Liability Diven Investing (LDI) beginners

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.

 

 

Flexicurity in Retirement Income Solutions – making finance useful again

/ Kiwi Investor / 9 Comments

Flexicurity is the concept that individuals need both security and flexibility when approaching retirement investment decisions.  See EDHEC-Risk Institute.

 

Annuities, although providing security, can be costly, they represent an irreversible investment decision, and often cannot contribute to inheritance and endowment objectives. Also, Annuities do not provide any upside potential.

Likewise, modern day investment products, from which there are many to choose from, provide flexibility yet not the security of replacement income in retirement.  Often these Products focus solely on managing capital risk at the expense of the objective of generating replacement income in retirement.  In short, as outlined by EDHEC-Risk, modern day Target Date Funds “provide flexibility but no security because of their lack of focus on generating minimum levels of replacement income in retirement.”

 

Therefore, a flexicure retirement solution is one that provides greater flexibility than an annuity and increased security in generating appropriate levels of replacement income in retirement than many modern day investment products do.

 

EDHEC offers a number enhancements to improve the outcomes of current investment products.

 

One such approach, and central to improving investment outcomes for the current generic Target Date Funds (TDF), is designing a more suitable investment solution in relation to the conservative allocation (e.g. cash and fixed income) within a TDF.  Such an enhancement would also eliminate the need for an annuity in the earlier years of retirement.

 

From this perspective, the conservative allocations within a TDF are risky when it comes to generating a secure and stable level of replacement income in retirement. These risks are not widely understood nor managed appropriately.

The conservative allocations with a TDF can be improved by being employed to better matching future cashflow and income requirements. While also focusing on reducing the risk of inflation eroding the purchasing power of future income.

This requires moving away from current market based shorter term investment portfolios and implementing a more customised investment solution.

The investment approach to do this is readily available now and is based on the concept of Liability Driven Investing applied by Insurance Companies.  Called Goal Based Investing for investment retirement solutions. #Goalbasedinvesting

The techniques and approaches are available and should be more readily used in developing a second generation of TDF (which can be accessed in some jurisdictions already).

This is relevant to improving the likely outcome for many in retirement. With this knowledge it would help make finance more useful again, in providing very real welfare benefits to society. #MakeFinanceUsefulAgain

 

For a better understanding of current crisis of global pension industry and introduction to Flexicure see this short EDHEC video and their very accessible research paper introducing_flexicure_gbi_retirement_solutions_1.

 

This is my last Post of the year.

Flexicure, is my word of the year! Hopefully, we will hear this being used further in relation to more Robust Investment Portfolios, particularly those promoted as Retirement Solutions.

As you know, my blog this year has had a heavy focus on retirement solutions and has drawn upon the analysis and framework of EDHEC-Risk Institute.

In addition, the thoughts of Professor Robert Merton have been important, particularly around placing a greater emphasis on replacement income in retirement as an investment objective and that volatility of replacement income is a better measure for investment risk for those investing for retirement.

I have also noted the limitation of Target Date Funds and how these can be improved e.g. with the introduction of Alternatives.

Nevertheless, the greatest enhancement would come from implementing a more targeted cashflow and income matching portfolio within the conservative allocations as discussed above.

 

Wishing you all the best for the festive season and a prosperous New Year.

 

 

Happy investing.

 

#MakeFinanceUsefulAgain

#flexicure

#goalbasedinvesting

 

Please see my Disclosure Statement

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

 

 

 

More on Liability Driven Investing (LDI) for beginners

/ Kiwi Investor / 24 Comments

Developing on the themes of early blogs, Industrial Revolution in Money Management and Liability Driven Investing for Beginners.

This article builds on both of these themes. Particularly the article observes:

“Hence recent focus on liability-driven investment (LDI) strategies, otherwise known as asset-liability management (ALM). More complete and holistic than MPT, LDI explicitly includes an investor’s current and future liabilities.”

MPT = Modern Portfolio Theory, which is the traditional way of building portfolios, focussed more on risk tolerance and return expectations, than investment goals.

The inference is that investors should be focusing more on goals e.g. retirement spending, children’s education, and inheritance, which can be seen as future liabilities that need to be met.

The article notes:

“Nevertheless, there is a growing consensus in the wholesale capital markets that LDI creates better portfolios, particularly when it comes to retirement needs.”

This will likely be in the form of more advanced Goal Orientated Investment solutions for investors. A more robust portfolio will be obtained, one that focuses on the key risks of meeting Investment Objectives.

Obviously most financial planning processes take into consideration investment goals. Nevertheless, LDI makes investment goals the central piece. With LDI portfolio allocation and management of risks is relative to meeting goals and a more customised investment solution is developed.

Under the LDI model there are two portfolios: the liability portfolio and a return seeking portfolio. Most investment products offered today are return seeking portfolios with some dampening down of risk (measured by volatility i.e. how frequently and the degree to which the portfolio goes up and down) so as to fit ones level of risk tolerance.

 

Lastly, they note:

“The popular MPT framework of expected value optimization given a risk constraint is ripe for disruption. Digital asset management or robo-advice can help distribute LDI technology to the mass market, and we can expect the industry to move in this direction.”

This is consistent with the EDHEC Insights article in the JOIM (EDHEC-Whitepaper-JOIM)– Mass Customization versus Mass Production – How an industrial revolution is about to take place in Money Management and why it involves a shift from Investment Produces to Investment Solutions (Lionel Martellini)

 

The digital element is likely to be the revolution, LDI type strategies the evolution. Perhaps this is the Uber moment, or AirBnB moment, for the Funds Management Industry. Certainly not the Uber moment of the Funds Management is the offering of cheaper multi-asset class investment products that cannot be differentiated from any other like for like investment products in the market.

 

Please see my Disclosure Statement

Liability Driven Investing (LDI) for Beginners

/ Kiwi Investor / 3 Comments

As outlined in my first blog liability-driven investing (LDI) will play a critical role in the future as investment approaches continues to evolve.

The expectations are that LDI will increasingly be used for individual investors in the emergence of goal-based investment solutions.

LDI is widely used by institutional investors, such as insurance companies, Pension providers, and Endowments.

The attached document provides a definition and explanation for Asset/Liability Matching investing, which is essentially LDI.

 

I hope you find it useful.

 

Asset Liability Matching for Beginners

 

Please see my Disclosure Statement