active share
What can we learn from downloads of CFA Institute publications in 2017? Mark Harrison, CFA, sifts through the most popular CFA Institute Financial Analysts Journal articles as well as CFA Digest and In Practice summaries to uncover a few themes.
Mark Harrison, CFA, provides a list of the most popular write-ups from CFA Institute conference presentations in 2016.
Mark Harrison, CFA, shares insights for #CFAInvest delegates ready to explore the risks, opportunities, and challenges facing the global investment profession.
Most studies of the impact of family ownership indicate that, on balance, family control is a good thing for stockholders. Family-controlled firms typically maintain a long-term perspective and strong balance sheets, and boast corporate cultures that have won the admiration of Warren Buffett. Credit Suisse has added to the body of research on family-controlled firms with the recent release of The Family Business Model, a global study which sought to better understand why family-run businesses outperform.
The poor performance of active management has been well chronicled of late but the active fund management industry is not going down without a fight. Apologists have been quick to point to artificially low interest rates as one factor dragging down the collective returns of stock pickers. Index huggers — those managers with low tracking error funds and almost no hope of outperforming their benchmark after fees — are also to blame. In response, active managers are pointing to their “active share” — a measure of how much a portfolio’s holdings differ from those of its benchmark — and research that suggests funds with the highest active share do indeed beat their benchmarks. A review of just-filed quarterly 13F reports reveals that some of the most prominent fund managers truly embrace their role as active portfolio managers.