noted in the Berkshire Hathaway’s 2013 annual letter to shareholders.

 

Not that I want to disagree with Buffett, I have enormous respect for him, incorporate many of his investment insights and philosophies into my own investment approaches. Albeit, I think he might be wrong on this account.

And this is not to say Index Funds do not have a part to play in a portfolio, nor that investment fees are not important. They are. I do think more portfolios should be invested along the lines of Endowments. Broad diversification is the key.

 

Following Buffett could be the right advice for a young person starting out with many years until retirement.  Such an investor would need to weather the volatility of being largely invested in equities, which is no mean achievement when equity markets can suffer falls of over 40%. A high equity strategy can become horribly undone.

Nevertheless, as one gets closer to retirement and is in retirement Buffett’s strategy is unsuitable.

Similarly Buffett’s strategy is not appropriate for a Pension Fund or Endowment. These Funds are in a similar position to those in retirement. Meanwhile, the equity allocation should be reduced as one gets closer to retirement.

The short comings of a higher equity allocation was highlighted in a recent article  by Charles E.F. Millard, who is a consultant to AQR Capital Management, LLC.

 

Once an investor needs to take capital or income from a portfolio volatility of the equity markets can wreak havoc on a Portfolio’s value, and ultimately the ability of a portfolio to meet its investment objectives.

The key point that Millard makes is that Pension Funds and Endowments are required to make periodic payment obligations. So do those in retirement, they either draw capital or income from the portfolio to sustain a desired standard of living.

 

Ultimately, it the drawing of an income or the payments by Endowments that consume most of the investment returns. “This is why assets don’t just mushroom over time.”

As Millard explains, “each year endowments usually pay out at least 5% of their holdings, and the institutions they support tend to count on those funds. That changes the situation an awful lot.”

Let’s look at the math. Millard explains”

”and assume that each year the endowment pays out 5% of its assets. In that case, starting at $1 million, the endowment would not have the $5.3 billion Buffett imagines. Rather, after having paid out almost $145 million along the way, the endowment would have less than $150 million remaining”

Still a great result, but far from the billions assumed by Buffett.

It is also worth noting that a Pension’s obligation (liability) can continue to grow as employees retire and live longer. The Pension Fund has no ability to reduce its payouts and must manage this risk.

 

This is where market volatility comes into play, particularly drawdowns – a large fall in the value of the market.

“In a prolonged stock market drawdown, those growing benefit payments will consume a larger share of the shrunken plan assets.  So, they can’t take too much solace in long-run optimism when in the intermediate run they’re already paying out much of their capital.”

 

This is a key point. You can’t take comfort in the long-term returns from equities when you are running out of money!

Equity markets do fall in value and this is why institutions with meaningful annual pay-out obligations are not invested only in equities.

 

No argument that equities will not outperform over the longer term, this is highly likely. Yet this observation fails to recognise the volatility inherent in equities.

Millard:

“Over Buffett’s 77 years investing, the endowment CIO would see fund assets decline in 23 out of 77 years (when equity returns didn’t cover the 5% distribution), and in the average bad year, the fund would shrink by -12%. But at least an endowment may be able to reduce its spending; a pension fund can’t, so in a bad year, the fraction of pension assets that must be paid out increases substantially. This is why most institutional investors subscribe to a concept that Buffett seems to hate – diversification. He’s said it’s “a protection against ignorance.” We think it is more a protection against hubris.”

Diversification is key.

“It is worth noting that Institutions do not seek to maximize potential long-term returns, without regard to risks. They often seek to maximize the likelihood that they can meet their payout obligations. They seek to be reliable payers of those obligations. And in the case of pensions, they also seek to make it possible for the employer to have somewhat predictable and affordable contribution obligations. A portfolio of stocks alone doesn’t do that. That’s why asset class diversification is a bedrock principle of modern investing.

 

In short, institutional investors have different goals and obligations to Buffett.

For those in retirement, their goals and obligations are more closely aligned with the Pension Fund and Endowment, than Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway. Those closer to retirement need to make sure that market volatility does not impact them and their ability to sustain the standard of level they wish to maintain in retirement.

 

Happy investing.

Please see my Disclosure Statement

 

Global Investment Ideas from New Zealand. Building more Robust Investment Portfolios.

Are Kiwisaver Funds, NZ Endowments, and Family Offices missing out on the benefits of Private Investment?

/ Kiwi Investor / 2 Comments

“Private investments, particularly private equity (PE) and venture capital (VC), have provided the strongest relative returns for decades, and top-performing institutions have been long-time allocators to private investment strategies, reaping the benefits of the outperformance.”

“Cambridge Associates’ past analysis indicates that endowments and foundations in the top quartile of performance had one thing in common: a minimum allocation of 15% to private investments”

These are the key findings of a recently published Cambridge Associates (CA) report.

Private investments include non-venture private equity, venture capital, distressed securities (private equity structure), private real estate, private oil & gas/natural resources, timber, and other private investments.

 

The Cambridge Report suggests a weighting of higher than 15% to private investment may be prudent: their analysis highlighted that top decile performers have higher allocations to private investments and that this allocation has grown over time to a mean allocation of 40%.

 

CA emphasis with proper diversification the risks within private investments can be appropriately managed. Nevertheless, they highlight there is a wide dispersion of returns in this space, as there are across Alternative strategies in general.

 

A critical issue, as highlighted by CA, was liquidity calculations, “investors should determine their true liquidity needs as part of any investment strategy”.

Liquidity should be seen as a “budget”.  An investment strategy should be subject to a liquidity budget.  Along with a fee and risk budgets.

CA emphasis that in relation to Family Offices “the portion of the portfolio needed for liquidity may be much lower than their allocation to illiquid investments would suggest.”

As CA notes, many of the top-performing Funds have figured out their liquidity requirements, allowing for higher allocations to illiquid investments.

CA conclude “Those willing to adopt a long-term outlook might be able to withstand more illiquidity and potentially achieve more attractive long-term returns.”

 

The Institutional Real Estate Inc article covered the CA report and had the following quotes from CA which helps to provide some context.

“Multi-generational families of significant wealth are often well-aligned for considerable private investment allocations,” said Maureen Austin, managing director in the private client practice at Cambridge Associates and co-author of the report. “The precise balance between the need for wealth accumulation for future generations and typically minimal liquidity requirements puts these investors in a unique position where a well-executed private investment allocation can significantly support and extend their legacy. Higher returns, compounded over time in a more tax-advantaged manner, make a sizable allocation to private investments quite compelling.”

  “The long-term time horizon that comes with private investing aligns well with the time horizon for multi-generational families and is often central to our investment strategy with each family……”

 

Although the CA analysis does not look at the New Zealand market, it does highlight that those Funds underweight private investments are missing out.

With regards to New Zealand, Kiwisaver Funds are underweight private investments and Alternatives more generally.

Given the overall lack of investment to private investments and alternatives by Kiwisaver Funds, do they overestimate their liquidity needs to the detriment of investment performance? Yes, quite likely.

It is also quite likely that a number of New Zealand Endowments and Family Offices do as well.

 

There is no doubt that Alternatives are, and will continue to be, a large allocation within more sophisticated investment portfolios globally.

As Prequin note in their recent report, investor’s motivation for investing in alternatives are quite distinctive:

    • Private equity and venture capital = high absolute and risk-adjusted returns
    • Infrastructure and real estate = an inflation hedge and reliable income stream
    • Private debt = high risk-adjusted returns and an income stream
    • Hedge Funds = diversification and low correlation with other asset classes
    • Natural Resources = diversification and low correlation with other asset classes

 

For those wanting a discussion on fees and alternatives, please see my previous post Investment Fees and Investing like an Endowment – Part 2.

As this blog post notes, a robust portfolio is broadly diversified across different risks and returns.

Increasingly institutional investors are accepting that portfolio diversification does not come from investing in more and more asset classes. This has diminishing diversification benefits.

True portfolio diversification is achieved by investing in different risk factors that drive the asset classes e.g. duration, economic growth, low volatility, value, and growth.

Investors are compensated for being exposed to a range of different risks. For example, those risks may include market beta, smart beta, alternative, and hedge fund risk premia. And of course, true alpha from active management, returns that cannot be explained by the risk exposures outlined above. There has been a disaggregation of investment returns.

Not all of these risk exposures can be accessed cheaply.

The US Endowment Funds and Sovereign Wealth Funds have led the charge on true portfolio diversification with the heavy investment into alternative investments and factor exposures.

They are a model of world best investment management practice.  Much like New Zealand’s own Sovereign Wealth Fund, the New Zealand Super Fund.

 

Happy investing.

 

Global Investment Ideas from New Zealand. Building more Robust Investment Portfolios.

 

Please see my Disclosure Statement

 

Growing importance of ESG within the Alternatives sector

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The growing importance of ESG within the Alternatives sector is one of the key themes from the JP Morgan Alts Survey March 2019.  This survey provides some fascinating detail on the state of the Global Alternatives industry, including Private Equity, Real Estate, Infrastructure and Hedge Funds.

Some of the other highlights from the survey include:

  • Diversified benefits – correlation matrix
  • Strategy and manager selection is vitally important – dispersion of manager returns
  • Detailed analysis of the varying Alternative categories e.g. hedge funds and real estate, including drivers of returns

 

As noted in previous Posts, Kiwisaver Funds are underweight Alternatives relative to the rest of the world, an alternatives allocation would be beneficial for Target Date Funds, and US Endowment have provided superior long term returns after fees due their successful allocations to Alternatives.

 

The benefits of Alternatives have been well documented and they are set to continue to become a larger part of Client portfolios over time as outlined by the recently published Prequin Global Alternatives Report.

 

Therefore, not surprisingly, according to JP Morgan, “Institutional investors are flocking to hedge funds this year, even after a turbulent 2018 marked by poor performance and market volatility.”

The demand for hedged funds is driven by the search for market-beating returns and diversification.

They found that about a third of respondents plan to boost allocations, up from 15 percent in 2018. Just 13 percent expect a decrease while 55 percent said they plan to maintain current allocations.

As a recent Bloomberg article highlighted, the hedge fund industry took its biggest annual loss last year since 2011, declining 4.8 percent on a fund-weighted basis, according to Hedge Fund Research Inc. Managers were hurt by volatility that trampled markets, and hedge funds saw $33.5 billion in outflows.

JPMorgan polled 227 investors with about $706 billion in hedge fund assets for its annual Institutional Investor Survey.

 

For those new to Alternatives, a recent Investment News article provides some wonderful insights into the benefits of Alternatives and implementation challenges with clients.

With regards to the benefits of Alternatives, comments by Dick Pfister, founder and president of AlphaCore Capital, a firm that allocates between 15% and 30% of client assets to alternative investments, are worth highlighting.

“We look at some alternatives as diversifiers,” he said. “But we will also look at other alternatives as ways to capture chunks of up markets.”

The article notes the “message that investors, advisers and allocators like Mr. Pfister understand is that the big picture perspective rarely looks good for alternative investments, which is why those who dwell on broad category averages often get stopped at the gate.”

The article continues “Making the case for alternatives, which are generally designed to neutralize market beta and enhance alternative alpha, is never easy when market beta is robust in the form of a bullish stock market.”

“That is the reality of allocating to alternative investments. To benefit from the diversifying factors, investors and advisers must appreciate that losing less than the market can often mean gaining less than the market.”

“There’s always something to complain about when you have a diversified portfolio,” said Hans-Christian Winkler, a financial planner at Claraphi Advisory Network, where client portfolios have between 20% and 30% allocated to alternatives.

“A diversified portfolio will never outperform the market, but in times like the last quarter of 2018, when we saw the market down 20% from the high, our portfolios with alternatives were down 5%,” he added. “By using alternatives, you are spreading out your risk and making your investment portfolio a lot less bond-market- and stock-market-dependent.”

 

These are key points, they highlight the benefits but also the challenges when it comes to positioning Alternatives with clients and stakeholders e.g. Trustees, Investment Committees.

Alternatives “underperform” on a relative basis when equity and bond markets perform strongly.  This can have some challenges with Clients, the article is well worth reading from this perspective, as it provides insights into how a number of Advisors are positioning Alternatives with their Clients.

 

Happy investing.

 

Global Investment Ideas from New Zealand. Building more Robust Investment Portfolios.

 

Please see my Disclosure Statement

Further growth expected for an Alternative future – Prequin

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The outlook for Alternative investments continues to look bright according to the recent Prequin Global Alternatives Report.

Prequin note investor’s motivations for investing in alternatives are quite distinctive:

Private equity and venture capital, motives = high absolute and risk-adjusted returns

Infrastructure and real estate, motives = an inflation hedge and reliable income stream

Private debt, motives = high risk-adjusted returns and an income stream

Hedge Funds, motives = diversification and low correlation with other asset classes

Natural Resources, motives = diversification and low correlation with other asset classes

Prequin comment “Set against these objectives, it becomes clear why investors have not only consistently increased their allocations to alternative assets over the past decade, but also why they are planning to continue to do so in the years ahead (not to mention the growing number of investors that come into alternatives each year – i.e. growing ‘participation’).”

Interestingly, investors are expressing an increasing allocation not only to those alternatives that have exceeded expectations recently (Private equity and venture capital, private debt, infrastructure, real estate), but are also looking to increase allocations to areas where recent performance has disappointed – notably hedge funds and natural resources. As they note “the diversification and low correlation offered by these assets may be especially attractive in a challenging returns environment.”

 

Importantly, the Prequin survey is set against a backdrop where investors “see a challenging environment ahead for returns.”

They also note that continued growth is expected despite alternative assets having enjoyed a “tremendous decade of growth” and “becoming ever more vital in investors’ portfolios worldwide;”

 

With regards to expected growth, “Preqin is sticking with its forecast for further growth of alternative assets to 2023: from $8.8tn in assets under management in 2017 to $14.0tn in 2023.”

 

The full Prequin report is available and covers each of the Alternative strategies outlined above.

The Preqin-Alternatives-in-2019-Report, for example, provides some interesting facts and figures on Hedge Funds:

  • 59% of Surveyed investors believe we are the top of the equity cycle, 40% intend to position their portfolios defensively
  • 79% of surveyed investors intent to maintain or increase their level of allocation to hedge funds over the next 12 months

 

For further articles on Alternatives by Kiwi Investor Blog:

  1. An Alternative Future for Kiwisaver Funds
  2. Alternatives Investments will improve the investment outcomes of Target-Date Funds
  3. Future’s Hedge Funds
  4. Investment Fees and Investing like an Endowment – Part 2
  5. Perspective of the Hedge Fund Industry
  6. Adding Alternatives to and Investment Portfolio – Part 3 – Investing Like an Endowment Fund
  7. Adding Alternatives to and Investment Portfolio – Part 2
  8. Adding Alternatives to and Investment Portfolio

 

 

Happy investing.

 

Please see my Disclosure Statement

Global Investment Ideas from New Zealand. Building more Robust Investment Portfolios.

 

 

Future trends in ETFs are rather daunting. Are you prepared?

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The recent survey by EDHEC-Risk Institute (EDHEC) of European professional investors into their practices, perceptions and future plans for investing into Exchange Trade Funds (ETF) is of interest and well worth reading.

The survey gathered information from 163 European investment professionals. Respondents to the survey were high-ranking professionals within their respective organisations, representing firms with large assets under management (36% of respondents represent firms with assets under management exceeding €10bn). Respondents to the survey are from the United Kingdom, European Union, Switzerland, and a small sample from other countries outside the European Union.

 

What is the dominant purpose of ETF usage?

The survey results clearly indicate that the current usage of ETFs is dominated by a truly passive investment approach. “Despite the possibilities that ETFs offer – due to their liquidity – for implementing tactical changes, they are mainly used for long-term exposure.”

Gaining broad market exposure remains the main focus of ETF users – 71% of respondents use ETFs to gain broad market exposure, versus 45% who use ETFs to obtain specific sub-segment exposure (sector, style).

“In line with this expression of conservatism in their use of ETFs, which is mainly focused on traditional passive management, it can also be noted that investors are largely satisfied by ETFs in traditional asset classes but more reserved about ETFs for alternative asset classes”

 

What are the future growth drivers?

The European ETF market has seen tremendous growth over the past decade or so. At the end of December 2017, the assets under management (AUM) within the 1,610 ETFs constituting the European industry stood at $762bn, compared with 273 ETFs amounting to $94bn at the end of December 2006 (ETFGI, 2017).

“A remarkable finding from our survey is that a high percentage of investors (50%) still plan to increase their use of ETFs in the future, despite the already high maturity of this market and high current adoption rates.”

Why? lowering investment cost is the primary driver behind investors’ future adoption of ETFs for 86% of respondents in 2018 (which is an increase from 70% in 2014).

Interestingly, EDHEC find investors are not only planning to increase their ETF allocation to replace active managers (70% of respondents in 2018), but are also seeking to replace other passive investing products through ETFs (45% of respondents in 2018).

 

How do investors select ETFs?

Cost and quality of replication. Both of which are more easy to identify from a quantitative perspective.

EDHEC argue” Given that the key decision criteria are more product-specific and are actually “hard” measurable criteria, while “soft” criteria that may be more provider-specific have less importance, competition for offering the best products can be expected to remain strong in the ETF market. This implies that it will be difficult to build barriers of entry for existing providers unless they are related to hurdles associated with an ability to offer products with low cost and high replication quality.”

 

A section I found more interesting:

What are the Key Objectives Driving the Use of Smart Beta and Factor Investing Strategies?

EDHEC find that “the quest for outperformance is the main driver of interest in smart beta and factor investing. In fact, 73% of respondents agree that smart beta and factor investing indices offers significant potential for outperformance”

The most important motivation behind adopting such strategies is to improve performance.

Interestingly they find that the actual implementation of such strategies is still at an early stage

EDHEC found that among those respondents who have made investments in smart beta and factor investing strategies, these investments typically made up only a small fraction of portfolio holdings.

“More than four-fifths of respondents (83%) invest less than 20% of their total investments in smart beta and factor investing strategies and only 11% of respondents invest more than 40% of their total investments in smart beta and factor investing strategies”

As they say, ”It is perhaps surprising that almost a decade after the influential report on Norway’s Sovereign Wealth Fund (see Ang, Goetzmann and Schaefer, 2009), which emphasised the benefits of factor investing for investors, adoption of such an approach remains partial at best.

 

Not surprisingly, those that use factor strategies, the use of them is not related to factor timing and more to extracting the long term premia from the factors.

 

In relation to fixed interest, “17% of the whole sample of respondents already use smart beta and factor investing for fixed-income. Some 80% of this sub-sample of respondents invest less than 20% of their total investment in smart beta and factor investing for fixed-income.”

It appears that respondents show a significant interest for smart beta and factor investing for fixed-income. The interest appears to be there, but likelihood of implementation not so much.

Interestingly, from responses “it thus appears that investors are doubtful that research on factor investing in fixed-income is sufficiently mature at this stage. Given the strong interest in such strategies indicated by investors, furthering research in fixed-income factor investing is a promising venture for the industry.”

 

The survey looked into a number of other areas, for example do investors have the necessary information to evaluate smart beta and factor investing strategies? What requirements do investors have about smart beta and factor investing strategy factors?

 

Future Developments

What are investor expectations for further development of ETF products?

The following areas where identified as potential are of further ETF product development:

  • Ethical/Socially Responsible Investing (SRI) ETFs,
  • emerging market equity ETFs and emerging market bond ETFs,
  • ETF indices based on smart beta and on multi-factor indices, EDHEC note that more than two-fifths of the respondents want further developments in at least one of the categories related to smart beta equity or factor indices. “This shows that the development of ETFs based on advanced forms of equity indices is now by far the highest priority for respondents.”……… “We also note that additional demand for ETFs based on smart bond indices is not so far behind”…..

 

Fixed Income and Alternatives

The survey results indicate that respondents desire further development in the area of fixed income and alternative asset classes.

Also there is an increased interest in integration of ESG in smart beta and factor investing, and strategies in alternative asset classes.

“So, there is still a lack of products when it comes to asset classes other than equity, and this lack is particularly critical for the fixed-income asset class, which is largely used by investors.”… “It is likely that the development of new products corresponding to these demands may lead to an even wider adoption of smart beta and factor investing solutions.”

  

 

Happy investing.

 

Global Investment Ideas from New Zealand. Building more Robust Investment Portfolios.

 

Please see my Disclosure Statement

Trustees should be aware of the shocking cost of timing markets and what is the best solution

/ Kiwi Investor / 1 Comment

Cambridge Associates recently published a research report concluding it does not pay to be out of the market.

” Investors who take money out of the market too early stand to “risk substantial underperformance,”

Cambridge advised investors concerned about the length of the current bull market not to bail out of equity markets earlier than necessary in an attempt to avoid exposure to downturns.

This seems timely given current market volatility.

As the article notes, it is hard to time markets “because trying to time re-entry to get back into the markets at lower levels leads to substantially lower long-term returns, the researchers found. For example, the report showed that being out of the market for just the two best quarters since the turn of the last century cut cumulative real returns on U.K. equities by more than 50 percent.”

“That effect is even more profound in the United States, where sitting out the best two quarters cut cumulative real returns by more than two thirds, according to the report.”

“While no investor should be ignoring valuations, becoming too focused on timing an exit has substantial risks,” said Alex Koriath, head of Cambridge’s European pensions practice, in a statement accompanying the research. “The best periods for returns tend to be very concentrated, meaning that exiting at the wrong time could drag down cumulative returns significantly.”

 

This is a pertinent issue given the US sharemarket is into its longest bull market run in history. Also, of interest, historically on average, markets perform very strongly over the final stages of a bull market run. Lastly, bull markets tend to, more often than not, end six-twelve months prior to a recession. Noting, this is not always the case. Albeit, the consensus is not forecasting a recession in the US for some time. It appears, the probability of a US recession in the next couple of years is low.

The key forward looking indicators, such as shape of the yield curve, significant widening of high yield credit spreads, rising unemployment, and falling future manufacturing orders are not signalling a recession is on the horizon in the US. Please see my earlier posts History of Sharemarket corrections – An Anatomy of equity market corrections

 

What is the answer?

It is difficult to time markets. AQR came to a similar conclusion in a recent article. AQR argue the best form of defence is a truly diversified portfolio. I agree and this is a core focus of this Blog.

As we know equity markets have drawdowns, declines in value of over 20%. In the recent AQR article they estimate that there have been 11 episodes of 20% plus drawdowns since 1926, a little over once every 10 years! Bearing in mind the last major drawdown was in 2008 – 09.

The average peak to trough has been -33% and on average it has taken 27 months to get back to the pre-drawdown levels.

As AQR note, we cannot consistently forecast and avoid these severe down markets. In my mind, conceptually these drawdowns are the risk of investing in equities. With that risk, comes higher returns over the longer term relative to investing in other assets.

At the very least we can try and reduce our exposure by strategically tilting portfolios, as AQR says, “if market timing is a sin, we have advocated to “sin a little””.

 

I agree with the Cambridge Associates article to never be out of the market completely and with AQR to strategically tilting the portfolio. These tilts should primarily be based on value, be subject to a disciplined research process, and focused more on risk reduction rather than chasing returns. This approach provides the opportunity to add value over the medium to longer term.

 

Nevertheless, by far a better solution is to truly diversify and build a robust portfolio. This is core to adding value, portfolio tilting is a complementary means of adding value over the medium to long term relative to truly diversifying the portfolio.

True diversification in this sense is to add investment strategies that are lowly correlated with equities, while at the same time are expected to make money over time. Specifically, they help to mitigate the drawdowns of equities. For example, adding listed property and listed infrastructure to an equity portfolio is not providing true portfolio diversification.

In this sense truly “alternative” investment strategies need to be considered e.g. Alternative Risk premia and hedge fund type strategies. Private equity and unlisted assets are also diversifiers.

Again conceptually, there is a cost to diversifying. However, it is the closest thing in finance to a free lunch from a risk/return perspective i.e. true portfolio diversification results a more efficient portfolio. Most of the diversifying investment strategies have lower returns to equities. There are costs to diversification whether using an options strategy, holding cash, or investing in alternative investment strategies as a means to reduce sharp drawdowns in portfolios.

Nevertheless, a more diversified portfolio is a more robust portfolio, and offers a better risk return outcome.

Also, very few investor’s objectives require to be 100% invested in equities. For most investors a 100% allocation to equities is too volatile for them, which raises the risk that investors act suboptimal during periods of market drawdowns and heightened levels of market volatility i.e. sell at the bottom of the market

 

A more robust and truly diversified portfolio reduces portfolio volatility increasing the likelihood of investors reaching their investment goals.

 

As AQR note, diversification is not the same thing as a hedge. Uncorrelated means returns are influenced by other risks. They have different return drivers.

From this perspective, it is also worth noting that adding diversifying strategies to any portfolio means adding new risks. The diversifiers will have their own periods of underperformance, hopefully this will be at a different times to when other assets in the portfolio are also underperforming. Albeit, just because they have periods of underperformance does not mean they are not portfolio diversifiers.

AQR perform a series of model portfolios which highlight the benefits of adding truly diversifying strategies to a traditional portfolio of equities and fixed interest.

No argument there as far as I am concerned.

 

Happy investing.

 

Global Investment Ideas from New Zealand. Building more Robust Investment Portfolios.

 

Please see my Disclosure Statement