Biography
Colin McLean, FSIP, is founder and CEO at SVM Asset Management, an independent Edinburgh-based fund management group. He is a member of CFA Institute and was elected to the Board of Governors in 2012. McLean is a fellow of the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries and a chartered fellow of the Chartered Institute for Securities & Investment. In 2012, McLean was appointed an honorary professor at Heriot-Watt University, lecturing in behavioral finance. He is a regular contributor to financial publications and has been a guest on Bloomberg TV & Radio, CNBC, BBC TV and Radio. McLean is also a frequent conference speaker on investment, hedge funds and behavioral finance.
Investment firms that seize the opportunity created by the European Union’s Markets in Financial Instruments Directive II (MiFID II) can create a much stronger value proposition for clients, writes Colin McLean, FSIP.
Regulators should be alert to any emerging systemic risks encouraged by the implementation of MiFID II. Its problems may surface more quickly than the benefits, asserts Colin McLean, FSIP.
Changing conditions impair the signal-to-noise ratio. Investors should commit more time to looking for deeper explanations for market behavior.
Investors love stories. Narratives can help to make sense of facts and figures. Stories can convey meaning by juxtaposing often unrelated information, and they offer hope. But not all stories have happy endings. The latest chapter of the emerging markets growth story has come as a nasty surprise to many, and there may be worse to come.
Now that the world's largest asset manager manages considerably more money than the world's largest bank, it's time to think about the potential for systemic risk.
Against a weaker economic background, a re-run of pre-crisis practices is no longer acceptable. In the face of criticism from regulators, investors, and politicians alike, an overhaul of private equity practices is overdue.
The process for initial public offerings (IPOs) is one of the most opaque areas of the market and is ripe for reform.
Smart beta is an impressive investment branding story. The name neatly encapsulates the idea of beating conventional indices consistently but with little effort and much lower costs. Intellectually seductive, it conveys the concept of market exposure that avoids the costs and behavioral failures of active managers.
Investment managers’ behaviour in times of market stress can be revealing.
Behavior and style can change when a manager is under pressure.