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The authors discuss Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) - what purpose they serve, why demand for ETFs has grown, and the author's position on the use of these products. Also covered are how ETFs have evolved in recent years, examination of their risks and consideration of some unintended consequences that may result from their design that have ...

This article explores the questions and options that should be examined in designing an optimal investment program for a Generation Skipping Trust (GST). The GST is treated as a separate client from the donor to ensure the investment policy is appropriate for its specific needs. Review questions include:What is the Trust’s Perspect...

The authors discuss the Risk Parity approach to investing - equalizing risk by allocating funds to a wider range of categories such as stocks, government bonds, credit-related securities and inflation hedges (including real assets, commodities, real estate and inflation-protected bonds) while maximizing gains through financial leveraging. The...

Secondary investments in private equity can be an attractive addition to primary private equity investments. They offer broad diversification across vintage years, industries, geographies, managers and investment strategies. Generally, capital is deployed faster than with primary commitments, reducing the time that commitments are held in reserve, ...

As part of the "10 Things You Didn't Know You Could Do With Your Foundation" series, four approaches to impact investing are discussed:Community InvestingSocially Responsible InvestingProgram-Related InvestingSocial Venture Capital Investing

This article discusses the different roles an investment consultant plays in providing services to your foundation:Investment Partner Fidicuary Advisor Educator Administrator, andPhilanthropic SupporterA checklist of questions to ask a prospective investment consultant is provided.

There is no perfect system or framework for investing, nor can any investor follow any system in a perfectly disciplined way. Goals-based investing, however, is a better approach than most in helping investors stick to their investment diet, reach their target and maintain their financial “weight” over time.

Over the past few years, investors have been keenly drawn to strategies that promise to lower equity portfolio risk. This article examines one popular low-risk strategy, minimum variance, which optimizes a basket of stocks to deliver the lowest possible portfolio variance. The authors examine the underlying factor exposure...

The framework uses multiple dimensions of risk and return trade-offs to consider when building portfolios and evaluates the consequences of risk allocation decisions during normal and stressed markets. The authors explain this process goes further than traditional role-in-portfolio exposure techniques by considering not on...

By moving beyond traditional measures of investment return and applying a benchmark to gauge the performance of an allocation, investors can determine whether: the selection of various asset classes in the allocation outperformed the broad market, any allocation decisions in the portfolio need to be reviewed, and a long-term decision made in the po...

Investors are bombarded by a variety of investment strategies and alternatives from an ever-growing and increasingly complex financial industry, each claiming to improve returns and reduce risk. Amid the clamor, academic and practitioner research has sifted through the vast landscape and found four intuitive investment strategies that, when applied...

Newly appointed Prime Minister Shinzo Abe wooed voters by promising to end its decades-long economic and market malaise with the three arrows of Abenomics: fiscal stimulus, monetary easing and structural reform. Abe quickly launched the first arrow by passing fiscal stimulus of roughly 2% of GDP. The Bank of Japan subsequently fired the...

Regardless of the project scope, knowing the parties and defining parameters are essential to a successful relationship. Investors and developers alike should do their homework, protect themselves and have confidence in the structure of the deal.

The world is witnessing a major rebalancing of economic power. Once dominated by the G7 nations, it is today making room for a new and expanding set of rapidly growing economies. The citizens of emerging market countries, while comparatively poor on a per capita GDP basis, are being helped out of poverty by astounding rates of domestic economic gro...

In this edition of Eton's quarterly newsletter, they discuss goals-based investing from the highly personal and conceptual processes of goal definition and prioritization featured in past issues to the important process of marrying the investor’s goals with his investment portfolio. The report includes a quarterly economic and market outlook by Jea...